The invisible Indian

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  by Theo van Rossum

  Believe it or not but the American Indian is often   invisible and in more than one way. This is not   only because a lot of people are rather unable to   actually recognise Indians, and let's face it, as   long as they expect to wear feathers all the time   or the women to look like Disney's Pocahontas,   this is unlikely to change any time soon. But that   is not all. There is also a visibility due to the   general apathy and disinterest in the Americas   and especially the media are rarely showing any   interest in the Native American.

  Of course there are also the Indian media with   their (on line) newspapers and their radio   stations but how many people are tuning into   that besides the Indians themselves? Not many   people I'm afraid! Which unfortunately causes   knowledge of the issues to mainly stay within   the 2% of the US population and is keeping the   general ignorance in tact.

  This has caused most of the issues to be completely unknown with the general public, who will   usually respond with disbelief when informed of it, and therefore believe that Indians must be   doing fine today and that the problems are only something of the past, referring to the days of   the Indian Wars in the 19th century. But nothing could be further from the truth.

  What many people are not aware of is that many Indians are today still subject to racism   (especially off reservations), poverty, pollution by chemical industry and unprotected uranium   mines, cultural and spritual genocide, bad health care, racist laws in which they are really   singled out from all other ethnic groups, and a general patronized interference from BIA,   Department of the Interior and the US government.

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