Howie Hates Interracial Marriage and Women in Workforce

The worst writer (and that's saying a lot!) in Gordon Howie's Potemkin blog village, Brad Ford, sullies Election Day with a double dip of doofusry, exposing the true racism and sexism behind Gordon Howie's "conservative" agitation:

After all, isn’t the political “Iron Triangle”–government, education, media–really “owned” by the Left?  Does anyone think for a minute that Western Civilization, Christianity, and traditional values will fare well under liberals of any stripe?  Gay sex will prosper, racial blending will surge, a food-stamp mentality will flourish, and harassed women will be prominent in the consumer-driven workforce-but is that really progress? [emphasis in original; Brad Ford, "Right Must Work Harder Regardless of Who Wins," Right Side, November 6, 2012]

Good grief. I know Howie likes Mein Kampf. But wow: in one sentence, Ford says that interracial marriage and women in the workforce are both bad things.

I don't know who's funding Gordon Howie's little media fantasy game. But we need to find them, show them the racist, sexist garbage Howie is peddling, and ask them if that's really how they want their money spent. If they don't, then they can pull their funding, and Howie can pay his own way for his organization's White Man's agenda. And if they do, we can hold them accountable right along with Brad Ford and Gordon Howie for their retrograde racism and sexism.

Argus Endorses Racist Peters from District 9

South DaCola reports that Representative Deb Peters (R-9/Hartford), the Republican who received the endorsement from Sioux Falls's big liberal-media newspaper, believes our Native American neighbors' problems are their own darn fault. In a debate Friday with Democratic challenger Rob Wilson, Peters said twice that Indians are "genetically predisposed" to many of the problems they face.

In other words, to make life better on the reservation, it's not Peters's job to come up with the kind of practical policy solutions her Democratic challenger Rob Wilson would work for. In Peters's happy world, we can blame the Indians and focus on simply teaching them how genetically inferior they are to us white folks who wisely used alcohol and deception to conquer them.

Nice endorsement, Sioux Falls newspaper.
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In related news, there is a hilarious story of thoughtless sleaze floating around District 9 about another candidate. Alas, I can't get anyone to go on record about it. The standard reason for declining runs along the lines of, "It's true, the behavior was inappropriate and should be called out, but this person has power and we have to work with this person, so we'd better not mention it."

In other words, "South Dakota Nice" means we only call out the people who don't have power they might use against us... rather like the Madison Daily Leader going after State Senate candidate and assisted living center operator Clark Schmidtke's criminal record but not State Senator and economic development officer Russell Olson's criminal record.

Year of Unity Note: Remember the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians

Pierre has been putting out press releases promoting the "Year of Unity" declared by Governor Rounds to revive the reconciliation process started by Governor Mickelson in 1990. The latest notes Eagle Butte's upcoming Centennial celebration and Hometown Days July 15–18.

Perhaps the Year of Unity notes from Pierre are focusing on positive things happening now that can bring whites and Indians together. But unity also requires a shared understanding of our complete history, of the actions and abuses that made us the peoples we are.

Consider, for instance, the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians in Canton, South Dakota.

The federal government authorized this facility in 1899. It took its first inmate on December 31, 1902. In its thirty-year history, the asylum racked up a litany of atrocities.

The facility was run first by political appointee, former Canton mayor, and former South Dakota Congressman Oscar Gifford. Having no background in health care or mental illness, Gifford got the nod from the Bureau of Indian Affairs because he arranged the acquisition of the land for the asylum. Gifford was replaced amidst a scandal over patient Lizzie Vipont's becoming pregnant.

Gifford's replacement, Dr. Harry R. Hummer, was no improvement. He starved the patients while his wife secured more rations for his family. He didn't hire staff with formal medical training until the 1920s.

Souvenir spoon and plate from the Hiawatha Asylum. See also this postcard.
Photos provided by my neighbor and local historian John Hess, who wrote a great essay on the Canton asylum for the July 2009 Heritage Herald newsletter of the Lake County Historical Society.

