Treating indigenous people
The February article "The Healing Power of Heritage" provides solid evidence of the effectiveness of culturally responsive treatment for substance use and suicide prevention among American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities. However, while the article discusses forms of discrimination and loss as factors in health disparities, the social psychology that exacerbates these situations was not adequately addressed.
For example, a truth that was missing is AI/AN peoples are survivors of genocide. Most nonindigenous readers are probably relatively unaware of the magnitude of our nation’s original holocaust, or of common human reactions to intergenerational historical trauma (see the work of Maria Yellow Horse BraveHeart, PhD). Most readers probably do not know that the only U.S. citizens born with a legal right to health care are AI/AN populations, what the Indian Health Service discussed in the article is and why its underfunding constitutes a breach of contract (see the work of Donald Warne, MD, MPH).
This publication, like most focused on health issues in Indian Country, begins with problems in AI/AN tribes. Instead, I suggest we begin by focusing on how the lack of awareness among nonindigenous peoples, like myself, plays a part in the perpetuation of injustice because our ignorance is an ally of oppression.
Renée Goodstein, PhD
New York, New York
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