URL: https://www.indianz.com/News/archives/001953.asp

Monday, October 13, 2003

Although gains have been made over the years, American Indians in South Dakota say racism persists in subtler ways.

From trying to find an apartment to shopping at stores, Indians say they have been treated differently. The Rapid City Journal collected stories from a wide variety of people who felt the string of discrimination.

While at a supermarket, filmmaker Chris Eyre said a clerk assumed he was paying with food stamps. Other Indians report being followed when they patron local businesses. "Oh honey, she thinks we're going to steal something," one Indian mother told her daughter.

The treatment extends to law enforcement, Indians say. They complain of being stopped by police but never receiving any tickets. A report, due in December, will examine whether racial profiling exists in law enforcement.

Racism can also happen randomly. Indians participating in a domestic-violence awareness march said a man shouted racial epithets at him. Police warned the man but did not arrest him.

Get the Story:
American Indians unable to escape shadow of subtle racism (The Rapid City Journal 10/12)
Information taken from "American Indians: Stereotypes & Realities" (The Rapid City Journal 10/12)
Officials: Changing perceptions takes much work (The Rapid City Journal 10/12)
White privilege a foreign concept to many in S.D. (The Rapid City Journal 10/12)
Police warn man about remarks (The Rapid City Journal 10/12)

All stories in the Indianz.Com Archive are available for publishing under a Creative Commons License: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)