Indian Killers

April 1, 2009 by Jay Taber.

Sherman Alexie spoke recently at Cornell about how tribal enrollment policies, historically dictated by the US government, have divided (and conquered) American Indians. As yet another tool in the federal government’s two hundred twenty-two-year project to annihilate Native American cultures, corrupting their governance has, according to Alexie, done almost as much damage to Indian tribes as the disease of greed forced on them in the form of casinos.

Still struggling to survive the malign neglect of the United States of America and its larcenous agencies at the Department of Interior, the indigenous inhabitants of the continent often suffer, says Alexie, as much at the hands of their own kind. Its what five centuries of colonialism does to people.

After all, notes the celebrated writer and filmmaker, they’re only human.

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