Indigenous America: Facing Other Inconvenient Truths

Steven Newcomb’s essay on the UN High-Level Plenary Session called the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples—that will convene in New York City on the 22nd of September, 2014—reflects the view shared by some of his readers that the World Conference is supposed to be a panacea to right all of the past wrongs done to indigenous peoples. He asks if the World Conference will reverse “the domination/subordination framework of U.S. federal Indian law and policy that has been and continues to be used against our originally free nations and peoples?” The answer is “not likely,” but that doesn’t mean there aren’t compelling reasons for participating, or that there aren’t other ways to address the relationship between the US and Indian nations.