Chapter 4: The Angry Indian and a Culture of Blame

Chapter 4: The Angry Indian and a Culture of Blame

Chapter 4: The Angry Indian and a Culture of Blame reveals the violent reactions of Indigenous people to colonial practices. What is this anger a reaction to? How is that anger exercised upon self and family members within Indigenous communities? When anger is exercised in this way, what is it called? What are some impacts or outcomes of this type of anger? Given the readings and class discussions, what, in your opinion, are solutions that could effect change.

The indigenous people reacted violently against the colonialists in Canada’s history because of two key reasons. However, it is vital first to note that different indigenous groups fought different colonial groups while collaborating with others.  The indigenous military groups or communities fought only the colonialist who they perceived as threats to their way of life. Apparently, most indigenous groups applied the rule of “enemy of my enemy is a friend.” As such, they often fought some colonial powers without a direct motivation to their community. They simply fought to secure the malicious interests of the colonial powers unknowingly. Secondly, they thought fighting the “perceived enemy” would guarantee their protection and welfare.

Notably, though, the interests of the indigenous groups were not resolved by their collaborative warfare. On the contrary, the colonial allies sooner than later neglected the local communities when the military input was no longer needed or insignificant. This led to frustrations. The colonial communities grew larger, more powerful, self-sufficient, and neglected the indigenous groups as well as earlier arrangements for co-existing. At the same time, the colonialists extended their unwelcome practices, such as forced residential school systems. This led to frustrations, and rising anger among the indigenous groups, referred to as self-inflicted anger.

According to Carter & Minirth (2012), self-inflicted anger refers to a type of anger that develops because an individual feels guilty of his or her actions. The guilt feeling could be because the person did an actual wrong thing or wrongly perceives his or her actions as being wrong. Due to the shame and feeling of guilt, the subject can develop a wide range of unfavorable emotions, including hopelessness, feeling unworthy, and humiliated. They internalize these adverse emotions and feelings and eventually result in self-harming anger expressions (Carter & Minirth, 2012). This has specific impacts on the person himself or herself as well as their family members. For instance, the person may develop unhealthy behavior such as alcoholism, criminal activities, prostitution, and substance abuse, among others. In addition, the person may project this anger unjustifiably to his or her family members, leading to the increasing rates of domestic violence in the indigenous communities. The outcome of such anger is that crime rate increases, domestic violence increases, the breakup rate of families increases, social evils increase, and the unity and cohesiveness of the community.

Several solutions can be implemented to resolve this anger and its associated problems, not only among the indigenous communities but also across the entire nation. The first solution is to sensitize the nation about the current status quo, especially the indigenous, in a bid to provide closure and understanding of their circumstances and characteristics. Secondly, the government needs to empower the indigenous population economically and socially. For instance, the government should redesign and redeploy social entrepreneurship programs that provide equity instead of equality. Thirdly, the government needs to ensure food security as well as device new ways of tackling crime in the indigenous neighborhoods that are not biased or discriminative and address the problem at the core root. The government should also ensure the inclusivity of all groups when consulting and developing policies that seek to address the national issues, as well as issues that are unique to the indigenous communities. Lastly, the government needs to ensure that fundamental social amenities such as energy and roads are available, accessible, and affordable within the indigenous communities or territories.