Many patients had no mental illness. Some were essentially political prisoners, shipped off to Canton for making trouble on their home reservations. Patients were physically, emotionally, and sexually abused. Cells had no furnishings, no electricity, no plumbing, just overflowing, untended chamberpots. An inspection by Dr. Samuel Silk from St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. found the following appalling conditions:

Patients were found poorly clothed. Many of them were tied to their beds or found handcuffed to pipes or radiators. One woman was found lying in mounds of her own feces infested with maggots. Yet another was found gagged inside a locked room. Those that were coherent attempted to escape or tried to fight for their release by writing to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs only to have their requests dismissed when Dr. Hummer stepped in and made up a good excuse for their continued committal.

Hospital equipment was not used appropriately or at all. The surgery built in the separate hospital building was used for coal storage. TB patients were not sequestered, nor were their utensils or clothing sterilized as required. Menus were not kept but the food served to Dr. Silk was barely edible for animal consumption, let alone human consumption, and was described in its grisly detail in his report ["A Brief History of the Hiawatha Asylum," Hiawatha Foundation, last updated 2009.09.12].

The City of Canton saw the asylum as an economic development tool. Dr. Hummer happily advertised the asylum as a vacation destination, a place to "come see the crazy Indians." The asylum generated $40,000 a year in revenue for the city and provided numerous local jobs. In 1933, new Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier declared the "institution was so outrageously cruel and injurious that we would deserve to be blown out of the water if we continued it." But when the commissioner moved to end those outrages and close the asylum, the City of Canton went to court to keep their federal pork, arguing it was wrong to take federal jobs away in the midst of the Depression. The city also enlisted area tribal members to fight to keep the asylum open: the Rosebud Sioux, for instance, did not want inmates from their tribe transferred even farther from home.

Uncle Sam transferred the inmates out of the Hiawatha Asylum in December 1933. Seventy patients were sent to St. Elizabeth's in Washington, D.C. Twenty-seven inmates were deemed not insane and released. The government officially closed the facility in 1934. Of the horrific conditions that led to the asylum's closure, the City of Canton's official history says only that "Federal reports and assessments cited mismanagement, mistreatment, politics and the economy as the reasons for the closure."

The facility housed 374 Native Americans from 50 tribes around the country. 121 died and were buried on the asylum grounds. The cemetery remains in the middle of the Hiawatha Country Club and Golf Course, between the fourth and fifth fairways.

The Augustana College School and Wheels and the old Norwegian Ski Hill both have state historical markers in the area. A historical marker for the old asylum and the 121 Native Americans buried on the grounds would be an appropriate Year of Unity gesture.

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Read more:

1. Elizabeth Stawicki, "A Haunting Legacy: Canton Insane Asylum for American Indians," Minnesota Public Radio, 1997.12.09
2. Friends of Hiawatha Project, maintaining Web archive and seeking to produce documentary. Also offering a large bibliography for serious historians.
   
3. Carla Joinson, Canton Asylum for Insane Indians: history blog and book project
   

Year of Unity Not Going Well... or Is It?

Aloysius Dreaming Bear lost his lawsuit against the Oelrichs School District, which refused to let Dreaming Bear or any of the Lakota students that keep the school open wear traditional Lakota robes for graduation. The Rapid City School District kept its foot out of the bad press bear trap and granted permission for an American Indian student to wear Lakota regalia to graduation.

Eric Zimmer writes a thoughtful discussion of reaction to the graduation controversies in The Dakota Day. He notes that the Oelrichs controversy, along with the "White Pride" t-shirt incident at Chamberlain High School and police shooting of a local Native man, made the most recent "Campaign to Unite a Community" less about unity and more about recrimination and continuing distrust. The controversy also brought out crotchety old white man Gordon Garnos to gripe about those darned Indians and their "so-called rights" and to tell our native neighbors that they have "bigger battles to fight." (Garnos's gripe originally appeared on South Dakota's best source of white-rage-entitlement thinking, Dakota Voice, but has since disappeared.)

Angry words don't sound like the right first step toward the "Year of Unity" that Governor Rounds mentioned back in February. But maybe they are. Perhaps there are arguments we need to have, grievances we need to air, before we can make any progress toward reconciliation. Maybe we white folks don't get to clap at a few comfortable pow-wows and call it good. Maybe we do need to be reminded of every symbol of the oppression we've perpetrated. Maybe our Lakota neighbors need to be reminded of every way in which they have failed to live up to the ideals of Black Elk and their ancestors.

