Introduction: What do we owe American Indians? -- The false promise of sovereignty -- Someone else's responsibility: property rights as Native rights -- Money instead of freedom: the loophole economy and the politics of poverty -- "White people call it nepotism. We call it kinship." -- Unprepared: a narrative of victimhood -- Walking in two worlds: the weight of Indian identity -- Who will stand up for civil rights? -- Equal protection: the tribe versus the individual -- Conclusion: Native Americans as Americans.
Summary
If you want to know why American Indians have the highest rates of poverty of any racial group, why suicide is the leading cause of death among Indian men, why native women are two and a half times more likely to be raped than the national average and why gang violence affects American Indian youth more than any other group, do not look to history. There is no doubt that white settlers devastated Indian communities in the 19th, and early 20th centuries. But it is our policies today of denying Indians ownership of their land, refusing them access to the free market and failing to provide the police and legal protections due to them as American citizens that have turned reservations into small third-world countries in the middle of the richest and freest nation on earth.
