{"id":3343,"date":"2020-10-21T09:25:18","date_gmt":"2020-10-21T14:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/?p=3343"},"modified":"2020-10-21T09:25:18","modified_gmt":"2020-10-21T14:25:18","slug":"elizabeth-cook-lynn-the-problem-with-rapid-citys-mayor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2020\/10\/21\/elizabeth-cook-lynn-the-problem-with-rapid-citys-mayor\/","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Cook-Lynn: The problem with Rapid City’s mayor"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\r\n\u201cI reached out and touched him on the chest and pushed him backwards, slowly\u201d: Mayor Steve Allender of Rapid City, South Dakota, admitting putting his hands on Mark Tilsen after members of the Indian community asked to be included in a press conference at city hall on October 16, 2020. Source: NewsCenter1<\/a> [At 17:11 in the video]\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n
Homelessness,\u00a0a pesky and inconvenient problem<\/div>\r\n
Wednesday, October 21, 2020<\/div>\r\n
By Professor Elizabeth Cook-Lynn<\/div>\r\n
Native Sun News Today Columnist<\/div>\r\n
nativesunnews.today<\/a><\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nWe can all contemplate what is at hand as we watch and listen to our own Mayor Steve Allender (no historian, he)\u00a0speak at a recent press conference\u00a0at city hall<\/a> (September 30)\u00a0about \u201cthe homelessness.\u201d

<\/p>\r\nAllender was telling his audience that there has been an influx from the nearby\u00a0Indian reservations\u00a0and that \u201cmany are attracted by the free food served.\u201d \u00a0He calls this influx\u00a0\u201cthe homeless.\u201d

<\/p>\r\nHe says there are 11 groups providing the meals for these people. He says he talked to some of the people who are eating in the park who tell him they come \u201cbecause they can get fed every day.\u201d Another source of this\u00a0information is the Sheriff\u2019s office and the Police Department as well as the Cornerstone Rescue Mission personnel who go about \u201cdisbanding\u201d homeless congregations continuously.\u00a0It is a problem because this community cannot continue to absorb the cost, Allender\u00a0tells his council.

<\/p>\r\nHe says \u201cI am here to tell you that the government cannot adopt everyone who has failed to make it on their own.\u201d He says that these people choose to camp outdoors in the park rather than seek \u201cthe homeless services that we have provided, nor will they even accept those services.\u201d \r\n

<\/p>\r\nHe worries that this population has been growing<\/a>.\r\n

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Raid City mayor closed the press conference to our local corespondent saying she\u2019s not a real journalist. He physically pushes a member of Mni Luzahan Creek Patrol stating he doesn\u2019t want a circus inside.<\/p>Posted by Chynna Lockett<\/a> on Saturday, October 17, 2020<\/blockquote><\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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A video shared by Chynna Lockett shows the incident in which Mayor Steve Allender of Rapid City, South Dakota, pushed Mark Tilsen away from the door of city hall after refusing to allow members of the Indian community inside on October 16, 2020. \r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nOne of the simple solutions \u201cin front of our noses,\u201d he says, is to take out-of-town homeless people back home immediately, and he wishes that he could work in partnership with the tribes. Another survey of the situation is coming up in January, so we can expect that it can be brought up during the Christmas Season.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nThis discussion is nothing new. It is an annual recitation from a city of white folks\u00a0(tourists, businessmen,\u00a0colonists, immigrants\u00a0and invaders from Europe),\u00a0who really dislike what they have wrought,\u00a0a supposedly\u00a0welcoming country of immigrants (like the statue tells us) who have now become responsible for their own illegal appropriation (theft?) \r\n

<\/p>\r\nOf land and natural resources;\u00a0yes, and\u00a0colonial dominance. This city has reached the conclusion that it does not want to provide the care it takes to sustain life for everyone in such a situation.\r\n

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\r\n\"elizabethcooklynn\"<\/div>\r\n
Elizabeth Cook-Lynn. Courtesy photo\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nFrankly, our discussion is about something\u00a0local called \u201chomelessness\u201d that is taking place here on our streets in Rapid City, but, it\u2019s called that globally\u00a0for lots of other reasons articulated by writers for many years, (some say for 38 years in our town\u2026?) Many scholars who have studied this worldwide dilemma for decades say it is because the American\u00a0colonial experience has engaged in selfishly exploiting the original inhabitants\u00a0who are now described in\u00a0\u201cThird World\u201d terms.\r\n

<\/p>\r\nListening to public official\u2019s talk of statistics it is said that many facilities run about 78 percent Indian and 12 percent white,\u00a03 percent \u201cother\u201d,\u00a0so there is no question that this is what has been called by the mayor \u201cthe Indian Problem\u201d. \r\n

<\/p>\r\nThe truth is in America and throughout the world\u00a0many of the homeless are not Indians.\u00a0Allender,\u00a0though, focuses on the locals and\u00a0assures his audience that he will not let this city become the center for the West River homeless population.\r\nHe wants to assist in transportation to get these unwanted people out of town and he has chastised anyone who gives them money or food or street assistance because it he says it encourages them to beg and they lose the incentive to be responsible for themselves.\r\n

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