When Worlds Collide

Photo credit: The New Yorker

by Glenn Robinson (not of the New Yorker)

I'm European American and I've been trying to unpack what it means to be living on the land of First Nation Peoples / Indigenous Native American land.

Every sane individual would agree that people are not supposed to steal, and yet, Non-Native Americans live on stolen land every day. 

If Europeans didn't steal the land, then another group would have sailed over and stolen the land, some might argue. That does not justify the first theft and there is no guarantee that Native Americans would have allowed the other group to steal their land. And actually, Native American's did not allow Europeans to steal their land. Amerindians did not believe in owning land. They believed in sharing the land. They believed they were sharing the land with Europeans. And actually, the French did share the land and traded goods peacefully with Amerindians for 100 years before the British arrived. 

For those who believe in liberty and freedom, we would have to admit that the liberty and freedom of Amerindians was ignored in favor of the greed of Europeans.  

 History repeats itself. The modern corollary is that European Americans want to disposes Hispanic Latino Mexicas of their freedom and liberty to work an honest job harvesting crops that feed the nation. Ironically the nation that is being fed is mostly European American 79.96% in 2010. The other corollary is that the U.S. military is inviting itself into Oil Rich countries to help themselves to their resources. 

But I digress. What I wanted to ask is: When worlds collide, who's interests should win? The group with the bigger guns?

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Glenn is a European-American married to a Mexican-American. They have two children. Glenn is interested in progressive immigration reform, and desegregation within schools and communities. He is a life long learner with interests in sociology, anthropology, psychology, history and politics.
Connect to Glenn at CommunityVillage.us