Title: 10 Hardships Plaguing Native American Communities Today - Listverse
Headings: 10 Hardships Plaguing Native American Communities Today
10 Hardships Plaguing Native American Communities Today
10 High Suicide Rate
9 Poverty Rate
8 Discrimination
7 Alcoholism And Drug Addiction
6 Obesity
5 Dying Traditions And Languages
4 Self-Hatred
3 Corruption
2 Sexual Abuse
1 Injuries

Content: In the 1960s, Native American children attending boarding schools were punished by their teachers for speaking their indigenous languages. Television and various media outlets also contribute greatly to the possible extinction of language and tradition. Many young people are discouraged from speaking their tribal languages and pressured to leave traditional community values for the glamorous, fast-paced world that exists in movies and media. Understandably, when faced with such challenges as extreme poverty, prejudice, lack of employment, and hereditary risk of substance abuse, the last thing many Native people are thinking about is keeping traditions alive. Colonists and the US government have spent much time over the last few hundred years trying to abolish many Native American cultural traditions, and they have almost succeeded. The removal of tribes from their homelands has destroyed many traditions that were tied to sacred areas, causing many Natives to lose the unique understanding of their world as embodied in their former religious rituals. Many Native organizations and non-Native advocates are working hard to preserve the languages and cultural practices of tribes, and there has been some improvement in the past few decades. 4 Self-Hatred
So far, you have a population that has dealt with genocide, colonialism, relocation, poverty, high suicide rates, unemployment, and a predisposition to addiction. Is it any wonder that there is some self-loathing that goes with that? One Native man who wrote an article about his self-hatred for The Huffington Post stated, “I am simply admitting that, despite my efforts to discard my damaging thought processes, I hold deeply-rooted prejudiced views about my own people, and indeed about myself.”