At 12:20 PM 11/6/2003 -0600 Dan Minette wrote:
>> At 09:57 AM 10/28/2003 -0600 Dan Minette wrote:
>> >Well, that slaughter started well before the US existed, so it did come
>> >first. But, I was thinking how racism is written into the Constitution.
>>
>> Which also applies to the Native Americans, no?
>
>Is there an explicit mention of Native Americans in the constitution?
Yes.
Albeit in a less dehumanizing way than assigning them 3/5 of a peronhood or
to slavery - it ratherly simply states that if they are not taxed then they
are not citizens of the United States.
Anyhow, the reason I consider our treatment of Native Americans to be the
United States "original sin" is as follows:
The sin of slavery was at least a *choice* of the United States as an
entity, inasmuch as it was written into the Constitution. In Catholic
"original sin" theology, "original sin" is not _your_ *first* sin. Rather
it is the sin of our ancestors, a sin upon which we owe our very existence,
and a sin which has produced a debt that can never be repaid.
All of these aspects, with the possible exception of the last one being at
least arguable, apply much more directly to the treatment of Native
Americans than to slavery.
The mistreatment of Native Americans both intention and unintentional (such
as in the case of certain diseases) was carried out in large part by
predecssors of the United States - although admittedly the sins were then
perpetuated by the United States long after slavery was abolished, the
origins of eliminating the Native Americans came long before the United
States.
Secondly, without the elimination of the Native Americans the United States
is never reallly the United States. Without elimination of the Native
Americans there is no "Manifest Destiny," and without Manifest Destiny the
United States may never become the dominant nation in the world. I think
that in large part the US owes its national greatness to the richness of
its geography - which was seized from the Native Americans.
Lastly, far too many Native Americans have been killed for the wrongs the
United States has committed against the Native Americans to every be
rectified in any meaningful sense. The First Peoples of the United
States in almost all cases will be a tiny minority in their own lands in
every sense - cultural, lingual, and political. There's no way to turn
back the clock.
If we are to map US history into Christian Theology, I would say that the
Civil War is a much closer parallel to the United States' crucifixtion.
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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