Reproductive choice: Bad...Cultural genocide: Good...
After spending a few hours avoiding LSAT prep and surfing around the feminist/envirosphere, I just came to the realizaton that some of the people I respect the most must really think me pathetic.
Why? Because I have four offspring.
Now, granted, most of the zero-US population growth types seem to ignore the fact that Indians in the Western Hemisphere already paid a tremendous price - over 80 million dead (out of 100 million.) My tribe, estimated at 40,000 at the time of Columbus, lost 95% of its population by 1619, due mostly to European diseases. My family band has less than a dozen children in the next generation, some of whom will probably never reproduce. But, since white people are wiping out species and resources left and right, all of us are expected to carry the burden.
Thanks, but we did our heavy lifting. And we still consume a fraction of what most non-native North Americans do. But please, feel free to hand the condoms and BC pills out at the country club.
Comments
They don't seem to have much of a grasp on the difference between zero population growth and replacement. Have fun with your own and you may want to just go for a walk as break/avoidance tactic instead, causes less irritation ;)
Posted by: Hawise | September 13, 2007 02:24 PM
The fairness or righteousness or even sensibility of increasing the population of the earth aside, it's not white people who are overconsumers; it's capitalists, and the wealthier class (which isn't unique to capitalist societies). It saddens me to see us turn against each other according to race, when the real culprit is class. And I think it makes it easier for the "upper" class (doesn't that term immediately place a stigma on the rest of us?) to continue to keep the world out of balance when the rest of us fall into the trap of blaming other races for perceived problems. (And I am guilty of it myself. We've all been conditioned well.) Of course the upper class is overwhelmingly white in our country, but in all countries amongst all races, the upper class overconsumes while the lower classes suffer.
We can't go back in time and right the wrongs, though they are many and grievous. Regardless of who did what, we have to start from where we are. And that brings me to the idea of zero population growth. If one believes that the world is overpopulated, and that this is a serious condition, even replacement would be a selfish and hypocritical act, wouldn't it?
Thank you so much for your wonderful blog and for the opportunity to think again and speak about these things.
Posted by: Nell | September 13, 2007 08:13 PM
"We can't go back in time and right the wrongs, though they are many and grievous."
Sure we can. Start with honoring the treaties. ALL of the treaties. And returning the land. No time machine is needed for the US government to live up to its legal obligations to sovereign Indian nations. Will that bring back all the Indians who died in the Smallpox Holocaust? No, no more than the creation of the State of Israel undid the Shoa. But, morally, legally and ethically, the absolute very least the US can do to atone for the theft of Turtle Island is obey its own laws and treaties.
Posted by: The Local Crank | September 13, 2007 10:56 PM
I agree with you about what can be done. And that is acting from where we are now with atonement left udone.
Posted by: Nell | September 14, 2007 08:05 AM
"And that is acting from where we are now with atonement left udone."
How is compensating the victims of a monumental crime not at least some form of "atonement"?
Posted by: The Local Crank | September 14, 2007 11:39 PM