Klimt, Iraq, Schools and Prisons. What more could you want?

As a woman of Native American descent, Erin Aubry Kaplan's desire to trumpet the struggles of the black community both historically and in the present day have started to really annoy me.

It's not that her points aren't accurate and well taken, to a point. They are. Blacks have had a tough time here.

But the facts are that as badly treated as blacks have been, and continue to be in some cases, tribal peoples have had it a WHOLE lot worse, for a whole lot longer. Whatever violence has been perpetrated against blacks as a people, it's been perpetrated on the tribes to the power of 100. Whatever inequities she sees in the neighborhoods of the towns and cities, at least her 'people' are IN the towns and cities.

Lack of sidewalks disorients you? Poor little girl. I suggest you go spend a couple of weeks on a reservation, Ms. Kaplan.

Not one of our California Gambling reservations--one of the real ones, located miles away from any population center or highway, where none of the Las Vegas gambling interests are interested in "partnering"; one of those desolate, unproductive pieces of land that the US Government couldn't see any use for.

A normal reservation, where the unemployment rate is 80% or more, but you can't leave to go to college or get a job without the real possibility of losing your status as a tribe member, and denying your children any chance at all to participate in the shattered heritage that's left.

I could go on for awhile about reservations, history and inequity, but I'm not aiming to be as tiresome as Ms. Kaplan.

My point is: I'm tired of her pissing and moaning about how terrible things are for her community without so much as a throwaway line of acknowledgement that other peoples have had and continue to have it, a whole hell of a lot worse than blacks in the United States.

Oh Sherry,
That was very touching to say the least.

Is Ms. Kaplan native american? I thought people usually write or conversed more about their own unique experiences than those unfamiliar to them. Again is Ms. Kaplan native american? Because, I thought she was black. By the way when did the discourse become a competition of "your blues ain't like mine"? Suffering is suffering, and I find most empathic people do not keep tallies on suffering or pain.

Can someone name another group of people who in the history of America have suffered more than Blacks, specifically decedents of slaves, besides the Indians? I would just like to know for personal enrichment.

And by the way, if you are that tired of reading Ms. Kaplan's op-eds, just stop reading them.