Sometimes, I like to read international websites and newspapers.
They usually do a MUCH better job than our own media in detailing and covering U.S issues.
Maybe it's because they rarely have an agenda and don't need to politicize every single issue.
That's how I came this article in the Guardian U.K about the desperation felt in Native American reservations in the U.S.
I actually didn't know much about the conditions of living of our first Americans. I knew most of them lived in reservations, with high unemployment and poverty. I just didn't know how poor.
According to Chris McGreal from the Guardian 's article, http://www.guardian.co.uk/... , Native Americans face HUGE challenges , like the "Pine Ridge Indian reservation where unemployment is more than 80%, the average wage is £4,400 - and life expectancy is 50".
80% unemployment???!!!
Their Youth is slowly loosing all hope:
The tribe 's president Theresa Two Bulls declared "a "suicide state of emergency" in response to the deaths of the children and a spate of attempts by others to kill themselves, such as Delia Big Boy, who was 15 when she put a rope around her neck and came close to taking her own life. "It had a lot to do with my parents and alcohol abuse and what they say to you. The things they say make you think they don't love you," says the high school student, who is now 17. "I hear the same thing from my friends. There's a sense of hopelessness on the reservation. There's just not a sense of belonging. There's not a sense of a future. There's alcoholism. The parents drink. A lot of the children drink."
Heartbreaking.
""This is about how defeated our people feel. There's hopelessness out there," Two Bulls said later. "People across the United States don't realise we could be identified as the third world. Our living conditions, what we have to live with, what we have to make do with. People think we are living high off the hog on welfare and casinos. I've asked them - US congressional people, US secretaries of these departments who deal with us - come out to our reservation, see firsthand how we live, why we live that way. Find out why our children are killing themselves. Learn who we are."
I highly recommend the article. It's really worth a read.
It also details how the Obama administration has been, so far, receptive to their plight, and made commitments.
"Obama faces a challenge meeting that commitment, in the midst of a deep economic crisis. But he has responded by appointing Native Americans to some key positions, assigning billions of dollars of additional spending to health, education and policing and, recently, by calling the first of what he promises will be an annual White House summit with Indian tribal leaders. At it , he acknowledged that the reservations face a struggle born of a history of broken treaties, neglect and discrimination.
"Few have been more marginalised and ignored by Washington for as ong as Native Americans, our first Americans. You were told your lands , your religion, your cultures, your languages were not yours to keep," he said. "I know what it means to feel ignored and forgotten, and what it means to struggle."