The Canary Effect: Social Injustice Faced By Indigenous People

To become aware, one must learn about social problems and unlearn problematic attitudes and ideas. “The Canary Effect” brought light to social injustice faced by Indigenous Peoples in the past which explains some problems Indigenous people face today. One of the biggest setbacks Indigenous peoples face today is being the aftermath of a mass genocide. To start it off, Christopher Columbus “discovered America” (He washed up on the shore in Honduras). From there, it became about white people the superior race. White people became the superior race in America by doing everything and anything to exterminate indigenous peoples. It was a sport and culture to kill Indigenous people – it was the right thing to do. Theatres and parades in Denver celebrated the Sand Creek Massacre. As president Theodore Roosevelt puts it, it was “…as righteous and beneficial a deed that has ever taken place on the frontier”. Killing women, children, and elders was okay as long as it wasn’t white people being killed. In the 1800s and early 1900s, it was harder to get away with murdering entire tribes. The next step was assimilation; “Kill the Indian, Save the Man” propaganda. Thousands of Native children as young as three were sent hundreds of miles away from home to boarding schools. In these boarding schools, …show more content…
Indigenous peoples were oppressed in the past and it continues today in the form of racism. I’m not talking about being called a “s*vage” but being systematically oppressed. We don’t experience the same things white people experience in the same way. A white child going to a prestigious college isn’t the same as a Native student going to a prestigious college. Native American alcohol dependence and Native American’s committing suicide is the highest in the country – the new small pox. The amount of Indigenous women missing in the country is the highest. But these problems don’t get talked