A recent study of ethnic minority groups within the United States asked people within these groups (anything from Native Americans to blacks to Latinos to any number of Asian minority groups and anything else in between here and there) which group they felt was the most discriminated against and the worst-off of any minority designation. In a sweeping show of support for our indigenous neighbors, every single minority group (in an overall round-up of scores) said that the Native Americans were by far the most “shit on” of American minorities. Except the blacks, who overwhelmingly pointed to themselves as the worst off.

I find that an extremely interesting dynamic.

Several studies (check out BBC) have pointed to indigenous peoples worldwide as being the worst-off groups of people in the world. Reports show that indigenous minorities (or sometimes even majorities) often fare much worse than even the poorest non-indigenous communities in countries. Even the poorest neighborhoods in Cairo cannot compare to the state of life in many Sinai Bedouin villages. Even the most dangerous Arab cities have nothing on the poor Turaeg ghettos that pepper the desert. American gangster grottoes are safe havens compared to many Indian Reservations. Consistently, indigenous peoples have the worst health, the most worthless land, and the lowest wages.

Interestingly, there is a push by several groups of indigenous people, notably Native Alaskans and South Pacific Islanders, to have governments and economists and anthropologists stop judging their quality of like by economic factors, especially wages. Quality of life doesn’t necessarily mean having a full-time job or a large house to many people, and many survive quite well on their own farms and through their own hunting or pastoralist efforts.