Is This True Pine Ridge Indian Reservation Is The Poorest Place In America? (Sioux Falls: leases, wage)

[DeadwoodJ]

My wife and I were looking at a house just because a few months ago that cost $285,000, it had 5 bedrooms, three bathrooms and other amenities, the basement was basically a live in suite with a theater room, family room and two of the bedrooms and 1 of the bathrooms. And it was almost brand new as well, so I don't know where you live in South Dakota that you cannot buy a very nice house for less than that. Heck, I'm sure you could even build a six bedroom house for less than that if you don't have to have the high end cabinets, countertops, etc. How many bedrooms do you think a typical Lakota would need? I don't know if this a good comparison or appropriate but why can't the Lakota make their reservation almost self-sufficient like the Hutterites? I know the Hutterites get their food and items from stores, but they are able to farm/ranch etc on their small colonies, I'm pretty sure that reservation would allow some sort of business that would benefit the entire population. What about wind farms? I'm pretty sure that they would be able to get grants to put large amounts on their land and earn money for them, if they have free university and schooling why not take advantage of it and help themselves. But it always brings us back to the same old story, no matter who you're talking about, you can't help someone who don't want to help themselves! And I'm not racist or not understanding or anything, I'm just stating my opinion and that's all anyone can do!

[rjl78]

I purchased an older 3 bedroom house with one bath for less than 60K 6 years ago. 120K will buy a really nice newer house here.

[Jammie]

Real estate in the Hills area is the highest in the state. It even surpasses Sx. Falls. For $100,000, you can get a very nice house in my area.

As far as wind farms, they have already put the turbines up on a few reservations. IF nothing has changed from three years ago, the landowners don't have to pay for a thing. The turbines are put on the land and the company is the one who pays for them. They pay a very good price for each turbine they put on your land. One of the few qualifications is that you be within a few miles of a substation. SO, they are already collecting $$ for this and you've got a good suggestion because it could be expanded.

Here's another thought~EACH Sioux would receive that amount of money. Is that correct? Since the families are normally 6 people or more, that's a lot of $$ for a family and you would only need to use the 313,000 from ONE family member and live in an extremely nice and large house. But where do you go from there? Will they be responsible enough to use the rest to pay taxes, insurance, and upkeep on the house? Will they be responsible enough to save most of what their children get either for higher education OR for them to be able to buy into a business when they're grown? Will all the handouts them stop? Will the money that has already been given to them be deducted from that amount?

No one is being racist by trying to come up with solutions. But it's always just easier to scream "Racism" when questions are asked. It evokes pity from many people who have no idea what the situation really is. It's also much easier then confronting the issues and trying to seek solutions.

http://www.eco-innovation.net/node/8093

http://windenergynews.blogspot.com/2...deal-will.html

http://www.eastriver.coop/energy/renewable/wind.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/10/us...=1&_r=1&ref=us

A couple of these articles are about the same region. The last article explains that no money is needed up front from the Rez. All they supply is the land.

[Future Trooper]

i wish $313,000 would go far here. in my county parcels of land in the Eastern Townships in a sub-division cost no less than $270,000 and about $300,000 for a lot outside a sub-division.

[dpf]

Jammie, You have made some very good points about home ownership regardless of a persons race. It's just not the house payment that has to be taken into consideration. Home ownership has numerous responsiblities that many people don't take into consideration before they purchase a home. Probably why so many people can't meet the responsiblities of their home at this time..because they just thought they had to make one monthly payment that would cover everything...just like when they were renting.

[Polycarp of John]

Jammie wanted to know what solutions I would offer. My best ones are in my previous posts.

It is horrible to see the kind of poverty that exists in Pine Ridge. It can make one very angry.

1. My first solution after the ones I already wrote about in this thread to the problems at Pine Ridge would be to have people who are interested in doing something about it study the culture. Ella DeLoria was one of the really superb Sioux anthropologists, and people should study her articles and books. Her husband was surnamed McBride, and he was good also.

