I think what 'Toushka is trying to get at is that there are the oppressors and the oppressed, and the oppressors can't do any oppressing without the oppressed.

Taking her example of Native Americans on reservations: she is saying that they seem to be allowing themselves to be pushed into a corner and kept there, when they COULD leave and join other communities in the US.

At least I think that's what she's getting at (please correct me if I'm wrong, 'Toushka).

In the case of the African Americans, the population ratio was definitely in favor of the African Americans, if memories of history class serve me. I have often wondered why the slaves didn't mount more revolts (I assume there were at least a few) since they outnumbered the slaveholders in many of the southern states. Therefore, the question can be posited: did they simply allow themselves to be opporessed? Does oppression work two ways?

In the case of Native American reservations, for two summers, I worked on an Apache reservation in Arizona for a week each time. I think the government supplies the housing and food, is that true? I'm curious if anyone has answers on that. But most of the people there seemed to have no interest in educating themselves beyond high school, and there were lots of run down houses, and lots of very young mothers, often with no dads. I'm not sure where the jobs were; I didn't get to see a whole lot of the surrounding area, other than desert, since that was what we were taken out to see when we had free time. So I don't really know, but it seemed as though many of the people were caught in a cycle that they couldn't or wouldn't break of having and raising children at young ages and just staying where they were because they felt as though they had no other choice.