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Jewish World Review July 7, 2005 / 30 Sivan, 5765 Simple solution to complex dilemma is racist By Froma Harrop
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
WHITECLAY, Neb. — It's only 9 a.m. and a Monday, and inebriated
Indians are already lying on the dusty curb here in Whiteclay. This speck of
a town has 16 people and three beer stores. Its main business is selling
alcohol to the residents of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, just over the
state line in South Dakota.
The situation in Whiteclay has become an obsession for both
Nebraskans and the Oglala Sioux. Alcohol is a curse for many Native
Americans, and the reservation bans its sale or possession. Good people see
the Whiteclay business as despicable exploitation.
Now what to do about it. As H.L. Mencken said, "For every
complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong." There
is no shortage of simple solutions for Whiteclay: Close the beer sellers.
Regulate them to the eyeballs. Have Indians patrol the town.
But the simple solution to this complex dilemma is problematic.
That's because it centers on special restrictions based on race or
ethnicity.
These troubling issues are not unique to Indians or this part of
the country. For example, African-American leaders have long tried to ban
billboards advertising alcohol in their neighborhoods. Whether curtailing
liquor ads cuts the use of alcohol remains unclear. It undeniably cuts
advertising revenue in poor black areas.
Here in the Nebraska panhandle, every cowboy saloon has its
share of Euro-Americans slumped face-down on the bar. Yet no one is telling
habitual white drunks that, come tomorrow, they can't order their first five
beers.
Proponents of shutting Whiteclay's $4 million-a-year business
say that Indians are a special group known to have more problems with
alcohol than others. The temperance ladies of the 19th and early 20th
centuries had likewise labeled Irish and German immigrants. Try this on for
size: A law that outlaws bars within 300 feet of predominantly Irish- or
German-American neighborhoods.
Some argue that Nebraska law forbids the sale of alcohol near
churches and schools, and so why not near Indian reservations? Again, the
first two restrictions are based on the nature of the institutions, not the
ethnicity of the people in them.
Rep. Tom Osborne, R.-Neb., and Rep. Stephanie Herseth, D.-S.D.,
have put forth a pragmatic-sounding solution: Deputize members of the Oglala
Sioux Tribe to keep order in Whiteclay.
Given the tragic history of this region, it is thought best that
Indians deal with their own. The reservation was the site of the Wounded
Knee Massacre in 1890, when white soldiers butchered hundreds of Sioux men,
women and children.
Osborne and Herseth have requested $100,000 in federal money to
pay for the tribal patrols. In a letter to a House subcommittee, they noted
that the Indians would do a better job of enforcing state laws on public
inebriation, drunk driving and other alcohol-related offenses. And they
would uphold the tribal ban on bringing alcohol onto the reservation.
But wait a minute. Aren't states supposed to be enforcing their
own laws with their own money? Why must the U.S. taxpayer get involved? And
if people are illegally transporting alcohol onto the reservation, why stop
at Whiteclay? How about Rushville, 22 miles to the south, or Hot Springs,
S.D., which is even closer?
At least people can safely walk the two miles from the town of
Pine Ridge into Whiteclay. The road has sidewalks and bright sodium lights.
Level Whiteclay (a bulldozer could do it in an hour), and the alcohol sales
would move to places requiring the inebriated to drive.
The only thing approximating a real solution is to treat the
alcoholics themselves. And programs run by the tribes report recent
progress. Some Indians want to legalize the sale of alcohol on the
reservation and use the revenues for treatment programs.
But closing beer joints in Whiteclay would not do much. The
federal government first outlawed selling alcohol to Indians 171 years ago.
The events in Whiteclay, sadly, are but a footnote in history.
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© 2005 Creators Syndicate |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
