"Hell has officially frozen over when I rise to defend the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The occasion is a question raised by the right libertarian fringe in the person of John Stossel. “Why,” Stossel asked, “is there a Bureau of Indian Affairs? There is no Bureau of Puerto Rican Affairs or Black Affairs or Irish Affairs. And no group in America has been more helped by the government than the American Indians, because we have the treaties, we stole their land. But 200 years later, no group does worse.”

He got that last thing right, but let’s think about the “help” we have gotten.

There was exile of all Indians to the west side of the Mississippi for our own protection, wild people sent off to live in a wild land, never mind that many of the tribes force marched to Indian Territory had more education and better incomes than the colonists who took over their property.

There were also reservations, where we could live on government rations and under armed guard, except for the children, who were taken away for their own good and taught the science of racial inferiority.

Those who resisted being helped? They wanted us dead. Then those terrible pictures of the massacre at Wounded Knee ended that policy.

If containment and killing were off the table, the next possibility was forced assimilation. Tribal recognition would be “terminated” and the residents of reservations would be “relocated.” To say that termination and relocation worked out well for Indians would be like saying Stossel’s employer, Fox News, is fair and balanced."

Get the Story:
Steve Russell: Fox News Causes Hell to Freeze Over (Indian Country Today 3/31)

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