Rape On The Reservation

I watched this documentary the other day on Current TV.

While the documentary was thought provoking and sad, it failed to deal with the root cause of violence against women on the Pine Ridge reservation.

Sure, unemployment is extremely high. Alcoholism is rampant. The teens have no activities. No job training. Housing is horrible.

The root cause, however, of the prevalence of violence against women is the sexual violence suffered by the parents and grand-parents at the hands of teachers and administrators at Indian Boarding schools from the early 1900s until the late 1960s.

Indian children were taken away from their families and driven hundreds of miles away to boarding schools from the age of 8. They were forbidden to speak their language, forced to cut their hair, forced to change their names, separated from siblings, and forbidden to see their relatives.

The children were often sexually abused and could not report or speak out about their abuse. The children were often brutally beaten if they embraced any part of their culture. The teachers and administration officials were never charged with crimes or even transferred in most cases. The abuse went on unabated for decades.

As a result, thousands of Indian men and women are continuing this cycle of abuse. They have no idea what a healthy relationship looks like because most have never seen one. People sometimes drink to forget, and Indians have a lot to forget.

Jailing the youth is not the answer. The only recourse for Native people is to return to Native values. This is difficult considering most tribes would have to rebuilt their cultures from scratch. The old generation of warriors like Russell Means, Denis Banks, John Trudell, and Red Crow are passing into history without being replaced. Warrior Societies are no more.

While prosecution of offenders and women's' self help groups are good starts, tracing back the cycle of abuse and holding people accountable would be more effective.