Lumbee Peoples – Culture, Power & the Law

Lumbee Peoples – Culture, Power & the Law
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Abstract
Racial discrimination has been a significant scourge in the American society since independence. Native Indians and Africans emerging from racism were severely disadvantaged compared to their white counterparts. Despite changes in the constitution, social settings continue to foster racism, especially towards the Native Americans. These communities are disproportionately prone to murder, assault, drug trafficking and violence, especially from the white society. In addition, the community has among the highest rates of incarceration globally. This is primarily due to laws that are designed to target minority groups for incarceration. This paper uses extensive literature review to investigate the nature of systematic structural prejudices leveled against Native Americans with a special focus on the Lumbee community. It is, clear that the white community has continually used its power over the minority to enforce policies that instigate racial discrimination. These trends are ongoing in some programs such as the skewed incarceration systems that are designed in a way that significantly disadvantages the minorities.
America is known for being a multicultural state formed by peoples from all over the globe and especially White Europeans who left their homeland more than four years ago in search of freedom and explore new frontiers. Lesser figures arrived from Africa through slavery and these communities found Native Americans, the aboriginal people of America.

Though originally the authentic residents of the Americas, these individuals were significantly outclassed technologically by incoming comminutes and were therefore easily subdued into minority status. Although achieved through immense struggle, the current constitution denotes an equal status for every citizen. After the victory of Obama, many Americans foresaw the victory of the state against race in the United States politics. However, this did not translate into actual reality on the ground. Despite the enormous steps taken to tackle the challenges of racial discrimination, America has been accused of instituting systematic methods of discrimination to the minorities. The Native Americans are possibly the most sidelined minority groups in the US. The challenges of the Native Americans are uniquely complex. Over time, the communities were successively shifted and segregated to some parts of the US. This was done successively with through treaties and sometimes under enormous coercion. President Andrew Johnson ordered a forced eviction of all native people on the western side of the Mississippi river. He used armed officials to force those Indians who would not shift to vacate by force. Even when the communities were moved through treaties, the treaties were rarely respected and thus the people ended up isolated and un-catered for.
The isolation of these peoples predispose them to particular challenges. First of all, the movement ensured that the tribes were geographically alienated from the rest of the community. This systematically kept them away from developmental facilities such as schools. The question of education has played a significant role in the systematic discrimination of the Red Indians. Even during the period of racial apartheid in America, Native Americans were presumably allowed to attend predominantly white schools. This blinded the society on their plight and oppression. The ever present deep-seated hatred between the native Indians and the white population ensured that the communities were barred from enrolling in white schools. Perhaps the difficulty emerges from the perceived authenticity of Native Americans as the original occupants of the US. This is unnerving to the white community that has largely taken the principal role in American politics and authority. The special schools instituted for the Indians fell well below the quality standards that allow successful dissemination of education. A shift from these schools to regular schools was also almost impossible. As a result, most native Indians have languished in illiteracy and poverty.
Apart from education, there are other numerous issues that have detrimentally affected the ability of Native Americans to advance with other communities. Culture is among the most subtle causes of this variation. The Native Americans are made up of more than 300 tribes each of them with a varied cultural setting. In fact, there are more than 175 Native American dialects in use today. This means that each of these cultures is considerably small and thus incapable of establishing itself concretely in the American community. Despite this, every aspect of it is immensely important to the native people, and thus these individual are unable to alienate themselves from it. However, surviving in the American society requires a full immersion into the dominant culture. Anything that is different from the popular culture is ostracized, and so are the Lumbee people.
These native people regard very highly the values espoused in the family, tribal rituals, language, and religion. These are traits that have been diminishing in importance across the contemporary society. Adherence to such systems thus means that the tribes are considered backward and uncivilized. This increases the prejudice against them from the mainstream society. The prejudice then results in the grave maltreatment of the people through hate crimes. In Nebraska, the Native American community accounts for 1% of the American population but 2% of the victims of hate crimes across the US according to the FBI. Another study by the US judicial systems found out that the level of hate crimes directed towards the Native Americans was substantial and unimaginable. Among the violence perpetrated against these peoples are drug related offenses, illegal immigration through their lands, murder, gang violence, assault, and incarceration.
Besides, there has been outright oppression of the tribesmen by the federal government from the beginning. The pick of this discrimination occurred in the 19030’s with the institution of Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). This institution was supposedly meant to integrate the Indian communities into the mainstream American community but was instead ultimately gravely detrimental. In the end, the problem became a white supremacist attempt to convert the Native Americans into whites. The Indian tribal lands were allotted to individual Indians and the rest was given to white communities. Soon, the Bureau led to the recognition of the Indian people government this was disbanded soon afterward. This marked an onset of an accelerated assimilation program where the Native American youth were taken from their homes and trained on how to become white. Their hair was cut, and they were forced to learn English. These systematic disturbances continually weakened the community.
While the others are induced by the community’s vulnerability in their social setting, incarceration has primarily been established by the government in the US as a systematic means of maintaining racial caste system. The American incarceration system is prominently referred by critics as the continuation of the Jim Crow policies. The primary way through which this is sustained is the difference in abilities between communities. After independence, abolition and even declaration of equal rights for each of the American citizens, the country began a period hailed for color blindness. This means that every citizen of the US was equally availed similar opportunities and governed by the same policies regardless of the race. This system, however, failed to consider the fact that the races had significant different capabilities at this time that wounded chances for equality. The black communities who were emerging from slavery were severely disadvantaged when compared to their white masters. So was the Indian communities subjugated to the interior regions of the US.
The economic difference forced the minorities to inhabit low-income areas where violence and drugs are a common occurrence. The Indians retained their habitats in the countryside and villages where education and economic progress was stunted. Whenever they integrate with the rest of the community, these complexes impact significantly on their ability to cope with the system. This means that they are also forced into similar predicaments of the low-income minorities in the US. The legislature then put an emphasis on the compulsory imprisonment of drug and violence related offenses. These are crimes that are more likely to recur in poor minority groups that are economically disadvantaged and therefore forced to the streets to fend for themselves. The result has been mass incarceration that is racially profiled. The Native Americans account for up to 11% of the individuals within the US incarceration system. This is a significant figure comparing it with the overall fraction of the Native Americans in the US populations.
Despite the systematic attempt to suppress the tribal people, some groups have demonstrated remarkable resilience. Such include the Lumbee community in Carolina. This grouped has skillfully employed survival tactics to differentiate itself from the rest of the native communities while maintaining a distinct cultural expression that is authentic to the tribal people. By differentiating themselves from the prejudices instituted against the larger Indian community, the Lumbee society has been able to progress substantially at par with the rest of the community. This is not entirely without a struggle. The traditional barriers such as systematic apartheid in educational systems barred the community for accessing higher education. The community has thus struggled immensely to ensure its offspring are afforded a proper education. This in return has ensured progression within the community. Some of the factors that contributed to their resilience are the fact that they spoke in English, carried out farming practices like the white people, attended Christian churches and lived a similar lifestyle like the white community.
This did not entirely prevent the law from stripping them essential rights. The constitution of the US labeled them as free persons of color together with former slaves and other Indian communities and therefore denied them the right to vote. They were also prevented from enrolling into any form of militia or carrying and bearing any form of firearm.
From this discussion, it is, therefore, clear that the white community has continually used its power over the minority to enforce policies that instigate racial discrimination. These trends are ongoing in some programs such as skewed incarceration systems that are designed to discriminate against minorities.