Here's what happens if you don't study the culture. In the 1950s the govt decided to put in a drink your milk campaign to get the children at Pine Ridge to impove their health by drinking milk. Every day in school the teacher made each child tell if he or she had had milk at all the meals. Lakota people become lactose intolerant soon after babyhood, but Euro Americans didn't know that. The Lakota did know they couldn't drink milk, and that's why they didn't cooperate with the doctors by making their children drink milk. So they were labeled uncooperative, unconcerned, etc. Back to the schools. The children wanted to please the teacher and get gold stars, so they drank their milk. Very soon, they all started getting sick. Finally the mothers went to the schools and demanded that the questioning of their children stop because milk was making their children sick, and they were not going to let their children drink milk, and home life should be private. The drink your milk campaign ended. And that's why you have to make a good study of the culture before you try to help anyone from a culture that's not your own.

2. I'd like to see an extensive alcohol education program in the schools, churches, and community, going clear down to kindergarten. Native Americans have a substance in their blood that inhibits the metabolism of alcohol. They share this trait with Asians. It's genetic. The alcohol gets stuck for a while at the acetaldehyde stage of its breakdown in which it is very toxic. It damages the body and can cause irritability, etc. The Asians have had experience with alcohol for thousands of years and have developed strong cultural practices to limit its use. The Native Americans haven't had alcohol for even 200 years, so there hasn't been time to evolve anything through the usual tribal culture. If people knew that part of the Native American problems with alcohol were a genetic trait that results in the blood inhibiting the metabolism of alcohol, there would be a lot less blame, a lot more understanding, and the possibility of evolving a way of managing alcohol according to the values of the culture. The reason the education needs to go down to kindergarten is that little children are already forming their impressions about alcohol use from what they see at home and in the community. They need to be taught about their genetics.

2a. There need to be alcoholism treatment facilities all over the reservation that involve the families of the alcoholic and that base all their treatment on this fact of a genetic inhibition to the metabolism of alcohol. That should be the first point. The program should include a lot of alcohol information and physical building up and should do what the native Americans are already trying to do, which is use the values of the culture in the treatment programs.


3. Every good improvement plan starts with infrastructure. The reason Ireland is now one of the richest countries in Europe instead of the poorest is that the European Union gave them aid in 3 specific areas--infrastructure (paving and widening dirt roads, strengthening bridges), ports (building a modern port with facilities for the huge ships and container ships), and getting their extensive dairy industry up to European standards so they could trade on the European markets (providing farmers with pasteurizing equipment and other modern dairy equipment and giving them intensive training in how to use it). After the infrastructure and ports were brought up to date, Dell Computer, Microsoft, and then other computer companies started to build facilities in Ireland and lots of people got jobs, because Ireland already had an excellent education system. The farmers started trading in the European markets. Now Ireland imports labor from England.

So I would like to see the infrastructure in Pine Ridge brought up to date (pave and widen all the dirt roads, strengthen bridges), so that if anyone has anything to sell, they will be able to get it to market, and so that if someone wants a wind mill on his property, the trucks will be able the carry the very heavy device to his land. Those trucks break on dirt roads.

4. I would like to see studies on the feasibility of building an aqueduct to Pine Ridge, because everything I've heard is that there isn't enough water there to support the needs of a factory. An aqueduct or a pipeline could bring in enought water to make it realistic to build a factory in Pine Ridge.

This is in case they can start a rope making industry to make the thick heavy ropes used to tie up cargo ships, cruise ships, Navy ships, Coast Guard ships, Merchant Marine ships, and large sailing ships, and also some Army uses, etc. Preparing US Govt developed INDUSTRIAL hemp with very miniscule amounts of THC that the govt developed for making military ropes for use probably involves soaking the plants, so a factory would need water. If they make paper from the INDUSTRIAL hemp that the govt developed to prevent its use as an intoxicant, they would also need a lot of water.

