[Fishwhenican]

[ QUOTE ]
In the case of Native Americans, how much "poverty" do you believe is lifestyle choice or culturally dictated versus being the result of some sort of broader societal "oppression?"

The reason I ask- many reservations are rich in minerals or other commodities (not to mention a very healthy supply of able-bodied manpower with nothing better to do) and are essentially fiscally autonomous (save for Federal jurisdiction for crimes).
If I put a few thousand white guys in that exact same situation, there's no doubt in my mind that they would have something going in a years time. However, native culture puts different emphases on lifestyle that, by our standards, might be classified as "impoverished" when often times, it's really a case of cultural minimalism and an acceptance of austerity (similar to that of the Amish. )

In short- do you believe the rampant poverty that pervades native communities is a result of their own collective decision making or something else?

[/ QUOTE ]

This may sound like a cop out but it is a combination of these things

There are a lot of things in the Native American culture that have contributed to their conditions. The people here were used to living in the moment and had no real vision of things like saving for the future. They were hunter/gatherers that did what they needed to do right now to survive. Things like savings accounts and managing a business for a profit are a foreign concept for some of the people who still hang on to these aspects of the culture. Even a concept like showing up for work on time and calling if you are sick, or whatever. We have a huge problem getting NA people to show up to work. Many times a person will get a job to take care of an immediate problem. Something like needing a new refrigerator turns into working to get the frige and then there is no need to work right??

On the other hand, there is a huge problem with the Rez being it's own sovereign territory. It makes it very difficult for business to come into the area and have and degree of stability. If something happens there is very little recourse because they are not protected by the state. They are at the mercy of the tribal gov and tribal courts. Consequently it keeps any real industry or business away from the rez. It even makes it hard for tribal members living on the rez to get loans for cars and things like that, much less try and get a loan from a bank for a house on the rez.

Another thing to remember is that even with a huge unemployment rate on the rez there is a huge number of those people who are just simply unemployable. There is a huge problem keeping kids in school. Dropout rate in the NA communities is huge. Finding educated and qualified NA people to do any kind of higher level jobs is a real battle. There just are not many, if any, to choose from. Is is really a pretty vicious cycle.

Natural resources are an interesting thing here as well. There are huge coal deposits and coal bed methane possibilities on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation but getting them to develop that is hard. The rez is all the land they have and they are very worried about wrecking it by mining or drilling for methane. Not an easy answer for that thing either but at some point they will have to develop some of those natural resources, I think.

I know many of the things I have listed make it sounds like the cultural issues are the whole reason for this rampant but I can assure you that being kept on reservations and treated differently than everyone else is as big a factor. It wasn't all that long ago that NA people were not even allowed off of the reservation. I was hunting with a NA buddy, on the rez, years ago and we were in an area that was along the rez line. He made a joke about how years ago an Indian would have been shot for crossing the rez line. I kind of laughed and then realized that he wasn't really kidding. I asked him about it and he told me that he knows that this was actually the case when his grandfather was a young boy. Not really that long ago!