Guest View: State obligated to help solve problems at Whiteclay
As a Native American and a Nebraskan long associated with efforts to focus public attention on the situation at Whiteclay, I applaud the Lincoln Journal Star for its recent set of articles and editorials addressing the issues there. The articles tell an important part of the overall story associated with Whiteclay that needs and deserves telling. But, I must stress they only tell part.
In the articles' emphasis on the personal human tragedy taking place there, the public policy dimension of the Whiteclay problem is accordingly downplayed and clearly diminished. It would be easy for a reader to interpret that those disaffected by alcohol at Pine Ridge must simply exercise personal responsibility or that they must get up tomorrow and build an economy.
That would be an incomplete picture. In fact, it would be a "whitewash" of the state of Nebraska's role at Whiteclay that would certainly compound the tragedy.
Thanks to the Journal Star's coverage, the pervasiveness and devastation of alcohol addiction among Native people at Pine Ridge is now better understood. But the culpability of the state of Nebraska in feeding, fostering and profiting from that addiction is something about which far too many of our state officials are still in denial. Like addicts and alcoholics themselves, they have steadfastly refused to face the problem or take responsibility for their actions, preferring instead to blame others (alcoholics at Pine Ridge) for what's wrong.
Our state government, however, may be the ones with the dirty hands. In 2004 alone, the Nebraska state treasury raked in $344,959 in sales and excise taxes just from Whiteclay beer sales. Despite repeated requests from the Oglala Sioux tribal leadership to end alcohol sales in this 14-person unincorporated village just 200 feet from the dry Pine Ridge reservation, the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission has persisted in licensing liquor dealerships there.
In open disdain of the tribe's decades' old policy of alcohol prohibition and efforts to promote sobriety among its members, Nebraska has sanctioned this $3.8 million annual enterprise just two miles from the largest town on the reservation. In spite of an estimated 70 percent to 80 percent alcoholism rate on the reservation and irrespective of the fact that one out of every four Lakota children by estimate is born with fetal alcohol syndrome, the Legislature has yet to advance a single bill out of committee that would curtail or end alcohol sales in Whiteclay. And despite the fact that each and every day of the week more than 12,500 cans of beer are sold to a Pine Ridge clientele that has virtually no legal place to drink it, the state of Nebraska has never seen fit to provide full-time law enforcement in Whiteclay to ensure that the laws of this state are enforced.
What state government has done in the face of the human devastation and lawlessness it is knowingly or obliviously abetting is to "take the money and run." When all is safely deposited they can then wring their hands and shake their heads with the rest of us as we lament the plight of the poor Indian.
Not one dime of the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of taxes collected from Whiteclay alcohol sales has ever been returned to Pine Ridge to assist in alcohol or law enforcement. For more than a century, ever since alcohol sales resumed in Whiteclay in 1904, all that our state officials have ever done is pocket the cash and draw a sanctimonious hard line.
I am an advocate for those who wish to sober up and for those who wish to help their families become sober. In my life and work I try to be model of sobriety as I know personally the devastation that alcohol can bring to families and children. I may be privileged to touch one life so I try to have courage. But what we as Nebraskans have to have is the courage to confront and to acknowledge the fact that the vast majority of children and youths at Pine Ridge, thousands of them, have been decimated socially, economically and physically even before they are old enough to legally drink. And we have done nothing to change it.
Alcoholism has decimated their lives before they even have the legal option of exercising personal responsibility. And for the state of Nebraska in the face of such reality to fall back on tired and simple notions about how "it's legal to sell alcohol in Nebraska" or to high-handedly wag an admonishing finger at those Indians who just need to "sober up" is more than unfair. It's offensive. We, as Nebraskans, could touch many lives if we only had the nerve.
Over and over again, I hear that ending alcohol sales in Whiteclay will not reduce the high alcoholism rates at Pine Ridge, provide treatment to those who need it, or address the lack of economic opportunity and social despair that lead so many to drink. Neither I nor the caring and committed Nebraskans I have been working with on this issue since 1997 have ever said it would.
The alcohol abuse problems on the Pine Ridge Reservation are indeed varied and complex. But that in no way excuses the state of Nebraska's heartless, exploitive and shameful practice of selling alcohol in Whiteclay over the reaffirmed wishes of the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council. I applaud your series and I hope it is seen by residents and legislators as a call to action. For some it will be and for others it will simply be used as a reason to continue to "beg the question" of Whiteclay. For those who choose the latter I would ask if they would sit on their hands if their communities were being devastated by alcohol and lawlessness. I think not.
