Racial segregation in the US is always between whites and blacks, why is no attention paid to the natives?

Answer

Dear William,

The Natives, or American Indians, as they are now called (in part because no one is truly “native” to the American continent), have indeed also been subjected to a form of racial segregation, the so-called reservations, ie shrinking areas in which the It became increasingly difficult to maintain the way of life that the first inhabitants of what is now the US were used to, and which required large areas. So bad was the impact on this population that they dwindled to a very small percentage of the population: according to the most recent census, only 2.5 million people, or 0.9% of the total population, and that includes American Indians in the United States. Alaska.

But that is not what is meant by the concept of racial segregation. Then it’s about the imposition, especially in the south of the US, of segregated public infrastructure. This is a phenomenon especially of the twentieth century, between its early days and the 1960s, when, as part of a more general emancipation movement, the rights of African Americans also begin to be respected, after many decades of being trampled underfoot. This racial segregation was felt, for example, in cafes and restaurants, with signs such as “Whites Only”, in schools, with separate schools for whites and blacks, and on buses, with seats for whites (front) and blacks (rear), and on trains. Historically, this segregation is related to slavery, which was only abolished in the US in 1865, after a bloody civil war that was largely fought over that issue. However, after the Civil War, the south of the US has succeeded in maintaining the social order in a more subtle way, whereby every white person could feel superior to every African American. This kind of racism was also quite common in the north of the US. There are almost 35 million Americans who consider themselves African Americans, which is more than 12% of the population, so for that reason too, more attention is paid to the situation of that (large group of) people.