We may not like angry words and confrontation. But South Dakotans of all races have a lot to confront. Some angry rallies and arguments may be exactly what the Year of Unity needs.

Race, Power, and Unity: Hunter Wrong on Indians

Our man Hunter comments on the two big racial incidents making headlines in Chamberlain and Oelrichs. In last night's Madison Daily Leader editorial, he blames those trouble-making Indians:

We find the term "white pride" offensive, as it implies white people are different than [sic] others and should celebrate their unique heritage.

But if that's true, why does the Chamberlain School District allow T-shirts that say "Native Pride" on them? We believe that statement also implies racial differences and causes unnecessary tension.

...Oelrichs graduates are expected to wear caps and gowns with school colors at the ceremony. If Aloysius Dreaming Bear wins the lawsuit, he will wear clothing that will emphasize a racial difference and clearly stand out from his classmates.

Dreaming Bear says he wants to honor his culture and his people. While those may be his intentions, the reality is that it unnecessarily divides his class into different groups [Jon Hunter, "Two incidents show that 'pride' and 'honor' harm race relations," Madison Daily Leader, 2010.05.04].

If there's anything that motivates publisher and advertiser Hunter, it's avoiding unnecessary tension and division... for the white folks (and advertisers) in charge.

I'll admit I have a harder time arguing against Hunter on the Chamberlain incident. High school students are often obsessed with fairness, and they often perceive fairness as Hunter does, as absolute equality. Had I been a Chamberlain student, I might well have joined the "white pride" shirt wearers as a "fairness" and free-speech provocateur: if one group can publicly declare pride in their identity, why can't every group?

My worldview has grown a bit since high school. I recognize that fairness is not complete equality. I recognize that Native Pride, Black Pride, and White Pride are not equivalent statements. Lakota people declaring Native Pride are making a countercultural statement, an active defense of a minority cultural identity imperiled by the pressure of the majority. People of European ancestry declaring White Pride are defending a dominant culture and powers-that-be that don't need defending. I don't need to shout White Pride to feel secure in my cultural identity when the culture around me screams "White! White! White!" at almost every turn. If Lakota people want to be Lakota, they have to work a little harder to keep a grip on who they are and where they've come from.

I understand that both Native Pride and White Pride may be interpreted as a verbal flipping of the bird at folks of other colors. But Hunter's assimilationism misses a crucial point: in cultural and historical context, Native Pride is more often than not defensive; White Pride is more often than not offensive (both meanings).

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The Oelrichs graduation lawsuit is an easier call. Hunter is just wrong. Hunter baselessly rejects the honest intentions of a student as unnecessary division. To suggest that Aloysius Dreaming Bear is dividing his class into two groups is nonsense. The class is already divided into two groups, whites and Indians, by its own superintendent Lawrence Jaske, who clearly views Indian students as a drag on his budget who don't bring tax dollars from Pine Ridge or Red Cloud when they open-enroll. The class is already divided by the dominant culture into kids who will be looked at suspiciously when they walk into the gas station and kids who won't.

Jaske insists kids should have to wear the traditional graduation robes because "We're not a Native American school." Yet this year's graduating class at Oelrichs consists of nine Indian kids and one white kid. If we're really worried about creating unnecessary division, maybe it would be easier to just ask that one white kid to wear an Indian robe.

It's easy for Jaske and Hunter to say everyone should conform to a single standard, regardless of race... when that standard is still defined by the dominant culture of which they (and I) are comfortable members.

I seem to recall Governor Rounds saying something about a "Year of Unity" to take up Governor Mickelson's unfinished work on reconciliation between white and red. I would suggest the incidents at Oelrichs and Chamberlain demonstrate the need to recognize Unity as something more complicated than assimilation.

GOP Boss: Obama Catches More Heat Because He's Black

My father-in-law gave me grief this weekend for suggesting the Tea Bags are motivated in significant part by racism. but today it's not me playing the race card on some of President Obama's critics; it's Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele:

[George] Stephanopoulos, offering up a question from a viewer named "Myron" via his blog, asked, "Do you feel that, as an African-American, you have a slimmer margin for error than another chairman would?"

