Melvin Martin: Indians depicted unfairly in Rapid City media

Opinion

Monday, April 5, 2010

Only in Rapid City, South Dakota (the most anti-Indian city in America) are the most flagrant violators of human respect and decency given "continued probation," per this April 1 news item:

"Two Rapid City women, convicted earlier of a hate crime, were sentenced to continued probation by Seventh Circuit Judge A.P. Fuller for providing alcohol to a minor. Jenna Gitzke and Miranda Sheldon, both 21, were back in front of Fuller Wednesday accused of violating their probations by providing alcohol to a minor. Under the terms of their probation, both women were ordered to obey all laws. One of their earlier victims of the hate crime, Theresa Janis, called the judge´s ruling a 'crying shame.' 'I can´t fix stupid,' Fuller told the women.

Fuller placed the women on five years probation in July after they pleaded guilty to malicious intimidation for incidents involving Native Americans. Gitzke and Sheldon pleaded guilty to chasing Janis´ car and swearing at her and her passengers. Gitzke and Sheldon were arrested in January for providing alcohol to someone under 18. Sheldon was also cited for speeding and throwing a burning object out of her car.

The January incident was Sheldon´s second contact with law enforcement since July. She was cited in November for speeding and not having proof of insurance. Wednesday Fuller put the women on notice that 'this is a zero tolerance sentence.' Another probation violation will land the women in prison for two years, the judge said."

To those of you who have been following my various accounts of anti-Indian racism in the "Star of the West" since March of 2008, we can all agree that non-Indians convicted of what are essentially serious hate crimes there will receive exceptionally light punishments - that much is an outrageous given. And when the local TV stations cover such incidents, these perpetrators are rarely shown for more than a second or two and oftentimes their faces are purposely obscured. Such is certainly not the case when it comes to Indians who are in custody at the county jail (and the following is my personal opinion only):

Given my many travels over the years I do not know of anywhere else in these United States where jail birds of a specific ethnicity are deliberately displayed in such an unusually close-up, frequent and highly graphic manner to local audiences as are the Indian inmates of the county lock-up.

In Rapid City, the television stations I'm referring to are continuously engaged in the active and aggressive dissemination of extremely negative imagery of Indian people by an almost daily depiction of Indians incarcerated downtown for mainly minor offenses. I, myself, was even shown on a few local stations one day in the winter of 1995 as I went to court charged with possession of a concealed weapon (PCW); the "weapon" being a $2.00 Chinese-made, Kmart pocket knife with a three-inch blade that I used for my leather work. As I so vividly recall, I was picked up at two in the morning on a Sunday as I walked home in the snow from my cousin's house after helping him with a small deer that he was nursing back to health. Released a day and a half later, after agreeing to pay court costs, I saw myself on TV that same night - I do not look very nice at all in a bright orange jumpsuit! But I digress...

It was shortly before 4:00 PM that Sunday when a voice blared over the intercom that the facility was under lock-down conditions (I heard that a gay Indian kid had tried to hang himself with a crude noose after he had been bothered all week by gang members), and that our evening sustenance would be delivered to our cells (of which, Thank God, I had my own). It must have been close to 6:00 PM when I heard the rusty wheels of a heavy pushcart approach. My door buzzed open, and a trusty (an older white inmate with a huge, orange, pompadour hairdo and eyeglasses with one of the lenses horribly cracked), handed me a plastic bowl, two slices of stale bread, and a plastic mug of some foul-smelling, black liquid that they tried to pass off as "coffee."

When I asked the trusty what was in the bowl, he, in a very high-pitched, Julia Child-like voice exclaimed, "IT'S CHICKEN NOOTLE SOUP!"

The burly correctional officer accompanying the trusty could hardly contain his laughter.

My Eye Witness Account: The next morning after a breakfast of cold, powdered eggs, garbage can-smelling potatoes with rotten onions, burnt-black toast, and a plastic mug of sour milk, all of the inmates were shackled together with handcuffs that were attached to extra-thick chains wrapped around their waists that lead to chains on their ankles that were in turn connected to a communal chain of ten inmates. Then, in several huge, unwieldy chain gangs, the prisoners were led to their court hearings by non-Indian jail guards with crazed grins and stupid smirks on their faces where they all sat before the judge still chained to each other.

And the TV cameras did indeed await! Upon entering and exiting the courthouse, that is conveniently situated in the same building complex as the jail, the prisoner who is the focus of the news segment is always shown in an extreme close-up from a vantage point that is just above ground level as he or she exits one door to enter another. The cameras then linger for several moments on other Indians as the narrator drones on anywhere from thirty seconds to one minute. Most of the time the cameras will continue to display footage of the inmates without any voice-over narration for perhaps five more seconds or so. The news anchors and reporters always have a most peculiar smile and a wild gleam in their eyes during these segments, facial expressions not unlike that of psychotic Cheshire cats.

Clearly, the intent here with this type of video footage is to cast Indian people in as bad a light as possible. As for stories concerning Indians in the local newspaper, I have to conservatively estimate that 70% of all Indian-related stories are negative, but especially the thrice-weekly federal court docket for crimes committed on the reservations in western South Dakota.

I, for one, truly believe that these television stations and the main newspaper are working hand-in-hand behind-the scenes with the racist powers-that-be in Rapid City in the ongoing campaign to thoroughly demonize Indian people with the sole objective of rendering all Indians there as wholly undesirable and just not worthy of living in the community at all. So, what else there is new?

Melvin Martin is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota. He can be reached at pbr_74@live.com