Overlooking Rapid City, South Dakota. Photo: Robin Zebrowski
Notes from Indian Country
Painting one people with the same racial brush
By Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji – Stands Up for Them) It seems that we have more than one politician blaming his problems on the media. Rapid City Mayor Steve Allender was swamped with downtown merchants about the homeless people and panhandlers that were invading their part of this fair city. After a clerk from a min-mart was stabbed to death outside of her store the cries of anger went out against the homeless and panhandlers. The stabbing was quite a distance from downtown, but that didn’t seem to matter. In his infinite wisdom Mayor Allender told the local Rapid City Journal, “These are not crazy white people downtown, these are not Mexicans, these are not all women, they’re not all men, the only pattern is that they are all Native American.” Those selectively discriminating comments infuriated the Rapid City Indian Community. When confronted by some of the local Native Americans the mayor said that his comments were taken out of context. Say what? If that is the case then I am taking his exact words and quoting him out of context. He called on Native American leaders to step forward and help to solve this problem. Well, Mr. Mayor, there is not enough money in the Indian community to provide homes for the homeless and to find a solution to the panhandlers. There is a place called the Cornerstone Mission that houses and feeds many of the homeless, but even on cold winter days those homeless are forced to leave the warmth and confines of the mission and to find a place to shift for themselves and to try and find a place of warmth. Since the mission is so close to downtown Rapid City that is where they end up. They oftentimes head for the Hope Center which is on Kansas City Street and near the downtown area where they can wash their clothes and find a warm place to hang out. As Native Americans we accept the fact that we have members of our race with severe alcohol problems and they are looking for help. Rapid City needs a treatment center that will help cure these ills and as a city it has the opportunity to seek out federal funds to accomplish this. How many times over the past 10 to 20 years have Native American citizens asked the city to assist them in building a center or to get the funds to build the powwow grounds where they can find jobs and an opportunity to sell their art and crafts. Instead of whining about the presence of the panhandlers and homeless the caring business people of downtown Rapid City should be shouting at the mayor and city council to secure the funds to build an alcohol and drug treatment center. We are dealing with an illness that can be cured. Write letters to your representatives like John Thune, Mike Rounds and Kristi Noem and make them get off of their dead ends and make something good happen. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and so this city should have facilities geared to preventing drug and alcohol abuse especially if they see that as one of the city’s major problems. When I started my first newspaper it was located right on the main street of Pine Ridge Village in the heart of the Pine Ridge Reservation. There were frequent visits by panhandlers looking for money. I had a policy that if they wanted a couple of dollars they would work for it. In the summer I put them to work pulling weeds around the building or cutting the grass. In the winter I had them shoveling snow and clearing the sidewalks around the newspaper office. They all learned that if they wanted a handout they would have to work for it. I had no fear of them because I knew many of them to be decent human being who just happened to have a drinking problem or were homeless. So Mr. Mayor, you and your city council must raise the money for a treatment center and allow some of the Native American leaders to have a hand in staffing it and working with the Indian community and we will all gladly pitch in to make it work. Build a place where they can hang out in the middle of the winter after the Cornerstone Mission kicks them out on to the streets. We’ll staff it and work with the homeless if given the chance. But please do not paint an entire race of people with the same racial brush because there are frustrated business people yelling at you. Mr. Mayor, pick up a phone and call some of the tribal leaders out there and ask them for their support. If you want a list of them call the office of the Native Sun News Today and we will gladly compile a list of good people for you. Tim Giago is the founder of the Native American Journalists Association and was Nieman Fellow at Harvard with the Class of 1991. He was born, raised and educated on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Giago can be reached at unitysodak1@vastbb.net.
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