People always talk about the oppression as ancient history, but it has been perpetual for many groups, not just limited to indigenous. Allotment ran until 1934, giving away native lands. After that they moved to Termination, where they tried to dissolve reservations and negate treaties.
My great grandparents took advantage of this my great grandmother was a Native American though.
I’m sure many families in the west did. I don’t know the heritage on my mothers side, but she is white, and goes back at least to the 1800s in the US, so I can’t imagine I haven’t in someway benefitted from allotment or other genocidal policy of the US Gov. I don’t think any living individual is responsible for anything they didn’t directly contribute to, don’t get me wrong, but I think its important to recognize the immense privilege certain classes of people have had historically, and the immense lack of privilege other classes had, and how those privileges translate into systematic injustices in the present day that we should work to correct.
Ironically they lost it to imminent domain it a bunch of missile silos now the house is still there and used by the Air Force.
You are absolutely right that we need to recognize both genocidal and oppressive policies in our countries and where possible restitute people or their descendants, the majority of society usually did directly contribute to those policies. However the case example by the person that answered you is actually more relevant than you would think. While we can’t make our ancestors pay for their direct and indirect crimes, oppressed people who make use of horrendous policies should be exempt even in the level of thought.
To give a modern-day example of international law. Asylum seekers can’t legally be punished by the mode of entry. Not because it changes it into a good thing but because oppressed people have so few options that are sane.
Reconciling and instituting is also not enough by a mile. We as Western countries need to stop these inhumane policies. I am not American. But mine while being better than most (based on rankings not my opinion) has shit ton issues.