Environmental Racism of Native American

This research paper is about the destruction of American Indians was one of the most massive acts of genocide in the U.S. I found numerous research studies that described the situation. The population had been reduced to 2.4% of the original numbers, and 98% of the aboriginal land base had been expropriated. I think it is important to let everyone know that Native American have the highest rate of suicide of any ethnic group in the U.S. I want to inform the poorest health issues and numbers of environmental hazards that have been imposed upon Native lands from the U.

S government and also, show how the environmental racism can do a genocide. Recent studies show that poverty and lack of empowerment is a real sign of ecological racism than others. The genocide of Native American through environmental destruction.

Environmental racism can be defined as the placement of low-income or minority communities next to the ecological hazardous or degraded environments, one such example, toxic waste, pollution (Google dictionary). Most of us know that Americans Indian populations living the life in an unhealthy environment and suffer huge environmental injustice. My research will involve in why American Indian populations have the most miserable health issues and numbers of environmental hazards that have imposed upon Native lands. What kind of name do we use to describe the crime that the U.S Government applied upon the Native American?. I learned that Native Americans were victims of the highest genocide occurred in the USA, which had an estimate of 19 million dead. I was amazed, though somewhat disappointed, that I hadn’t heard these things before. Doing so should provide a clearer picture of the state of Native American genocide studies.

American Indian societies are faced with many significant environmental problems and suffer substantial ecological inequality both regarding production and of distribution because of the poverty and extraordinary vulnerability of the community (Brook, D 1998) . It is essential to consider the phenomenon of environmental dangers in Native American areas since they affect the condition of life for American Indian societies and trigger a social explosion. From my research, I have found that environmental racism regarding production and of distribution are the primary point of the environmental genocide.

The effect of environmental racism and exploitation on reproductive and family health in Native communities make them destitute and vulnerable. The US government and the big box corporations treat the Native Americans like savages by exposed commercial hazardous waste sitting where they lives. Chemical garbage emanating from specific localities has contaminated waterways on tribal areas also polluted fish, which are a staple of several Indian diets.The government takes advantage of the devastating chronic unemployment to kill them. In fact, the United States government dump most of the dangerous waste from “the nation’s 110 commercial nuclear power plants”.

Also, the illegal dumping was occurring on reservations. They have been called “midnight dumpers” and “Native entrepreneur”. They are working as corporations and people who secretly dump the waste on reservations don’t have access from tribal government. The majority of Indians communities suffer from the problem of open dumping on tribal lands. This issue is much concern than the distant prospect of a commercial waste disposal facility. I got an examples, the Mescalero Apache areas in 1991, the first state that applies for a U.S. Energy Department grant “ to study the feasibility of building a temporary storage for 15000 metric tons of highly radioactive spent fuel.

The problem of environmental pollution from toxic wastes, weapons testing, workplace exposure, and other sources improperly fall on people of color reservations, and other Native lands are frequent sites of waste dumps, mining for radioactive materials, and nuclear testing. Andrea Smith 2011 gave an example. In Oklahoma, a company was Sequoya Fuels from Kerr-McGee. It was running a nuclear conversion facility. After Karen Silkwood had died under dangerous, mysterious circumstances, Native Americans for a Clean Environment took up her work to get them shut down (Beasley, Conger, Jr. 1990). Thought the centeries of interaction, numerous indigenous peoples various events appear as if they may constitute case of genocide.

An example of events that has featured in 1979, the Navajo reservation was polluted by planned accident at the United Nuclear Corporation’s Church mill near the Gallup. More than 94 millions gallons of radioactive waste released into Puerco River. The populations of Manuelito and Lupton died of cancer because of the polluted river. However, the genes of toxic waste and others environmental garbage, like military-related degradation, have catastrophically affected the present and future health and culture of Americans Indians.

In 1989, The Americans Indians populations around the United States were organizing to combat the dangerous environmental problems on reservations. The Navajo formed the Citizens group called CARE, that against the way that the economic power traited them. CARE believe in education work, and they propped sitting by educating and organizing the community.

There are also events which have been presented in genocidal terms due to the shocking brutality. As stated in Layman H. article, “The American Genocide.” The author makes the connection between the American genocide and the flourishing discussion about Euro-Americans. settler colonial projects released massively destructive forces on Native peoples and communities. And looking at , The United Nations Code that stipulated, Genocide by Definition may be committed by an individual, group, or government, against one’s people or another, in peacetime or during wartime. There are many faces of genocide which have destroyed the Indian tribute: Mass-execution, Removal forced by homeland, Incarceration, Indoctrination of non-indigenous values, forced surgical sterilization of native women, just to name a few. I will talk over three of them that was caused the desperation of the Native American

From my research, I have found that racism can also be influenced many other things besides race. it also can come from people within the same race, that we called Colorism. I would defined it as having a negative reaction or prejudice outlook towards those who display a darker hue. Although the history of racism stems from more than three hundred years ago as proven in the article “The History of racism and immigration” (2007) which goes in depth about the history of when slavery started and when it became abolished. However in current times, it still being written. According to Lyman, Slavery is a phenomenon that helps to deteriorate the various aspect of genocide. To make someone a servant is to deprive that person of right. In 1493 when Christopher Columbus returned to America with 17 ships full white man. Christopher forced slavery upon the Taino people and executed many who refused to work. Within three years five million were dead. Fifty years later, Spanish registration listed only 200 living! Las Casas, the primary historian of the Columbian era, writes of various statements of the horrendous acts that the Spanish colonists perpetrated upon the indigenous people, which included executing them in masse, roasting them on spits, cutting their children into pieces to be used as dog food, and the list continues.

