As crime surges, the enduring colonial scars continue to hurt America's first people
Estimated reading time: 2m
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For the last few weeks of the year, the Reckon Report will be taking a look at some overlooked and underserved communities in the United States. Native Americans are the second smallest racial group in the United States, the irony of which is extremely apparent to anyone who spends more than a few seconds thinking about it. In a country of over 333 million people as of July 2022, the population of Native Americans is smaller than the city of New York. The largest concentrations of Native Americans in the lower 48 are on reservations in the Midwest and Southwest. Reservations overall aren’t densely populated and owing to numerous broken or unenforced treaties with the federal government, tribal nations like the Oglala Sioux in South Dakota are left with few resources to provide for public health and safety matters. In fact, the tribe recently sued the U.S. government for the latter after it failed to uphold a requirement to support law enforcement on the reservation. Although the courts were partially on the side of the Oglala Sioux, relief has been slow to arrive, leading the tribe to declare a state of emergency due to a spiraling drug and crime crisis on the reservation. Despite being 2% of the population of South Dakota, citizens of the Oglala Sioux’s Pine Ridge Reservation account for 10% of missing persons cases in the state, according to ICT News. |
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(Image credit: ICT News via AP) |
The United States government’s history of breaking treaties with Native Americans is about as old as the United States itself. American Indian communities have tried to remedy these broken promises in court, but relief is rarely granted. Just this year, the Supreme Court ruled against the Navajo Nation’s attempts to get the federal government to uphold its water rights on the Colorado River. In the case of the Oglala Sioux, the situation is dire. The tribal police department has 33 officers available to cover land roughly the size of Connecticut. (For comparison, the Connecticut State Police employs about 940 troopers.) The Department of Justice offered the tribe over $240 million in public safety grants, but tribal leaders are saying it isn’t enough. “Our officers are overworked, underpaid. They're outmanned. And it’s dangerous for them to respond to calls by themselves,” the tribe’s president told the Associated Press. |
(Image credit: MLive file photo) |
Native American History Month concluded last week, but the struggles of the Oglala Sioux and other Indigenous American communities are urgent matters of the present and exacerbated by over 200 years of disregard for their humanity. It is important to recognize their resilience and ongoing battles against forces once again threatening their existence. |
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That's all I've got for this week!
Thanks for reckoning with me, Aria |
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