Brandon Ecoffey
White privilege and the Rapid City Journal walk hand-in-hand
By Brandon Ecoffey
Native Sun News Managing Editor Occasionally an ill-informed article is allowed to pass without one of us in the Native media addressing it. However when an opinion piece comes out that reeks of white privilege and a paternalistic value system that chastises Indigenous nations for exploring new ways to exercise their inherent sovereignty as Nations - something must be said. As many tribal members know the Rapid City Journal is about as out of touch with the Reservation Native community as any paper in the country. The Journal’s one employee who had a handle on the internal power dynamics and communal relations within South Dakota’s Native communities was forced to move on because the Journal chose to protect the bottom line instead of its product or its Native readers. In a recent editorial the RCJ provided its opinion on the possible legalization of marijuana for both medicinal and recreational use on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The editorial called the plan proposed by tribal councilman Larry Eagle Bull and approved by the tribe’s economic and business development plan “radical.” They would go on to say that the plan is radical because “the Oglala Sioux would become the first tribe to legalize marijuana on their reservation lands.” What is so radical about a tribe thinking outside of the government and societal imposed economic glass box that the Journal obviously feels tribes should be forced to operate within? How radical is it to want to create a source of economic development that can provide high paying jobs for tribal members with little to no education as well as those with MBAs, PhDs, and JDs. In case the Journal didn’t know there are many of us with advanced degrees. This plan is no more radical than uranium mining, gold mining, Keystone XL, hydraulic fracking or any of the other business ventures that are currently destroying both land and water within the boundaries of the 1868 Treaty of Ft. Laramie. Then again the notion of Native people not relying on Federal funding or white businesses to provide services may seem just a tad…radical. The editorial also raises concerns that “the product would not be able to leave the reservation, that all of the product would have to be grown, sold and consumed on the reservation.” This is the whole point of creating a business venture that would keep dollars within the reservation economy. The tribe has a right to create a self-sustaining economy. It is true that some tourism dollars would be directed away from the perverted tourist sites in the sacred Black Hills, but maybe these are the interests that the Journal is looking to protect by lobbying against the self-determination of tribes. The state and non-Native tribal members should be salivating at the mouth for the possibility to write more traffic tickets for those leaving the reservation. In case you haven’t noticed the South Dakota Highway Patrol and local county sheriffs post up just outside of the reservation and make a fortune profiling Native drivers. Not only does the tribe plan on banking off of the profits from the consumption of marijuana, tourism, and the abundance of cottage industries that will grow as a result of legalization, but Hemp will also be manufactured. Three of the four presidents on Mount Rushmore helped build their empires through the cultivation of Hemp, why can’t we? The Hemp industry is a multi-billion dollar industry that is currently not being tapped into within the borders of the United States. Instead of spending resources glamorizing petty arrests and prosecutions of Native criminals on their front page maybe the Journal should do just a tad bit of research on just who benefits from the continued criminalization of marijuana. Then again the incarceration of Native Americans in this state for petty crimes is a profitable industry supported by interests that the Journal obviously wants to protect. The trust and treaty obligations that the Federal government has towards Indian Country are continuing to be ignored and are slowly but surely being eroded under the veil of fiscal responsibility while our kids are dying from third-world diseases, suicide, lack of nutrition, and basic human rights like a warm place to sleep in the winter. We hear your opinion but we are adults with educations and know-how let us have an opportunity to build an economy that is renewable, sustainable, and environmentally conscious without the meddling from those exercising the white-privilege to tell us what we should and should not do. (Brandon is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Managing Editor of the Native Sun News, the Life and Current Events Editor at Native Max and a contributor to LastRealIndians.com.)
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