Opinion | Byron L. Dorgan: Giving thanks on Thanksgiving should mean keeping promises to Native Americans - NBCNewsTHINK
It’s been quite easy for a more prosperous White America to avoid seeing what is in front of us, let alone accountability for it. But it is long past time to take responsibility for knowing what our government has done in our names, and fixing it.
What can white Americans do to change the path for Native Americans and allow them to be full participants in all that America has to offer? Will this cycle of injustice finally end? Thanksgiving week in America would be a good time to begin answering that question. Two initiatives by the president and Congress could, at long last, begin keeping the promises our government has, in fact, made to Native Americans over the last two centuries.
First, our government signed treaties promising to provide health care and education for the Native American tribes. It’s time to do it, and it isn’t rocket science. Simply create a First American Trust Fund with adequate funding to keep that promise., and the distant locations of those lands meant that economic opportunities have been scarce. That lack of jobs and opportunity have created the gripping poverty that surrounds those communities.
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