“We Didn’t Kill Enough Indians”: Ann Coulter’s Comment Isn’t a Fluke—It’s a Feature of American Violence

On July 6, 2025, right-wing commentator Ann Coulter responded to a video about Indigenous and Palestinian solidarity by posting a now-deleted message on X (formerly Twitter):

“We didn’t kill enough Indians.”

What should have triggered bipartisan outrage barely registered outside Indian Country. Coulter faced condemnation from Native leaders and organizations—but not from elected officials, national media, or the Republican party. The silence wasn’t just chilling—it was familiar.

Indigenous people in the U.S. make up less than 2% of the population, and yet they continue to endure disproportionately high rates of hate crimes, violence, environmental abuse, and systemic neglect. Coulter’s genocidal language wasn’t an outlier—it echoed policies and attitudes that have shaped the country for centuries.

Genocide in Plain Sight

While many Americans are taught that genocide is something that happens “over there,” Native nations have lived its consequences here at home for generations. From forced removals and massacres to broken treaties and stolen children, the U.S. government systematically sought to eliminate Indigenous peoples—and justified it with rhetoric not so different from Coulter’s.

The result? Between 1492 and 1900, the Native population of what is now the United States declined by over 98%. That’s not accidental—it’s genocide by the standards of any international definition. And the impacts continue:

• More than 1 in 4 Native women were sterilized without consent in the 1960s and 70s, according to government reports.

• Native children were forcibly taken from families and placed in abusive boarding schools for over a century—some never returned.

• Over 75% of energy extraction projects and nuclear waste sites are located on or near Native lands.

• Ten of the poorest counties in the U.S. are Indian reservations, where life expectancy can be as low as 48 years—three decades below the national average.

• Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) remains an epidemic, with many cases going uninvestigated or ignored.

• Native Americans experience hate crime victimization at some of the highest per-capita rates in the country.

The Names They Rarely Say

While the country rarely hears their names, Indigenous families have been bearing the brunt of violence and erasure for generations. Here are just a few of the devastating cases that illustrate this reality:

Robert “Boo” Many Horses, a young Lakota man in South Dakota, was stuffed head-first into a garbage can by a group of white teens and left to die. Authorities initially dismissed it as an accident related to alcohol, and no one was criminally charged.

Morgan Harris, a mother and member of Long Plain First Nation in Canada, was murdered and her remains were discarded in a landfill. Officials refused to search the site until her daughters and their community led a sustained protest that finally forced a partial excavation years later.

Emily Pike, a 14-year-old Apache girl in Arizona, went missing and was later found dismembered, her body placed in trash bags and left on the roadside. Her family is still searching for answers, and justice remains elusive.

Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, a 22-year-old Spirit Lake Dakota woman, was killed in North Dakota by a woman who cut her unborn baby from her womb. Her body was later found in a river. While her killer was sentenced, the horror of her death exposed deep gaps in how violence against Native women is addressed.

These stories are not historical footnotes. They are part of the daily lived experience of Indigenous communities across North America—who are often left to lead investigations, organize searches, and fight for justice with little to no institutional support.

Environmental Racism and Economic Warfare

Across the U.S., Native communities are routinely targeted for the dirtiest, most dangerous projects:

• The Navajo Nation is contaminated by over 500 abandoned uranium mines, many of which leak radioactive material into soil and water.

• In Nevada, Western Shoshone lands have endured decades of nuclear bomb testing, leading to long-term health crises.

• Oil pipelines—like the Dakota Access and Line 5—are rammed through treaty lands, violating Indigenous sovereignty and threatening water sources.

This isn’t just environmental injustice. It’s part of a pattern of resource extraction and exposure to toxic waste that would be unthinkable in white suburban neighborhoods. Native communities are seen as sacrifice zones—geographically isolated, politically marginalized, and historically dispossessed.

Why Ann Coulter’s Words Matter

Ann Coulter said the quiet part out loud. But the deeper issue is this: many Americans don’t find her comment disqualifying, disturbing, or even surprising. Why?

Because the U.S. has never meaningfully reckoned with its genocide of Indigenous peoples. From cowboy movies to Thanksgiving myths, the nation romanticizes settler violence while Indigenous pain remains invisible. This cultural amnesia allows genocidal logic to persist—whether through offhand tweets, harmful policies, or simply indifference.

What Happens Now?

If the public can shrug off a high-profile figure publicly endorsing genocide, what else will we tolerate?

This moment demands reflection—but also action. Listening to Indigenous communities. Supporting Land Back and tribal sovereignty movements. Demanding accountability for hate speech and hate crimes. Funding healthcare, housing, and education in Indian Country. Addressing environmental racism. Protecting Native women and girls.

Ann Coulter’s words were shocking—but the systems that allow them to go unchecked are even more dangerous.

Sources:

• Native News Online, “Ann Coulter Attacks Tribal Sovereignty: ‘We Didn’t Kill Enough Indians,’” July 9, 2025. https://nativenewsonline.net

• ICT News, “Ann Coulter Comments Nothing New,” July 8, 2025. https://ictnews.org

• National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) Statement, July 7, 2025

• Jane Lawrence, “The Indian Health Service and the Sterilization of Native American Women,” American Indian Quarterly, 2000

• Indianz.com, “Native Americans Experience Second Highest Rate of Hate Crimes,” 2015

• Inkstick Media, “How Native Land Became a Target for Nuclear Waste,” 2022

• People’s World, “Murder of 14-year-old Emily Pike Sparks Grief,” March 2025

• A&E True Crime, “Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind Case,” 2023

• Al Jazeera, “Life on the Pine Ridge Reservation,” 2016

• U.S. Census & FBI Crime Data Reports