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Reparations insult California’s native Americans

May 13, 2023

OPINION by JAMES R. HENRY

California has not yet acknowledged tribes that have applied for state and federal recognition. So reparations? Hahaha, I doubt it.

Hearst Castle, Camp Roberts and Fort Hunter Liggett all sit on Salinan Tribe land. One hundred years ago, Hearst was allowed to remove Salinan families by whatever means.

Many natives were charged with crimes such as consuming alcohol or consorting with a white woman. They were forced to work on white owned farms and ranches “until their handler felt they had served their punishment.” Often those terms really meant until they died.

California never ratified the treaties with many tribes because white industrialists used their influence to gain control of valuable land. Now those lands are so valuable the state doesn’t even want to touch those issues. It’s even more complicated when federal entities occupy the land.

It gets even better. There are tribes like the Chumash that interface with the government far outside their tribal boundaries. They approve development on sensitive lands and confuse the issue of which tribe existed in a specific area.

To outsiders it’s like, “We already have approval from the Indians, why do we need more?” This allows developers to shop for apathetic approval.

Anyhow, it’s the time of year when kids take field trips to missions. The lies are perpetuated, and another generation grows ignorant.

James R. Henry is a Salinan American Indian and Creston resident who finds it insulting how once again Native Americans are being ignored or at least not being given equal consideration.


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Stories like this always bring out the “What about Reparations for Native Americans?” comments. “The Whites stole their land!” Always forgetting that they “stole” the land from those that went before them, and they stole the land from the earlier others going back 12-15,000 years here in the Americas. When does it stop? No member of any racial group has had anything stolen from them, nor are any living members of any group slaves. Quit listening to the Government, you are not victims. Start pushing Equality. Everything should be blind to race, color, creed, sexual orientation, height, weight, etc. If you are a Citizen of the US you should have equal opportunity in all things.


26

There is no Black and Indigenous people. There’s just the indigenous black people of the Americas. James R. Henry is giving an uneducated opinion to get all the uneducated white people in their feelings. The “natives” are irrelevant they are NOT indigenous, they are native.


We can go into the colonizers journals for what they witnessed. You will see the indigenous blacks were running the indigenous governments and the people you call natives were not running ANYTHING. We can get into the genetics and who has the oldest genetics on the planet and that is the Xi Olmec. Not the Mayans, not the Aztecs, those were the invaders that invaded the Xi tribes with the whites and Spaniards. Even the Asians got their names from us when they came to the Americas.


Instead of reading opinions and writing them look at the actual facts, migration patterns, genetic bottlesnecks, genes etc from the first hand accounts.


The blacks that don’t know about their lineage care about this reparations bs, we don’t. We (our indigenous government) practice self administered reparations, we don’t need a hand out. You guys owe it to us no doubt and we don’t care about your feelings nor have any mercy for whatever happens to you all because look at how evil you all act. You know the evils committed by your kind that still go on today all over the world killing indigenous tribes and yet here you are speaking on something that is actually owed, a debt. You pay these fake Indians and the white $5 Indians and give them land and you pay jewish people by taking money (taxes) out of peoples paychecks that didn’t have a damn thing to do with the few thousand of them that were killed by Hitler (not even here in America but on the other side of the globe) but you have an issue with paying the actual indigenous people here.


It doesn’t matter if YOU didn’t do it, you are currently benefiting from the actions your government took in the past, the GENOCIDE and DENATIONALIZATION of the aboriginal indigenous people of all the Americas.


You say you didn’t have nothing to do with it then speak up for the REAL indigenous people if you’re not evil, the ones that don’t know who they are due to being denationalized and purposely miseducated about where they’re from. If your government makes you pay via a tax that has zero to do with us and all to do with YOU being lazy as hell and trusting a government that you know are liars running a fake government that is actually a corporation so they don’t have to inform you of anything. Your CEO Biden and all the other CEOs to come and of the past (especially Democrats) will never tell you the truth but we’re going to end all that.


-39

Your rant completely missed the point. CALIFORNIA as a state started in 1850.

This isn’t about origins, it’s about actions. Cause and affect AFTER California became a state.


