BEGRUDGING THEM AN AIRPORT
From Kevin Abourezk’s column “Red Clout”
Criticism Over Tribal Airport Borders On Racism
May 28, 2009
The first salvo of public criticism directed at tribes receiving federal stimulus came recently when a South Dakota newspaper blasted the Rosebud Sioux Tribe for receiving funding for an airport.
That tribes would be criticized for trying to pull themselves out of conditions most would describe as beyond those of a depression was inevitable.
That the criticism would be couched in language bordering on racist is shameful.
In a May 19 editorial, Madison (S.D.) Daily Leader Publisher Jon M. Hunter criticized $4.1 million of stimulus money that will pay for an airport for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe.
Hunter didn’t question that construction of the airport would fall under the provision of rebuilding infrastructure, one of the stated goals of the federal stimulus act. However, Hunter questioned whether a new airport was what was most needed on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, “where alcoholism and poverty are pervasive, education is substandard and healthcare quality is questioned.”
While failing to support his assertions with facts or statistics, Hunter continued to rail on the horrendous conditions of the reservation.
“Since many tribal members don’t have enough money to buy a used car or the gasoline for it, we would guess that there are a limited number of private or corporate airplanes at Rosebud,” he wrote.
And that’s where Hunter revealed his ignorance.
Not enough money to buy a used car or gasoline?
I think it’s safe to say Hunter has never visited the Rosebud Reservation, or any reservation for that matter. If he had, he would know just how much Indians like to cruise in used and new cars.
While poverty certainly is rampant on the Rosebud Reservation, there are still plenty of people who can afford to buy cars, gasoline and, yes, even plane tickets.
Rosebud Tribal President Rodney M. Bordeaux retorted in a column this week on Indianz.com, saying some tribal members are so angry over Hunter’s “derogatory racial stererotypes” they are considering legal action.
“If the only factual support for these statements are the gut feelings of whoever ‘we’ are, why not simply say all Native Americans are alcoholic, poor, lazy, and uneducated people?” Bordeaux wrote.
I would add that Hunter’s statements are patronizing, yet further proof of the we-know-what’s-best-for-those-poor-ignorant-Indians attitude that so many white leaders in South Dakota demonstrate.
While those leaders constantly fail to do anything to improve the lives of the Indians in their state, they can always be relied upon to criticize tribes for trying to improve their own conditions. When a tribe pursues gaming, those leaders indignantly attack tribal leaders for taking advantage of their own, while failing to offer any other solutions to severe unemployment.
Further, the notion that a tribe has no need for airport access is demeaning at best.
As Bordeaux pointed out, the airport will allow the tribe to transport critically ill patients from the reservation to larger hospitals. A significantly smaller airport on the reservation is barely able to support the more than 270 flights a year that take patients to hospitals beyond the tribe’s borders. Construction of the airport will create about 150 jobs, thus meeting a very clear goal of the stimulus act: job creation.
Hunter’s editorial reminds me of the criticism directed at former Sen. Ted Stevens for his efforts to gain federal funding for the notorious “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska. Where that argument breaks down in this context is in the idea that the Rosebud Reservation is “nowhere.”
Rather, more than 20,000 tribal members call the reservation home. They are mothers, fathers, children and elders who require adequate access to emergency health care. So if an airport can help them get the care they need, that’s exactly what they should use their share of stimulus money to build.
Ignorant white leaders be damned.
Kevin Abourezk, Rosebud Lakota, is a reporter and editor at the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star. He writes reznet’s “Red Clout” political blog and teaches reporting at the Freedom Forum’s American Indian Journalism Institute. Abourezk was awarded a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism in 2006.
July 6th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Hi. I am happy to read a column that exposes racism. This needs to be done to let people know that it is not okay to write racist comments and opinions about Indians, and that these publicly made comments will not be ignored or approved of. Many, too many, Caucasian people harbor really racist ideas about Indians and sometimes these ideas show themselves in their truly ugly form. Mr. Abourezk please keep up the good work. For ourselves, remember that the best defense against racism is to flourish and prosper. Thank you for the opportunity to express my thoughts here.