"In recent news, the ever-popular President Barack Obama has addressed the issue of Native American underrepresentation. This focus on American Indians was made a priority on Thursday at the White House Tribal Nations Conference at the Department of the Interior in Washington. According to USA Today, this meeting, a first since 1994, aimed to redeem broken promises made to certain tribes. Along with these broken promises, the meeting attempted to correct the agenda of a very busy man. The president’s compassionate talks of Native American struggle seemed to foolishly make a comparison between his childhood and the lives of people who for years have been maliciously targeted by the new settlers.

According to the chief executive, his administration has already aided Native Americans through the $787 billion stimulus, of which the funds for Indians were allocated accordingly: $100 million for job creation within tribal communities, $500 million for the Indian Health Service and nearly $500 million for various education, college and school construction programs.

The question that arises from this situation is, why now? In this economically unstable time, how does this benefit the economic system? Those $1.1 billion dollars given to closed communities and non-consumer tribes do not circulate in the system as they are meant to, thus are not an integral part of the financial reconstruction of the nation. The sad truth is that this money given to the Native Americans serves no purpose other than a medium for the president’s fluctuating rating. This financial help could have come in several months or several years ago, but it has come now as it serves its purpose in presenting Obama in a certain humanitarian way."

Get the Story:
Editorial: Executive recognition or undeserved merit (The Daily Targum 11/10)

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