Apt note from Susan Mary Power, Standing Rock Sioux, noted writer

(If you missed this string yesterday, you can pick it up following Susan's message.)

Thank you for sending your thoughts on what has been going on with the demonstrations in Whiteclay.  The very name is so infamous to Dakota/Lakota people, and I was stunned to see that horse trailer arrest the other day.  It was also good to read your older piece on the Warbonnet (and mention of Stella!).  I remember that place so well, though I'd only been in the doorway, and never all the way inside.  Mom went there now and again to haul someone out.  All good words!  Thank you.

Best,

Susan


On Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 3:19 PM, Hunter Gray <[email protected]> wrote:

  This piece -- noting a truly surreal, and at the least implicitly racist Happening,  is worth a good look.  Kevin Abourezk, Rosebud Sioux, who wrote it, works closely at the Lincoln Journal Star with my youngest son, Peter.  They've done a number of stories on the notorious Whiteclay, Nebraska, "place" which borders the Oglala Sioux Reservation in South Dakota.  Whiteclay, which should have been closed down ages ago since it regularly violates state liquor laws, continues to function carte blanche.  Whiteclay's sole purpose is providing booze to Indians.  It's something out of the Sintowns in the Holy Bible.

  (I am definitely not an alcohol prohibitionist -- and I favor legalization and formal control of most presently illegal drugs.  I have done a great deal of volunteer work over the years with alcoholics, mostly Native.  I did give up any alcoholic beverages a long, long time ago.  Among many good reasons is my  aversion -- vain in nature -- to a "pot belly."  When I came down with the extremely severe version of Systemic Lupus nine years ago, general Lupus inflammation gave me, among other things, a protruding stomach which I resented for years.  Even after the exhaustive blood tests of April 2011 indicated "no active Lupus" -- a finding reiterated this past April -- the big belly remained.  But then, this late spring and summer of 2012, it quickly shrunk back to the old normalcy -- and, with some other positive exterior developments, I now look very much as I did prior to the catastrophic medical developments in the summer of 2003.)

  But that pales when compared to the long, long litany of tragedies emanating from Whiteclay.  Those several "establishments" will sell liquor to anyone, age and intoxication notwithstanding.  It has none of the appeal of, say, a wide-open mining camp or cow-town.  And, as I say, there are a myriad of reasons why it could and should be ended once and for all.  The biggest obstacle: part of the Nebraska state legislature.

  So I suppose we should not be surprised at dumping protesting Natives into a horsetrailer for passage to jail -- or lawmen "macing" children which also took place.

  Here is a short piece of mine centered on the very similar Warbonnet [aka Warbucket] in the heavily Native Uptown section of Chicago.  It has a couple of personal connotations.  http://www.hunterbear.org/OKIE_%20STOMP_%20DANCE.htm

  Hunter Bear


  Indianz.Com. In Print.
  http://www.indianz.com/News/2012/006904.asp 

  Kevin Abourezk: Whiteclay protesters removed in horse trailer 
  Tuesday, August 28, 2012
  Filed Under: National 
  More on: black hills, kevin abourezk, nebraska, south dakota
    
  "A protest in the Nebraska border town of Whiteclay ended Sunday after officers used a horse trailer to move five protesters to a nearby town. 

  Olowan Martinez, a Lakota woman and protest organizer, said Monday the five had locked arms and stretched themselves across Nebraska 87 on the north end of Whiteclay. 

  Sheridan County sheriff's deputies, Oglala Sioux tribal officers and Nebraska State Patrol troopers in Whiteclay removed the group and put them in the horse trailer. 

  She said she had never seen law enforcement react that way in Whiteclay. 

  "It's insane," Martinez said. "There's no seat belt (in a horse trailer). They broke their own laws."" 

  Get the Story:
  Kevin Abourezk: Activist criticizes use of horse trailer to remove Whiteclay protestors (The Lincoln Journal Star 8/27) 

  Related Stories:
  Kevin Abourezk: Activists call for return of Black Hills to tribes (8/24) 
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ 
and Ohkwari' 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
www.hunterbear.org 
(much social justice material)

See Outlaw Trail: The Native as Organizer:
http://hunterbear.org/outlaw_trail1.htm
[Included in Visions & Voices: Native American Activism [2009]
Much expanded with new material in 2012.

And see the Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Expanded and with more photos in June, 2012.)
 
For the new, just out (11/2011) and expanded/updated
edition of my "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- 
with a new and substantial introduction by me.  We are now at 
the 50th Anniversary of the massive Jackson Movement of
1962-63.  http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm

And see Witch Hunt Continues: SCEF etc (with many appropriate links):
http://www.hunterbear.org/witch_hunt_continuesthe_southern.htm