Our
View: American Indians regain land
You
would think that after 250 years we wouldn't
still be trying to take everything the American
Indians have gained. But we're probably
going to end up taxing one of the few methods
the tribes have of making money and supporting
their families and reservations. But on
the happy note side of the opinion page
some tribes are using that money to buy
back ancestral lands that had been taken
away.
People
can argue all they want that we should tax
the American Indians for the money they
make off of the casinos, but we're not talking
about some Italian mobsters here. These
are the people who the U.S. government stole
the land from, the people who we cheated,
manipulated and robbed out of this entire
continent. And now we're going to tax them
and their cheesy land we so graciously gave
them.
Well,
people should be happy to know that although
there can never be full reparations, at
least now the tribes that are lucky enough
to have money can start rebuilding at least
a semblance of what they once had. Often
times the land they were given was the worst
land in the area, while white ranchers took
the best land and most of the water rights.
Now,
with the money that some of the tribes are
making off of their casinos they are patch-working
their land together with new property to
hold encroachment by civilization at bay
and to make a more beneficial homeland for
future generations.
People
who may begrudge the American Indians their
dues should remember that the casinos are
filling a vital pocket of the economy. We
may complain that businesses are going to
another state, but think of how much commerce
having the reservation casinos keeps in
California. Otherwise, many of those gambling
happy hucksters would be taking their dice
and their money to Las Vegas or Reno.
In
fact, a new casino in the Inland Empire
is expected to bring in $2.8 billion in
economic gains for the region. So then,
the arguments that the reservation casinos
are not giving their chunk of flesh to the
economy may be a little misguided. But that's
not enough for some people of course, that
American Indians are finally getting some
justice is absolutely disconcerting to some
people. There are all sorts of reasons we
have their land and they don't, and they're
all fair and perfectly legal reasons too.
The
Native American groups that are taking this
money and putting it into the future of
their tribes should be applauded. To have
the wherewithal to understand that this
money should go into something real; and
these days the only thing that's real is
the land your standing on.
Although
there are parts of land that may be impossible
for tribes to recover, parts of Cal State
Long Beach in fact, if tribes can actively
acquire land that no one is using anyway,
then maybe someday there will be more than
three buffalo roaming in San Diego county.
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