this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
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"Indian reservations" are concentration camps
German labor camps were obviously concentration camps
and the strategic hamlet program were concentration camps
and ICE detention centers are concentration camps
either way it is always white people and their concentration camps
I get the sentiment, and by no means are the reservations good or something that should've been how it played out, but I do feel like putting them on the same level as ICE centers and concentration camps downplays just how bad those latter two really are/were.
You're right they were way fucking worse than that.
Have you actually been to a reservation? And not one of the "good ones" (disgusts me to even split hairs like this) but I mean like Pine Ridge. They are literally death camps in all but name.
A couple years ago one elder was burning his own clothes to keep warm and not freeze to death, another elder died in his home because his fireplace went out while he was sleeping. Drug abuse is rampant kids are killing each other over scraps, there was a shooting at a powwow last year in the middle of sun dance. There is almost no drinking water that isn't contaminated by the nearby bombing range and uranium mines.
The average life expectancy on Pine Ridge reservation TODAY is lower than it was in Gaza before the recent bombings started.
Oh and just to get there, the tribes around the black hills were sent on a forced death march through the badlands to settle in the least desirable land in the region.
This is where they were sent:
Thank you for this knowledge, I had no idea that reservations were this bad.
Would you happen to have any books/resource recommendations for where to learn more about the actual Native American history?
There were also white towns that made money selling alcoholic beverages and drugs to native reservations. Usually long periods of starvation cause high rates of diabetes (amongst other symptoms) in a populace - today the lakota people have one of the highest percentage of diabetes per capita in the world.
That is literally what Rapid City is built on.
Meanwhile the average household income at Pine Ridge (not individual income, whole household) is aboud 10-13k per year.
The reservation were designed with the eventually extinction of native americans in mind, yes. Its just much slower and more deniable "social murder"
I get the feeling you've not been told about all the death and disease Native Americans experienced in reservations, especially at the beginning. The only real difference is reservations did not have buildings...they were just wastelands.
Can the Native Americans freely leave the reservations?
Today? Yeah. Back then? No.