18

California is one of the few states that still has forced labor in its constitution for one. California is apart of the United States government. California is a colonized area. Indigenous people were killed off to get this land by colonizers. Your point is idiotic. You act like they came and bought this land and didn’t kill off anyone or anything to starve the indigenous population. You can say what you want but the genocide and denationalization STILL happened in California, it went from the east to the west as told by your government school books they teach in schools.


-21

Have confusion with your take on definitions. The term indigenous is defined as “originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; native.” Making a distinction between the terms indigenous and native confuses. In common English language, they are synonymous.

Your statement “evils committed by your kind that still go on today all over the world killing indigenous tribes”. Yeppers, the slaughter is on going. Reportedly more than 370 million are tribal peoples. These peoples are not “backwards” or “going to Hades” or any of the other nonsense modern society throws on them. They are just tribal, different, and we can learn from them.


-3

Indigenous means having jus soli and jus sanguineous rights to the land. Natives have rights to land GIVEN to them but ‘native’ signifies that they came here from another land. The two are not synonymous and they are not used that way in any court of law. Black people are aboriginal indigenous to all lands of the planet having the oldest genetics of any group and the oldest being haplogroup A.


-20

I’d like to hear more from the Black and Indigenous people as to what they think about this… not the overwhelmingly well-off white retirees who inhabit this site… and certainly not someone who appeals to the public with 16% Native American ancestry.


White settlers have taken enough from people of color. It’s time for us to sit down an listen.


-50

Good Doctor, while I agree that the voices of indigenous and minority groups should be heard, I find the remark about not taking appeals from “with 16% Native American ancestry” a bit off-putting.


-7

There are intolerant posters that seem to take pride in their displays.


-9

Hello, the point I was trying to convey in my opinion is that bad things have happened to a lot of people. No one’s plight deserves more attention than another.

I don’t want to be a descendant prostitute who wants to get paid for the screwing my ancestors got. I sure as hell don’t want a casino. I really don’t want anything more than what I have.

But, if reparations are on the table it should be a reciprocation. The state benefitted from the abuse and suffering of specific races of people. Why not offer some equality opportunities. Low interest, non qualifying Business and Mortgage loans. Education opportunities. Etc. Giving out cash is irresponsible and will only do harm.

I know my history. I’ve studied the Gold rush, indigenous people, San Francisco and the Barbary Coast.

California is beautiful and there is nowhere else I’d rather be than here on the Central Coast.

People need to grow up, reel it in and make it right. There’s is no left and right side of the isle. There is only us and them. They play good cop bad cop and present the illusion of a government for the people, of the people, by the people.


21

My great great grandfather and 7 of my uncles and cousins fought (and 2 died) fighting for the union cause in the war of northern aggression. i claim an exemption. in california IF reparations are due, they would be due to Native Americans and should be paid by the catholic church


20

If this does not stop ( past greivances), we will spend all our time looking back and not enough looking forward. On the east coast there was NINA (no Irish need apply) or Italian WOPS (without papers).


Let’s just stop this and move forward. I honestly do not know why we have devolved to hyphenated Americans. Study your us history and you will see that our original influx was from people who risked their lives and futures to not be hyphenated.


Ok, open the floodgates of criticism.


60

Good points


1

Yes people in the past did bad things! Bad things to all humans all humans have been abused though out history the strong have exploited the weaker.

In my opinion we need to keep talking and try to fix powerful people being able to tak advantage over the not so powerful.

But when we say any group of people owe any other group a debt for something others did will only divide us more!

I think we need to pass laws and make the playing field level for all. We can not legislate racism away but we can educate and move forward and the good people will hopefully prevail. This attitude of them against us will only keep us divided and only the powerful few will run the show! Love one another and respect each and every person that will right all wrongs eventually. Just one persons opinion!


43

The Government doesn’t talk about that as it doesn’t keep the race card going as well as the other so they don’t benefit as much


16

Newsome’s reparations are morally-insane because they are putting a fixed price on human life.


Human life is priceless.


In my view as a person that is 16% Native American, Newsome’s reparations are a ludicrous insult to all human beings.


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