Posted on 08/03/2012 9:49:25 AM PDT by Alistair Stratford IV
In the shadow of Wounded Knee: Inside the life of the Oglala Sioux on the Pine Ridge reservation of South Dakota
The Oglala Sioux Tribe occupies a seemingly prime piece of South Dakota — a vast, scenic reservation that stands near a crossroads for tourists visiting Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, the historic Old West town of Deadwood and other popular sites.
But don't look for museums, hotels, restaurants or even many bathrooms here on the Pine Ridge Reservation, because the Lakota make little effort to attract visitors or tourism dollars, despite the fact that they are one of the nation's poorest tribes.
A generation after many other native American sought to harness their history for profit, the Oglala Sioux are still debating how much culture they are willing to share.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2182898/In-shadow-Wounded-Knee-Inside-Pine-Ridge-reservation-South-Dakota.html#ixzz22VDCSd60
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The one thing the people living onthe reservation have been denied is “Basic Property Ownership Rights” Stossle covered this on one of his shows. There is a tribe in Washington State that was denied federal tribal status a long time ago and they have Flourished! Because they stuck togetehr as a people and worked their butts off. Just down the road there is a federal reservation with some of the poorest native around. If you live on a reservation you cannot legally own any land or house, so why bother improving and taking pride in it?
I think the reservations should be dissolved and the land handed back to the tribes as private property to do with whatever they please. It is downright disturbing how much control the feds have over the reservations.
I live in the pacific northwest where tribes control a lot of the politics. They dictate environmental issues and build casinos and resorts at will, yet most of their tribal members live in squalor such as pictured about while white liberals seem to be at the top of their economic ladder as lawyers, managers, commissioners, etc..
I have been to Pine Ridge several times. Seeing the 3rd World here in America was quite a shock..
/johnny
I thought Federal law didn’t apply to the reservations....
So, Which is it? It’s federal government’s fault or INDIAN law that keeps them from owning their own land and homes???
Ooops or were you puposefully trying to mislead?
That picture does not display poverty. It displays laziness. Just because one is poor, does not mean they have to be dirty...
My daughter and I just took a huge trip through the west. For days we passed clean friendly little prairie towns, endless farms, etc. Then we pulled into Pine Ridge. It looked like we had arrived 5 minutes after a shootout. As we pulled in from the south there were no less than 25 bodies, laying motionless on sidewalks, and even in the street.
Not dead, but drunk. We went out to Wounded Knee and were treated to nothing but more drunks who appeared like zombies, trying to sell trinkets and give grossly incorrect versions of history. It was as though you drove into a bad neighborhood of Atlanta and had people trying to beg money for telling you incorrect stories of the civil war.
We passed back through pine ridge to head to the Black Hills. Stopped for fuel. Walking into the gas station, avoided vomit on the ground. Saw more cops in Pine ridge than in the past 5 days combined. Trash everywhere, abandoned cars and buildings, etc. US Government buildings and propaganda signs were everywhere. The place was a hell hole.
My college age daughter and i discussed how the only difference from the rest of the midwest was that we had crossed into a city that has forsaken the concept of private ownership of property, and was now a socialist enclave. The US government plans and funds this “community”. James Watt was right, “If you want to see the failure of socialism, dont go to the USSR. Go to an indian reservation.”
Yep. Kid is in the sink and she is on her Blackberry. Total nonsense. The poster in the back of the “Indian way” is a nice touch too.
[ I thought Federal law didn’t apply to the reservations....
So, Which is it? It’s federal government’s fault or INDIAN law that keeps them from owning their own land and homes???
Ooops or were you puposefully trying to mislead? ]
I am blaming the Beureu of Indian Affairs. which has heavy ties to the federal government. Also federal policy towards reservations which is nothing more than overt socialism.
Come on, lady - put down the ipod and clean your house and child. I do like the “Dump Daschle” sticker on the door, though.
I'm not too familiar with other tribes and the relationships but there is also the state vs fed problem. Indian land and Indians it seems are in federal trust. The rez system was at times used to protect Indian lands then to force the people to leave them. Laws preventing people from repairing their own homes was one way ensuring that an area would degrade. If they people would not give up the land, they would not see the revenue from the natural resources mined from the land.
Then there is the state. My Navajo grandparents were not allowed to vote. The states did not allow them to vote until the 50's. I do not know exactly what state they were from, the Dinetah is large. My grandfather and other family members fought in WWII for a country they loved and government that denied them the right to vote.
And bleach the heck out of the sink when the kid gets out. Or just install a new one.
They used to own the entire continent at one time and look what happened. Remeber them giving away manhattan for a handful of beads?
Many indians do not understand the concept of ownership of land. I believe the reason they are not given ownership rights is because they would lose their property.
Stripping the trim off the doorway and filling the relatively new cupboards with other stuff while leaving the dishes in a pile on the counter is not a sign of poverty, but of priorities. If people wish to live in squalor, they will.
I have been in homes well away from any reservation where the people were dirt-floor poor, but everything was spotlessly clean and and the house was neat.
Why? You never bathed a kid in the kitchen sink?
/johnny
A wide body of Federal law does apply to reservations. FBI and US Marshals are there too. The land held in collective is pretty much a tribal law, on top of federal law.
While they are called “nations” they are really more like wholly economically dependent states or US territories.
The federal govenment decided long ago that reservations were cultural collectives. This is why the tribes could not sell off their land. First, they had no desire to with no example of an ownership society. And the US Govt decided that rather than assimailation, the indians needed to stay on one parcel of land. That wouldnt work if they could sell it off.
Essentially, most reservations are essentially collectives, where the indians are wards of the state. The exceptions are found in Oklahoma and a few other places that are structured around ownership of property. It’s a little dishonest or uninformed to imply that the land ownership rules at Pine Ridge did not come from the US government.
But whatever the cause, it would take decades to undo the damage there. The dependency mindset is so ingrained, that it is probably worse than the average Russian had after 80 years of communism. Every advocate of the US govt running our lives should visit Pine Ridge.
Don’t miss the “Dump Daschle” sticker.
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