Killers of the Flower Moon and Reparations (Osage Indian tribe)

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Killers of the Flower Moon and Reparations
Social justice is something that has for quit a long time, plagued the American system. While the nation has a proud history of champions for the same, it seems like there is very little to do when it comes to implementing policies relating to social justice. The most pertinent of issues in this case, are reparations and how institutional racism plays a role in it. Institutional racism and reparation are two closely related terms due to the fact that they go hand in hand, in most instances. For most minority groups around the country, the two terms are commonplace due to the subtle kind of how the government and the society at large handles them. There seems to be some form of unwritten agreement that minority groups and the uses affecting them, need to be part of a political charade to be dangled like a carrot by each regime. Groups such as the native Indian tribes and Africans only know this too well. As a commission created by the federal government to consider reparations for the Osage Indians, it is important to consider both sides of the reparation issue. While reparations might not necessarily be the foolproof solution, they help to some extent, especially so, for the case of the Osage Indians.
First, reparations should be done because it is the morally right thing to do. Reparations basically entail the various acts of making amends for the wrongdoing against someone or some group of people. Reparations have mainly been acts of compensation in the form of payment for the historical evils committed against some certain minority group of people. In the U.S. it has been a term closely associated with the African Americans as well as the native Indian tribes. In this case, to the Osage people, it would be deemed right to actually try and right the wrongs done to them historically. For a group of people who have really endured all the injustices, it would only be ethically prudent to do so.
Secondly, reparations would help these people to have some form of inheritance or asset ownership. Since large oil deposits were discovered on Osage land, the Osage people went on to become some of the wealthiest people in the world. In his book, Killers of the flower moon, David Grann clearly notes that the Osage people really prospered at the time. However, American settlers quickly realized that what they really needed was the whole cake and not just a piece of it. They quickly conspired to invade the Osage nation and take over everything it possessed. The Osage were then left with virtually nothing; no wealth, no land. The Osage were systematically pushed to the periphery of the American nation, onto the small, bare, and unproductive parcels of land. It would therefore, only be quite reasonable that they get reparations.
Thirdly, reparations to the Osage should be done since it has been done before as well. The government has successfully managed to do reparations for some minority, oppressed groups too. For example, the Aleuts of Alaska were given around $12000 each for the injustices done to them by the government. The Japanese American community of the post-world war were also awarded about $20000 due to the cruel treatment they underwent. This was during the war period, when the American government placed hundreds of thousands of Americans of Japanese descent in concentration camps, on suspicion that they were leaking the military’s secrets back to their home country.
Following similar precedents therefore, it would only be justifiable that there is also some reparation for Osage nation. While the first generations might not be there presently, the descendants of the victims deserve reparations. Albert Fall illegally leased the oil reserves t...