Bibliography
Alexander, M. The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. 2010.
“‘I Told Him I’d Never Been to His Back Door for Nothing’: The Lumbee Indian Struggle for Higher Education under Jim Crow.”. North Carolina Historical Review 90.1, no. 2013 (n.d.), 49-87. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1760560.
“Introduction To The Lumbee | The Lumbee Indians”. Lumbee.Library.Appstate.Edu. Last modified 2016. Accessed December 11, 2016. http://lumbee.library.appstate.edu/introduction-lumbee.
Lowery, Malinda Maynor. Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South: Race, Identity, and the Making of a Nation (First peoples). University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
Tighe, Scott. “‘Of Course We Are Crazy’: Discrimination of Native American Indians Through Criminal Justice.” Justice Policy Journal 11, no. 1 (Spring 2014). www.cjcj.org/jpj.

Annotated Bibliography
Alexander, M. The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. 2010.
This is an article that extensively demonstrates the methods in which the American incarceration systems contributes to racial discrimination. It used in the essay to demonstrate the relationship between the law and racial injustices.
“‘I Told Him I’d Never Been to His Back Door for Nothing’: The Lumbee Indian Struggle for Higher Education under Jim Crow.” North Carolina Historical Review 90.1, no. 2013 (n.d.), 49-87. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1760560.
This is a p[paper that details the struggles that the Lumbee people go through to receive higher education. It is used in the essay to indicate how the denial of progression opportunities is used to suppress them to lower classes.
“Introduction To The Lumbee | The Lumbee Indians”. Lumbee.Library.Appstate.Edu. Last modified 2016. Accessed December 11, 2016. http://lumbee.library.appstate.edu/introduction-lumbee.
This is a document about the Lumbee people. It is used within the essay to explain the reasons why Lumbee people were substantially more successful than the rest of the Indians. It also indicates the challenges faced by the Lumbee despite their similarity to the whites such as denial of voting rights.
Lowery, Malinda Maynor. Lumbee Indians in the Jim Crow South: Race, Identity, and the Making of a Nation (First peoples). University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
This article also details the efforts taken by the Lumbee people to maintain social status. It details the extensive role played by their social setup to prevent incarceration faced by the other tribal communities. It is used within the essay to demonstrate the ability of communities to differentiate for self-survival.
Tighe, Scott. “‘Of Course We Are Crazy’: Discrimination of Native American Indians Through Criminal Justice.” Justice Policy Journal 11, no. 1 (Spring 2014). www.cjcj.org/jpj.
This is an extensive description of systematic injustices directed towards the Native Americans. It is used in the essay to describe various policies that were used in the US to subdue the Native Americans.