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“”I think assimilation is an amazing thing,” Paul told Ingraham. “A good example of how, even in our country, assimilation didn’t happen — and it has been a disaster for the people — has been the Native American population on the reservations.
“If they were assimilated,” he continued, “within a decade they’d probably be doing as well as the rest of us. But instead, seclusion and isolating them — we took their land, and then we put them all on small quadrants of land.”
Where to begin? Let’s examine Paul’s use of the word “disaster” here.
Few things seem more ironic than the idea of assimilation from those descendants of the people who invaded and stole an entire continent — which had been occupied by indigenous people for generations — and then subjected those same indigenous people to an onslaught of murder, rape, torture, plunder, broken treaties and forced relocation, framing Native Americans’ alleged non-assimilation as the “disaster.”
This is especially true considering brutal measures the U.S. government has taken to make Natives “assimilate” throughout history. These include establishing boarding schools designed to teach, force and even beat children’s indigenous culture out of them. “Kill the Indian … save the man” was their de facto philosophy.”
– Mic.com, Rand Paul Says Native Americans Would Have it Easier if They Just Assimilated.
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country.
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