Why do native Americans get so much benefits and grants but African Americans do not ?

22 comments

1. Natives have treaties

   https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_for_slavery is a much debated topic

2. You are talking about the tribes themselves, as in the government of the tribe. The treaties signed with those tribes have been ignored.

   There is almost no benefit to an individual Native person as an individual, they are just people like everyone else.

   I personally gain little to no benefit as an individual Native American. The government of the tribes gains some benefit, but not a ton. Literally the only thing I got was a cheaper car tag and the tribe giving me 5k for college.

   I know he’s not super popular and I certainly don’t agree with all of his decisions, but Gorsuch holds a soft spot in my heart for his defense of Native Americans tribes repeatedly.

   Any time there’s a case involving Native Americans I end up hoping he’s the one writing the opinion.

3. For the record, for all of the grants some of the native tribes get, they are still incredibly disadvantaged.

   [Life expectancy is over 10 years lower than the US average,](https://theconversation.com/native-americans-have-experienced-a-dramatic-decline-in-life-expectancy-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-but-the-drop-has-been-in-the-making-for-generations-186729) and they have higher rages of every comorbidity in the book than the general population.

   The Native American poverty rate is very high, as is their unemployment rate.

   It’s not like Native Americans are living in the lap of luxury on the federal government’s dime or something.

4. Considering Native American reservations remain some of the most impoverished areas of the US, those benefits aren’t very useful to many natives (though some tribes are doing better than others). The biggest issue remains brain drain of talented natives moving away to live in cities where all the high paying jobs are.

   Better to fund things like workforce training programs, daycare vouchers, before and after school programs, small business grants, mortgage assistance, etc.

   That would go way farther than just giving black majority areas autonomy without solving the underlying issues these communities face.

5. Some of it is a practical issue. What do you do and how do you do it?

   How do you decide who is eligible?

   Native Americans get benefits that primarily exist as continuations of already existing treaties. Many of which it could be argued are a hurt, not a help.

6. Looking at all of your replies, it appears that you’re just here to argue.

   These two groups have very different histories that happened at different times in the country’s history. That is why they aren’t treated the same. That’s the answer to your question, but you’re just here to argue so you don’t care and just keep trolling.

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9. I need to make this clear , I’m not a troll . Im just looking for answers . I am just curious on the subject matter .

10. The brief version is that while morally it would right for both groups to receive compensation, white Americans are opposed to it. Native Americans have particular legal status, however, because the sheer practical effects of being the indigenous societies of the continent have left them with *somewhat* more power than Black Americans.

11. The tribes are recognized nations that the United States have treaties with, and before that the Europeans. African Americans are not organized as their own nation nor ever had that kind of arrangement; they were put into this situation, thanks in large part of the European colonizers.

12. The US government made an agreement with certain Native American tribes in exchange for their lands. There was no similar agree with African slaves who were not brought to North America by US government policy but by independent traders, and largely before there *was* a US government.

13. The United States government recognized that they were defeating existing nations in the American continent. As such they made nation to nation treaties with the leadership of these indigenous nations.

    The language of the treaties is very simple. Vague statements about the US government supporting the health and education of the tribes.

    Like a lot of people are saying, these treaties were (are) not being upheld by the US government. Native American tribes had to sue the government over and over again to try make the government uphold their end of the bargain.

    A lot of what some affluent tribes have is funded by tribally owned businesses. The Puyallup tribe reservation is pretty suburban. They have successful tribal owned enterprises. The profits are given directly to the tribal members as cash benefits, healthcare, elder support, tribal schools.

    Most reservation land is not so well positioned. Poorer tribes have to rely more on what the government will give and it is not much.

14. Besides what people have said regarding tribal registration, organization, and autonomy, I think you need some more detail. In 2022, for example, HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) alone received around [2.7B in funding](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/03/07/fact-sheet-state-by-state-analysis-of-record-2-7-billion-american-rescue-plan-investment-in-historically-black-colleges-and-universities/) from the Department of Education, though I understand that was a reduction from the originally hoped for 45B. Is that money going to students and scholarships? Probably not. In 2021, [1.9B was the entire budget for the Bureau of Indian Affairs](https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/uploads/fy2021-bib-bh093.pdf).

    College/University is tricky, because some colleges/universities are classified as “land grant” colleges/universities, which means that many, if not most, students from a specific geographic area, regardless of race, qualify for heavily subsidized education. For example, Cornell University is a land-grant university and residents of New York State as well as members of the Haudenosaunee (i.e. the Native Tribe whose land was stolen, which is also the land Cornell is built on) qualify for heavily subsidized, sometimes free education partially because of the land grant status. Tribal land grant colleges/universities are the ones that require tribal registration and are funded, I believe, out of a combination of the BIA and Education budgets.

    Also, it’s worth noting that even when Natives got land, it was largely useless, impoverished land and when it turned out to be profitable, they were [murdered for it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osage_Indian_murders) or it was conveniently “taken back” by the federal/state/private land owners or they weren’t able to have full stewardship of it because they “needed” an Anglo guardian to be considered competent. I recommend reading Killers of the Flower Moon to learn about what happened to the [Osage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osage_Nation).

    Also it’s worth pointing out that there are [Black people who are also Native](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Indians_in_the_United_States), it’s not just one or the other.

15. The benefits are the result of treaties made between sovereign nations.

16. Simply because the government does not want to. They can find out who was a descendent of African American slavery. They literally have documents where it shows who owned us and the time period.

    Jews got money from the Holocaust, Japanese got compensated for internment camps (six years btw) and Natives like you said get money from the government even though it’s not even 1/6th of what they actually should be getting.

    Didn’t slave owners get money for losing slaves as well? Lol I ask the same question every damn day
    What was it supposed to be for us? 40 acres and a mule?

    People on here talking about because the government had nothing to do with slavery! LMAO

17. Very good question. I’ll let the white Americans tell you why black Americans don’t deserve anything despite slavery and decades of living under intense systemic oppression.

18. >I just read about all the benefits and grants the native Americans tribes receive from the government.

    These are native tribes that were displaced from their ancestral lands and their traditions and community are still passed down as heritage today. The reason these exist is because we have obligations set in law and treaties.

    >African Americans deserve some form of compensation for their painful history .

    Conversely, we have no obligation here. There is no heritage or anything passed down. In fact, not a single person has been affected by that history. All people of all races have painful histories to contend with.

19. Please show me your plan to implement compensation for the African American community. All those that should have received it are long passed. I’d rather we helped people based on economic disadvantages rather on the color of their skin.

20. African Americans had a painful and horrible history. But they were not targeted for what almost amounted to genocide like the Native Americans were in this country. They were tricked. They would lied to. They were forcibly moved from their homes to live on pieces of land that were purposely chosen because it was worthless to the settlers and the government. Entire villages and some tribes have been wiped out. Some by the diseases settlers brought with them, the rest by violence. And unlike African Americans who live every where now, who have access to the same education, healthcare, job market, Etc that everybody else does,( not debating that they still have alot of roadblocks and harder lives) the Native Americans are still mostly on the reservations with subpar housing, medical and education.

    Look at it this way. 2020 Census says African Americans make up 12.1% of US population. Native American/Native Alaskan make up 0.7%

    If i am wrong in anything, please let me know. My knowledge is from school and my Ojibwa great-grandmother.

21. That’s a very unfit comparison. The mistreatment of each group could not be any more different in its nature.

22. I think they do need some form of compensation but I have no idea as of how the government is going to do it at all. But my idea is to maybe give money to historically impoverished Black Communities or black owned small businesses or something.