Serious News: Indian Abuse Ignored For Decades. Why?

Will anyone notice Ian Austen's story today, buried in the New York Times' Foreign section, about Canada formally apologizing to the country's Native Americans, for forcing them into residential schools where they were physically and sexually abused? This is major news. Canada has apologized, and agreed to pay nearly $2 billion in reparations. It will establish a truth and reconciliation commission so that the true suffering inflicted on Native Americans can be aired and acknowledged. Where are we in America on this issue? Absolutely nowhere. But know this: the very same abuse by members of the clergy, priests, nuns, teachers in Canada was inflicted on Native Americans on this side of the border. Does this occur to no one at the New York Times or elsewhere? To members of Congress? Why is there no interest in this huge story of racial injustice? I wrote an investigative piece on this topic in 2003 at the Washington Post, which resulted in the removal of one of the priests interviewed in the story. But the tales of abuse that I heard, and that I guard closely in my archives, were among the most chilling things I have ever heard in 25 years as a journalist. Here is that old story. Shame on all of us.

This piece was originally posted at waxword.net.

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Comments

[thisoldbroad]

I went back & read Ms Waxman's original article today. The most heartbreaking part is how much damage this abuse causes throughout the victim's lives, how the children weren't believed & how the abusers continue to insist they haven't done anything wrong - excusing their actions by insisting the children asked for & deserved these "punishments".

Wouldn't you think the Catholic sex abuse scandal that has finally been acknowledged would teach us to believe our children?

Don't for a minute comfort yourself in the thought that this abuse would never happen in your church, in your schools, in your kid sports organizations.
It happens everywhere.
To anyone.
It is not limited by religion, location, ethnicity or sex.
Abusers are not easily identified by warts on their noses or drool on their shirts.
90% of sex abuse victims know & trusted their attacker.

Please, pay attention to our kids. The signs of abuse are hard to miss if you know what to look for. Here is a place to start..

http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/stats.htm

[altohone]

You know the old saying...

As Canada goes, so goes the US.

It's only a matter of time.

[sfbayani]

There are lots of injustice - murder, rape, plunder, etc. - on groups of people of color
through centuries of colonialists' expansion that remain to be heard and acknowledged.
And this story of Native Americans' experiences, and the rest of us, including the Filipinos
during the Filipino American war, shall never be forgotten. We will continue to tell their
stories to the future generations of Americans.
Yes, shame on all colonialists!

[hopeless277]

Sorry, we're into abusing Iraqi's now. NAs are so yesterday.

[Henry]

It occurred to me quite some time ago that we are not who we pretend to be. And it seems to me that the pretense is slowly being exposed. You could also expand this to the Chinese people that were in America in the country, not really as immigrants like we Europeans, but as indigent laborers without rights. We are all about abuse, yet aren't we proud of ourselves.