A PERSPECTIVE or TWO

... from an interesting place of introspection.
https://www.facebook.com/NoHopeForTheHumanRaceInteresting relationships the two cultures have. The contrasts are revealing and different. There is a great and compelling story around the respective relationships between people and spirits. - Gregory E. Woods

DRUNKS

“Even as a teenager I never saw the humor of getting drunk. I didn't look down upon them. I resented young and old drinkers who thought it offensive to not drink with them, and who liked to go to the extreme drinking. They'd pass a point of no return, and expected something along the lines of sympathy and compassion from others. Mostly men did this, and as a man I learned to not help those men until they broke down completely from within.

One time, early in my relationship with my wife, we attended a live music concert at Freedom Plaza, on Pennsylvania Avenue in the middle of downtown Washington DC. It was hot as hell out there, and the spokespersons for the event were handing out free cold water telling all not to drink liquor, wine, or beer. It was a little below 110 degrees outside! The music made it all worthwhile, and pleasurable.

After the show we saw this older cat who’d been drinking hard the whole time we were enjoying the music. He had reeled and fell hard on the pavement. Women, black women, surrounded him touching him concerned for his life, and well being. I clicked my teeth, and shuttled Jan away from this clown. Jan pulled away upset with me. She wanted to help him and join the others fussing over him. Not me. I was disgusted with him and the parade gathered around him. I tried to leave, but Jan pulled out of my arms and stepped away from me voicing her astonishment at me.

“I thought you were a kind, a spiritual man!” she said.

I was firm telling her as a man I could not and would not respect this man. He was playing a game knowing he didn't have to follow the rules, face the consequences of his actions with a city full of women who would fall all over him to help him no matter what shit he put himself into. I didn't and couldn't respect that!

I found a way to say this in the shortest sentences. Every woman heard me, and Jan stopped short and studied everyone, and everything in front of her.  After a long reflective pause she said, “I see.” She turned away.

Walking up 12^th Street towards her car she clasped my left hand, and apologized with clarity in her voice. © Gregory E. Woods 10.21.12

WHITECLAY KILLS LAKOTA PEOPLE

I made a special trip to visit Whiteclay from the Pine Ridge rez. One of the most depressing things I'd seen. Here was a people feared, admired and respected 150 years ago sprawled all over the dirty streets with piss and vomit in their clothes. It broke my heart. 
  We'd spent time in the Black Hills in ceremony, and played and ate and fellowship with each other, and one day I woke up with dread because I'd asked to see this town. On the way up there I thought there'd be a good distance from the border to the town. It was sitting on the border waiting like a lap dog and devouring the weak... 
  Send prayers, send what is needed, but send something there. - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories

Whiteclay, Nebraska protests

WHITECLAY, Neb. | The Nebraska border town of Whiteclay filled Sunday afternoon as protesters from as far as the West Coast spoke and demonstrated in an attempt to end alcohol sales in the town. 


More than 100 men, women and children marched two miles south from Pine Ridge's Oglala Sioux tribal headquarters, to Whiteclay, which borders the Pine Ridge reservation. The town has been in national news since February, when the Oglala Sioux Tribe filed a lawsuit against the owners of four liquor stores there.

Whiteclay liquor stores sold more than 4 million cans of beer last year, according to the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission.

This “Women’s Day of Peace” is a way for tribal women to take control and protest alcoholism in Whiteclay and on the reservation, said Olowan Martinez, who organized the event.

“It’s our homes that are affected with every single drunk relative that comes in,” Martinez said. “It’s our sons going to prison. It’s our daughters being molested by drunk relatives.”

Shopkeepers and locals watched from street corners and barred store windows as 150 protestors circled in the main street through Whiteclay, sharing stories of alcoholic family and friends.

“They don’t even take a flower or sympathy card to my relatives who are dying of alcoholism,” said Oglala resident Arlette Loud Hawk of Whiteclay liquor store owners.

“I wish we could get rid of Whiteclay,” said Pine Ridge resident Eileen Janis.

“These are our relatives dying here,” said Lakota activist Debra White Plume. “We’re not going to just let business continue as usual.”

Five protestors from Deep Green Resistance, an environmental group based in California, joined hands and stretched across Nebraska Highway 87 on the north end of Whiteclay. The group was prepared to stay seated through the night at Martinez’ request, said Jessica Garraway, organizer for Deep Green Resistance.

Garraway said the organization, though primarily environmental, is committed to protesting Whiteclay with the Lakota people. About 15 protestors from the group had come from the Midwest and Pacific Northwest.

"We realize exploitation of the land is inter-related with exploitation of people," she said.

Martinez said she wanted the Deep Green Resistance group to stay seated until they were arrested, to gain publicity.

Protestors still stretched across the road Sunday mid-afternoon. Garraway said she would have no problem with law enforcement arrests.

“If that happens, it’s great,” she said. “It’s shining attention on the evil that’s in this place.”

Sheridan County Sheriff Terry Robbins and several vehicles from his office and the Nebraska State Patrol camped out in Whiteclay to keep crowds under control during the protest, he said.

“If they want to protest, that’s fine with me,” he said. “We’re just trying to keep them from getting out of hand.”

The first hours of the protest were peaceful aside from an incident where a Nebraska law enforcement official sprayed mace in the faces of several children and teens who tried to block a law enforcement vehicle. The children and teens had also tried to take an arrested person out of the vehicle, said Tyson Blacksmith, a bystander and 22-year-old protestor from Oglala.

This was the summer's second march from Pine Ridge to Whiteclay. In early June, protestors marched in the 13th year of a demonstration that has occurred annually since two Lakota men were found dead near Whiteclay in 1999.


Contact Ruth Moon at 394-8415 or ruth.moon@rapidcityjournal.com