5. I would like to see the people try growing INDUSTRIAL hemp that can't be used as an intoxicant and doesn't look like marijuana, so they can sell it to rope making factories in the southeast or make it into rope and paper in their own factories. Then they will have an income. INDUSTRIAL hemp is not difficult for novice farmers to learn to grow. This has already been tried by a native American family at Pine Ridge, and it does grow well there. It is the only plant that has ever been farmed successfully at Pine Ridge. Ordinary farming isn't possible because the soil is too poor and there isn't enough water.

6. Pine Ridge needs a hardware store and access to a tool co-op. Your can't fix a bicycle if you can't get the parts. Ditto for your home. Nobody is going to walk two miles to White Clay and two miles back to get hardware every time something breaks.

7. I would like to see basic home repair, car tune up, and basic bicycle repair community service classes offered to teen agers and adults, especially women. You might have to educate the women and girls separately from the men and boys. Mixed classes on car tune ups in my town resulted in the women getting razzed for not knowing how to tell when a spark plug was properly gapped.

8. Culture again. Pine Ridge's culture developed from living in a tipi and following the buffalo. The behaviors and body language that allows you to have some privacy while living in a tipi are very different from what works in European based societies. The people in Pine Ridge are not that far removed from their ancestors who lived in tipis. Their body language can get them in trouble when they're off the reservation.

It isn't appropriate in Lakota culture to make eye contact with the person who is talking to you. You look down. The more important the person is, the further down you look. Looking at the person who is talking to you is an invasion of his privacy. If you are respectful of his privacy, you look down.

Here's what happens when a Euro American hasn't studied the culture. A caucasian teacher was scolding a Lakota second grade boy. He was a pretty good boy most of the time, and his family followed the Lakota rules. He stood straight with his head down. The teacher ordered him to look at me when I speak to you. She sounded so angry that he thought he should be more respectful, so he looked down further. She shouted again that he should look at her, and he looked down even further. She was infuriated, and she grabbed his face in her hands and pulled up his chin. He kept his eyes down. She thought he was defying her instead of being respectful. She escalated it into a major behavioral incident. She never asked the local people why the boy wouldn't look at her.

9. When you live in a tipi, it is not a good idea to aquire a lot of material goods. There isn't room for them, and they add to the weight you have to transport and to the bulk of the bundle you have to make and fit on a travois. You have pottery cooking and eating utensils, things made from buffalo bones, buffalo robe blankets for warmth, your hide tipi cover (very big and very heavy), basic clothes, weapons for hunting and fighting, and not a lot else. It's skill in relationships that counts, because you all live in a pretty small space, and everyone has to cooperate with each other, sharing meat, some chores, etc. or the tribe won't survive.

I do not like to see people who come from a tribal life like this be split up (unless they choose). It usually results in disaster. Programs to send Native American young people to college with extra support and mentoring and remedial classes if needed and tutors, etc. etc. didn't work. Most of the students dropped out, even if their grades were good. They needed to get back to their own people who shared their values and their body language and their culture. That's why Community Colleges were built on the reservation, and they're successful. And so are their students.

10. I'd like to see programs like the ones that were used in some African countries when they got majority rule to make a transition from the Black Hills as it is now to Native American control. The Africans recognized that they had no experience in some aspects of things like large farming and trading on the international markets, so they turned the EuroAfricans into consultants and advisors. I think it was Zimbabwe that was coming along nicely with that arrangement until Mugabe decided to get rid of all EuroAfricans.

11. The Lakota own the Black Hills forever by treaty. The govt offer of money was a settlement offer, I think. Settlement offers and counter offers can go on forever. I think the best solution is to transition the Black Hills into Lakota control. Then they will have enough resources to do whatever they want.

12. We EuroAmericans need to distinguish between what is corruption and what is a value based on the needs of survival. There are rules about sharing your good fortune when you shoot a buffalo. It isn't yours, except for the liver. It gets shared with the tribe, or everyone starves, and when they all starve, you lose your support when someone attacks you. Some of these sharing values make a problem when someone gets an important job. There is clearly corruption at Pine Ridge, but everyone needs to look at it and find out how much is sharing and how much is real corruption.

