KETV Omaha: Tribe Demands $500M From Beer Makers
Last edited Fri Feb 10, 2012, 10:40 PM - Edit history (1)
The Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota announced Thursday it will demand $500 million from five international beer manufacturers for the cost of health care, social services and child rehabilitation caused by chronic alcoholism on the reservation.
“The Oglala Sioux Tribe seeks compensation for all of the damages the Lakota people have suffered as a result of illegal alcohol sales,” said attorney Tom White, of White and Jorgensen Law Offices in Omaha.
The lawsuit also targets four off-site beer stores in Whiteclay, Neb., a town with a population of about a dozen people on the South Dakota border that sells nearly 5 million cans of beer annually.
Read more: http://www.ketv.com/news/30418786/detail.html#ixzz1lwrNtGCw
If there were a place designated as "America's Skid Row", it'd be Whiteclay, NE. "Grocery" stores sell huge amounts of beer to the Native Sioux that come over the border from the Pine Ridge rez, which is officially dry. Drunks literally lay passed out in the middle of streets and sidewalks.
My personal hope is that this never reaches the courts. The beer makers and stores sell a lot of beer to folks making bad life choices, and reap profits from this misery. These choices are driven, in part, by the despair caused by 80% plus unemployment and no prospects for improvement. I'd ask the beer companies to do the right thing and give back to the community without being forced by the courts -- things like sponsoring alcohol abuse education for the youth in Pine Ridge; helping contribute to the cost of rehab; and kicking in to help local alternatives to irresponsible drinking, like the Y, Boys/Girls CLubs, and the local schools.
JMHO
= new reply since forum marked as read
I don't owe Native Americans anything for past wrongs. What all of society owes everybody else is opportunity and the basics of life. No doubt we as a society (not "whites"
fail parts of our population at that. I do remember what the US did to Native Americans and understand that is why they are where they are now.
Also, Native American tribes warred incessently like every other group of humans before Europeans arrived, taking each other's land. When Europeans got here, Native American tribes allied with Europeans to take other tribes land or to win wars.
To speak in terms of "the white man" seems so retro as to be embarrassing anymore. Nobody has a natural right to any land.
Note the "Indians Allowed" sign, from a time when that wasn't always the case.
One day during the summer of 1997, Frank LaMere, a Winnebago, who is executive director of the Nebraska Inter-Tribal Development Corp., visited Whiteclay. He counted 32 intoxicated Indians on the streets of Whiteclay at 5:15 a.m., and 47 drunks on the streets in the afternoon, some of whom were fighting each other. Several other Indians were passed out at the intersection of Nebraska Highway 87 and the road that leads to the reservation. Others were urinating on the street.
Shortly after he visited Whiteclay, LaMere asked the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission to shut Whiteclay down.
"I don't know what constitutes infractions of liquor laws in Whiteclay, but my good sense tells me there is something terribly wrong ... ," LaMere told Toni Heinzl of the Omaha World-Herald. "What I saw ... in Whiteclay would not be acceptable in Omaha or Lincoln," LaMere continued. "If we walked down O Street in Lincoln and saw 47 students (of the University of Nebraska) passed out in the streets or engaged in violent situations, we would consider jerking the licenses of those liquor establishments," he told the Liquor Control Commission.
The four beer stores in Whiteclay sold 4 million bottles or cans of beer in 1996, taking in $3 million, a 46 percent increase since 1994. Why the enormous jump in Whiteclay's clientele? One reason may be the rising population of Pine Ridge, swollen by Native Americans returning to the reservation following cutbacks in welfare benefits in many states.
And that's from 1999!
Therein lies the answer, simply enforcing existing laws. What about DUI? These people have to get back to the rez somehow. I doubt very much that they have designated drivers. A sobriety checkpoint along Highway 87 between Whiteclay and the SD line ought to do the trick. And then, of course, you can hold whoever provided the alcohol just as responsible as the drunk driver.
And, of course, doing something about the root cause of the problem, the unimaginable poverty and despair on Pine Ridge, which apparently is being fueled byt the grwoing callousness of the rest of America.
background. Maybe a "no Indians allowed" sign as well. 
I'm not saying they shouldn't do something about drunk people laying around town or DUI's, but how do you stop them from selling beer to Native Americans?
The stuff made me get in a few fights when I was younger. It still makes me sing (badly). Also makes me laugh (and cry) at family funerals.
Oh woes!!!11!
We can discuss this over a pint.
I have a hunch that MEGONE is someone with whom I am familiar who resides out in Western Nebraska - someone who is just a little to conservative for DU.
I have two thoughts: First, for MEGONE and the many others in this thread who have advocated that personal reaponsibility and refusing to drink is the correct approach, I post this:
This was posted on KILI's Facebook page, and there is an interesting discussion thread.
I've stated here before at DU that whatever the Government has tried to do to help Pine Ridge - it's not working. That said, even consevatives like Dave Heinneman agree that Whiteclay is a problem. Unfortunately, Gov. Dave, like everyone else, has no idea what, if anything, can be done about it.
I can't begrudge the Oglala Sioux the pittance (in relative terms) they receive from the US, as they were promised the entirety of the Black Hills by General Sherman, and then had that promise promptly broken when gold was discovered. It's hard for a people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps when the boots were stolen. The trime is on a great mass os substandard land; it's not good for farming; buffalo don't tend to graze on it; and it's not blessed with mineral resources (or doubtless the Government would have stolen it and moved them again).
People have been highly critical (with much good reason) of the role the Catholic Church has played at Pine Ridge, but the Red Cloud School may have finally gotten things right. They've put a big emphasis on Lakota culture and language, and mixed that with an academically challenging curriculum. Someone wrote that the school has been transformed from a place that students ran from to a place they now run to. To me, it looks like they are producing the leaders who may start to solve these problems 5 to 10 years from now.