As mentioned by Lyman et al., after the American Revolution, the United States adopted a policy toward American Indians known as the “conquest” theory. In 1830 and 1850, the US government pushed more than 100,000 Native Americans away from their homelands. Inside the Treaty of Fort Stanwix of 1784, the Iroquois had to surrender lands in western part of New York and Pennsylvania. Iroquois that living in the United States rapidly degenerated as a nation over the last ten years of the eighteenth century, losing most of their remaining lands and much of their ability to cope. The Shawnees, Miamis, Delawares, Ottawans, Wyandots, and Potawatomis watching the decline of the Iroquois formed their confederacy and informed the USA that the Ohio River was the dividing line inside their lands and those of the settlers.

In 1830, the Indian Removal Act began. Forced marches at bayonet point to relocation settlements resulted in high mortality rates. The infamous removal of the Five Civilized Tribes – the Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, Cherokees, and Seminoles – is a black page in United States history. By the 1820’s the Cherokees, who had established a written constitution modeled after the United States Constitution, school’s, newspaper, and industries in their area, resisted from removal (Ambler, Marjane, 1991).

According to 1946 Convention, Article II of United Nations General Assembly resolution; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within a group is a form of genocide. The U.S. Government involved with health care issues among the native communities started in the beginning 1800s when under the auspices of the war department. According to the article, “Dare and Compare.” Jane Lawrence mentioned out that, from 1970 into 25 and 50 percent of American Indian women in the twentieth that had Sterilized, were often manipulated to accept the operation. If they refused to do the operation, they will lose the welfare benefits promise.

The mass killing did not stop, however, after Columbus left. Extension of the European colonies pointed to similar genocides. ‘Indian Removal’ policy was set into action to clear the land for white settlers. Processes for the removal involved slaughter of villages by the military and also biological warfare. High death rates occurred from forced marches to relocate the Indians. To this point, I have given enough evidence to make a hypocrite of the United States. Still, I intend to prove that the United States has conducted a criminal act under the Universal law.

Now that I have discussed the problem of environmental racism and genocide of Native American itself, I will just briefly go through a few past event to illustrate that what environmental racism still exists, that it will never go away. President Trump insulted Natives Americans war veterans by calling Senator Elizabeth Warren “ Pocahontas” during a ceremony honoring the Navajo. President Trump also supported the Dakota Access Pipeline by reversing an Obama-era ruling placing land in trust for the Mashpee wampanoas, that I can interpret as a modern act of genocide the U.S government used today to destroy the rest of Natives Americans people. In today’s society, There are still problems, just not the same extent that it has been in the past. The history repeats itself because we choose to do nothing about it. Racism still exists in America, the capitalist class which benefits from racism, using it to divide and to confuses the people about the reasons for the economic and social crisis of the system. We have not solved the problem of racism and probably never will. White Americans perceived Natives Americans peoples as an inferior and as savages.

At this point, it is reasonable to refer to judgments the united states. They treat Americans Indians as mere brutes, like animals. Whites people believe that Natives Americans have to be exterminated because of they were support some threat to them, which they can even explain adequately. The U.S government is still stealing land and allowing foreign companies to extract the earth around americans Indians sites. As we can see, the U.S Government did not want to negotiate with Native Americans people as well. They were viewed as a vanishing race. People look and act differently; it is just something that must be accepted to eliminate racism.

All these thoughts and opinions together form a coherent message. Today we have learned what-what happens to the Natives Americans, the treatment that the people of color around the world give them. Americans Indians people have suffered from electrical plant air pollution; uranium radioactivity, coal mine, acid drainage, and lands lost flooding hydroelectric dams. The US government’s involvement with the mass destruction of indigenous populations. Racism exacerbates These environmental problems. I want to remind you that environmental racism refers to environmental policies, practices, or directives that differentially affect or disadvantaged individuals, groups, or communities based on race or color. Environmental racism is reinforced by governmental statutory, commercial, administrative and military institutions. Governments will need to take responsibility and develop policies that address intra-national and international environmental racism.

Annotated Bibliography

1. Brook, Daniel.(January 1998). Environment Genocide: Native Americans and Toxic
2. Waste. American journal of economics and Sociology 57(1); 105-113
3. Lyman H. Legters. “The American Genocide; Pathologies of Indian-white relations”, policy studies journal, vol.16, No. 4, summer, 1988.
4. Andrea Smith. 2011. Conquest – Sexual violence and American Indian genocide.
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Neg-Rlbi76
6. Ambler, Marjane.(November 1991). ‘On the Reservations: No Haste, No Waste.’ Planning 57 (11)
7. Beasley, Conger, Jr. (September/ October 1990). ‘Of Pollution and Poverty. Part 3: Deadly Threat on Native Lands.
8. Buzzworm: The Environmental Journal 2 (5): 39-45. Environmental Racism of Native American

Did you like this example?

376

16