The problem with your remark is the implicit assumption that there is more "shame" in the lack of trust Native Americans have for whites than in the atrocities committed by whites that engendered that lack of trust, as if scientific curiosity justifies sweeping aside their very legitimate concerns and the long history of genocide here.
Anyway, I do not plan to participate further in this discussion. My absence is not to be read as tacit admission of having lost the argument or some such. My concern is the HN algorithm. I don't want it dumped from the front page because excessive replies from me trip some unthinking, automatic algorithm switch.
> The problem with your remark is the implicit assumption that there is more "shame" in the lack of trust Native Americans have for whites than in the atrocities committed by whites that engendered that lack of trust
I don't see any reason to infer that message from the remark in question. The remark is about the refusal and distrust, and notes that the distrust is a shame. In neither states nor implies anything comparative about the relation between that and any other situation that may or may not also be a shame, including, inter alia, those that contributed to the one being discussed.
Anyway, I do not plan to participate further in this discussion. My absence is not to be read as tacit admission of having lost the argument or some such. My concern is the HN algorithm. I don't want it dumped from the front page because excessive replies from me trip some unthinking, automatic algorithm switch.