[Polycarp of John]

Pine Ridge should have credit unions if it doesn't already. It's the only way anyone there can get credit unless s/he has enough horses to sell.

Another thing that might work at Pine Ridge is micro credit if someone isn't already doing it. Micro credit involves very small loans that are too small for a bank or credit union to service. They're made so someone can buy supplies for a craft like beads, bead frames, and strings and leather. Then they sell what they make and get money to pay back the micro loan. Or they could buy what they need to plant and tend INDUSTRIAL hemp, which was developed by the govt for making military and naval rope and was made intoxicant free. When they sell it to a rope making company, they pay back the loan. There is usually no interest. The payback rates are 95%, and the inventor of micro credit Dr. Mohammed Yunus of Bangladesh got a Nobel Prize. I don't think they could get a windmill with it, because the device is huge and very expensive.

[Jammie]

Poly, you do have some very good suggestions. Actually, I really do understand a bit about what you are saying in the respect that it's a different culture and they have been persecuted in the past just for doing things that the Euro-Americans have not understood. I have a friend who was shipped off to a school in the 60s and was beaten by nuns and of course, food was very scarce for the children. They were also always cold. I did learn from a nice young gent whom I worked with about the eye contact thing. I thought he was just shy until he explained it.

So are you suggesting a small technical school would be a good start? I honestly don't know anything about the hemp growing so I won't comment on it.

Would there be any possibilities of a factory on the Rez just to get many of them employed? If alcohol treatment centers were accessible throughout the Rez, that could probably be the start for them to be more productive and dependable workers.

Tuberculosis is also a problem there. If alcoholism and TB were taken curbed, that would also be a start.

You seem to live in an area where Russell Means has located to. Have you ever spoken to him? If a few of the radicals worked on solutions, could something be improved within a generation or two?

Oh, and if you think I'm prejudiced toward Indians, you don't wanna get me started as to the nasty things my own race has done to other races.

[Polycarp of John]

It isn't a good thing to jump to conclusions about people you meet on the internet. I'm not a radical, I don't know Russell Means, and I currently live more than 3,000 miles from Pine Ridge.

I like the ideas about solving social problems that are in a book by the Catholic Church called Compendium of the Church's Social Justice Teachings.

If the Lakota can get some factories for making rope or paper from the INDUSTRIAL hemp that was developed by the US govt around World War II to be virtually intoxicant free and produce very very strong fibers, then I think a good way to get the income from the factories spread around would be to run them as co-ops with the employees and the INDUSTRIAL hemp farmers as members. If the Lakota can't find a qualified factory manager among their own people, then the co-op board can hire someone. The same with cost accountants and financial officers, until some of the students who are at the Community College can get certified as cost accountants. Since the managers would be hired by the co-op board, they could be fired, if they didn't work with the tribe to adjust working conditions and relationships to the Lakota culture. The managers could also be required to train Lakota interns who were getting appropriate degrees that would allow them to replace the managers. Part of the managers' job description would be to replace themselves as soon as qualified Lakota graduates were available. They could get a bonus as incentive for replacing themselves.

Since Pine Ridge has Community Colleges, there might not be a need for a technical college on the reservation. Most community colleges have a good range of technical courses and vocational courses as well as liberal arts. Rapid City has the SD School of Mines and Technology, and it's only 120 miles away. Lakota students can do 2 years at the community college on the reservation and then 2 years at the School of Mines. The state could have the School of Mines add any specialized courses that were needed for INDUSTRIAL hemp industries.

But if the need develops, then there's no reason not to have a technical college on the reservation.

But this all depends on Congress approving the growing of US govt INDUSTRIAL hemp on the reservation.

[DeadwoodJ]

I'm sorry, but you continue to talk about about the Industrial Hemp thing, why is that seemingly you're only solution? do you have some sort of vested interest in that particular industry? (No Offense) Also, I don't think she was jumping to conclusions, she just asked a question, no harm in that. I liked some of the ideas that you brought up in a couple posts back about the home repair, etc. But some people learn that in tech/community schools so they should be able to just start teaching that..