What we are doing to Pine Ridge is morally wrong. Nebraskans are better than this. Whiteclay liquor sales must stop.
Frank LaMere is a member of the Winnebago Tribe.
In the articles' emphasis on the personal human tragedy taking place there, the public policy dimension of the Whiteclay problem is accordingly downplayed and clearly diminished. It would be easy for a reader to interpret that those disaffected by alcohol at Pine Ridge must simply exercise personal responsibility or that they must get up tomorrow and build an economy.
That would be an incomplete picture. In fact, it would be a "whitewash" of the state of Nebraska's role at Whiteclay that would certainly compound the tragedy.
Thanks to the Journal Star's coverage, the pervasiveness and devastation of alcohol addiction among Native people at Pine Ridge is now better understood. But the culpability of the state of Nebraska in feeding, fostering and profiting from that addiction is something about which far too many of our state officials are still in denial. Like addicts and alcoholics themselves, they have steadfastly refused to face the problem or take responsibility for their actions, preferring instead to blame others (alcoholics at Pine Ridge) for what's wrong.
Our state government, however, may be the ones with the dirty hands. In 2004 alone, the Nebraska state treasury raked in $344,959 in sales and excise taxes just from Whiteclay beer sales. Despite repeated requests from the Oglala Sioux tribal leadership to end alcohol sales in this 14-person unincorporated village just 200 feet from the dry Pine Ridge reservation, the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission has persisted in licensing liquor dealerships there.
In open disdain of the tribe's decades' old policy of alcohol prohibition and efforts to promote sobriety among its members, Nebraska has sanctioned this $3.8 million annual enterprise just two miles from the largest town on the reservation. In spite of an estimated 70 percent to 80 percent alcoholism rate on the reservation and irrespective of the fact that one out of every four Lakota children by estimate is born with fetal alcohol syndrome, the Legislature has yet to advance a single bill out of committee that would curtail or end alcohol sales in Whiteclay. And despite the fact that each and every day of the week more than 12,500 cans of beer are sold to a Pine Ridge clientele that has virtually no legal place to drink it, the state of Nebraska has never seen fit to provide full-time law enforcement in Whiteclay to ensure that the laws of this state are enforced.
What state government has done in the face of the human devastation and lawlessness it is knowingly or obliviously abetting is to "take the money and run." When all is safely deposited they can then wring their hands and shake their heads with the rest of us as we lament the plight of the poor Indian.
Not one dime of the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of taxes collected from Whiteclay alcohol sales has ever been returned to Pine Ridge to assist in alcohol or law enforcement. For more than a century, ever since alcohol sales resumed in Whiteclay in 1904, all that our state officials have ever done is pocket the cash and draw a sanctimonious hard line.
I am an advocate for those who wish to sober up and for those who wish to help their families become sober. In my life and work I try to be model of sobriety as I know personally the devastation that alcohol can bring to families and children. I may be privileged to touch one life so I try to have courage. But what we as Nebraskans have to have is the courage to confront and to acknowledge the fact that the vast majority of children and youths at Pine Ridge, thousands of them, have been decimated socially, economically and physically even before they are old enough to legally drink. And we have done nothing to change it.
Alcoholism has decimated their lives before they even have the legal option of exercising personal responsibility. And for the state of Nebraska in the face of such reality to fall back on tired and simple notions about how "it's legal to sell alcohol in Nebraska" or to high-handedly wag an admonishing finger at those Indians who just need to "sober up" is more than unfair. It's offensive. We, as Nebraskans, could touch many lives if we only had the nerve.
Over and over again, I hear that ending alcohol sales in Whiteclay will not reduce the high alcoholism rates at Pine Ridge, provide treatment to those who need it, or address the lack of economic opportunity and social despair that lead so many to drink. Neither I nor the caring and committed Nebraskans I have been working with on this issue since 1997 have ever said it would.
The alcohol abuse problems on the Pine Ridge Reservation are indeed varied and complex. But that in no way excuses the state of Nebraska's heartless, exploitive and shameful practice of selling alcohol in Whiteclay over the reaffirmed wishes of the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council. I applaud your series and I hope it is seen by residents and legislators as a call to action. For some it will be and for others it will simply be used as a reason to continue to "beg the question" of Whiteclay. For those who choose the latter I would ask if they would sit on their hands if their communities were being devastated by alcohol and lawlessness. I think not.
What we are doing to Pine Ridge is morally wrong. Nebraskans are better than this. Whiteclay liquor sales must stop.
Frank LaMere is a member of the Winnebago Tribe.
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