One of the defining elements of the relationship between the federal government and First Nations is the struggle over access to and control of natural resources. This conflict, which is political as often as it is legal, has most recently materialized in the fight over the Keystone XL Pipeline proposal, which pits Indians defending the borders of their reservations against a federal government eager to undertake a project which would reduce dependency on foreign oil. Native American agitation over the proposal is a contemporary example of protest by a non-political minority group whose outsider status prevents it from exercising its property rights within a capitalist system. Minority groups separate from the body which forms a social contract
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South Dakotan Native Americans who own property on the Lakota reservation engaged in non-violent protest “to protect their sacred water and other natural resources” as one tribal elder remarked that “there is no way for Native people to say no – there never has been (Hotakainen).” Claims of eminent domain, which have historically been used to justify encroachment on tribal property and function centrally in the legal reasoning behind the Keystone XL proposal, almost always work in the interest of Whites and at the expense of Indian property rights, even though they claim to be race-blind. Property rights of Native Americans are under unique attack: It is inconceivable, for example, that the federal government would use eminent domain to justify the construction of an intrusive pipeline in Fairfax, Virginia. The very nature of eminent domain prevents non-political minorities from effectively representing their interests because they are forced to take the position of defending property rights against a formidable (if false) construction of the public’s best interest. As a result, proposals such as the Keystone XL pipeline turn public opinion against Native American groups and reduce the legitimacy of their claims to exclusive property on …show more content…
When the non-political minority status of Native Americans is combined with the economic rationale of capitalism, the inevitable result is the commandeering of resource access and control rights from tribes. As a result, resolution of resource management issues has almost invariably profited white people at the expense of Indians, even if certain representational techniques had to be employed to trivialize the Indian position and maintain the façade of justice. One such technique wielded frequently by the social majority is the media, which has depicted Native Americans as scientifically illiterate, internally divided, and/or barbaric to delegitimize their claims to property since the 1970s (Baylor). Another tool commonly used in public discourse is the reduction of Native Americans to stereotypical ideals (Krech) in order to dehumanize the issues they politicize. Both techniques, despite portraying Native Americans in polemically different ways, are mechanisms used by society to resolve the moral guilt accrued during the expropriation of Indian property. The expropriation itself is made inevitable by profit motive and permissible by the non-political minority status of Native Americans, and has therefore been a more or less continual feature of the United States since
South Dakotan Native Americans who own property on the Lakota reservation engaged in non-violent protest “to protect their sacred water and other natural resources” as one tribal elder remarked that “there is no way for Native people to say no – there never has been (Hotakainen).” Claims of eminent domain, which have historically been used to justify encroachment on tribal property and function centrally in the legal reasoning behind the Keystone XL proposal, almost always work in the interest of Whites and at the expense of Indian property rights, even though they claim to be race-blind. Property rights of Native Americans are under unique attack: It is inconceivable, for example, that the federal government would use eminent domain to justify the construction of an intrusive pipeline in Fairfax, Virginia. The very nature of eminent domain prevents non-political minorities from effectively representing their interests because they are forced to take the position of defending property rights against a formidable (if false) construction of the public’s best interest. As a result, proposals such as the Keystone XL pipeline turn public opinion against Native American groups and reduce the legitimacy of their claims to exclusive property on …show more content…
When the non-political minority status of Native Americans is combined with the economic rationale of capitalism, the inevitable result is the commandeering of resource access and control rights from tribes. As a result, resolution of resource management issues has almost invariably profited white people at the expense of Indians, even if certain representational techniques had to be employed to trivialize the Indian position and maintain the façade of justice. One such technique wielded frequently by the social majority is the media, which has depicted Native Americans as scientifically illiterate, internally divided, and/or barbaric to delegitimize their claims to property since the 1970s (Baylor). Another tool commonly used in public discourse is the reduction of Native Americans to stereotypical ideals (Krech) in order to dehumanize the issues they politicize. Both techniques, despite portraying Native Americans in polemically different ways, are mechanisms used by society to resolve the moral guilt accrued during the expropriation of Indian property. The expropriation itself is made inevitable by profit motive and permissible by the non-political minority status of Native Americans, and has therefore been a more or less continual feature of the United States since