"The honest answer is yes," Steele responded. "Barack Obama has a slimmer margin. A lot of folks do. It's a different role for me to play and others to play and that's just the reality of it. But you take that as part of the nature of it" [Brett Michael Dykes, "RNC Chairman Michael Steele says he and Obama have it harder because of their race," Yahoo News: The Newsroom blog, 2010.04.05].

Ring the bell: school's in for spin in the comment section....

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Update: Let's go to the videotape... and some commentary from Newsy.com:

Martin Luther King Commemoration Monday in Brookings

Given we have talk-radio-fueled psychos issuing ultimata to governors to quit or be "forcibly removed" and trailer-park soldier wannabes thinking it's God's will to kill cops and overthrow the government, maybe we should all take a moment to recall where such behavior can lead.

The Brookings Public Library hosts a commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King on Monday, April 5, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The event will include a presentation of Dr. King's April 4, 1967, "Beyond Vietnam" speech, along with a photo montage by local artist Phyllis Cole-Dai. A group discussion will follow. The program is sponsored by the Brookings Humans Rights Committee (yes, the city has one!).

That MLK speech has come to my attention often. Some key lines:

...We are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside . . . but one day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that a system that produces beggars needs to be repaved. We are called to be the Good Samaritan, but after you lift so many people out of the ditch you start to ask, maybe the whole road to Jericho needs to be repaved....

...A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

Martin Luther King's calls for social justice sprang from his Christianity. Those calls provoked rage from whites desperate to "take our country back!" from people who don't "deserve" America. The same rage that led to King's murder by a racist thug 22 years ago Sunday sounds uncomfortably familiar to today's politics.

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Read more: Bob Herbert discusses the relevance of Dr. King's 1967 speech to today's foreign policy in Afghanistan... a costly endeavor of our federal government about which Tea Bags are confusedly and confusingly silent.

Cleaver Shows Class, Protesters Show Futile Hatred

Admit it: the "Tea Party" is nothing more than cursing and spitting wrapped in a cute marketing slogan. They showed their true colors yesterday in D.C., literally spitting their futile invective at Congressmen while pretending to protest health insurance reform.

Also showing his true colors: Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, Democrat from Missouri. He caught some bodily fluid and a racial epithet from someone in the Tea Party crowd. His grace-under-pressure response, via spokesman:

This is not the first time the Congressman has been called the "n" word and certainly not the worst assault he has endured in his years fighting for equal rights for all Americans. That being said, he is disappointed that in the 21st century our national discourse has devolved to the point of name calling and spitting. He looks forward to taking a historic vote on health care reform legislation tomorrow, for the residents of the Fifth District of Missouri and for all Americans. He believes deeply that tomorrow's vote is, in fact, a vote for equality and to secure health care as a right for all. Our nation has a history of struggling each time we expand rights. Today's protests are no different, but the Congressman believes this is worth fighting for [spokesman for Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, quoted by Patrick O'Connor and James Hohmann, "Dems Say Protesters Used N-Word," Politico, 2010.03.20].

Dems, passing health insurance reform will do a lot of good for a lot of Americans. That's all the reason you need to vote for this bill. But if it helps, remember that passing health insurance reform will also crush this so-called Tea Party and remind the cussers and spitters that America belongs to all of us.

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p.s.: Congressman Cleaver also blogs... with the free Blogger platform! Bonus!

Pastor Hickey on Lakota and Black Hills: Reconciliation? Try Reparations

There are numerous reasons Pastor Steve Hickey should blog about something other than abortion. One big reason: when he talks about issues like justice for Native Americans, he makes a lot of sense:

Personally, at this point, I support more listening, more conversation, and some creativity toward a mutually acceptable accord which may or may not include some kind of Lakota Makoce Wakan (sacred place/land, Sioux sanctuary or sacred memorial grounds) in the Black Hills National Forest. Should the Black Hills be given back? Not today. But today is the day to come together and look at every conceivable angle of how best to right this national wrong. It will take more patience on behalf of the Sioux, and more remorse on behalf of the United States. The Resolution of Apology to Native American Peoples is merely the starting place for a better life together and my hope is that South Dakotans genuinely support this and that native South Dakotans receive it sincerely. Mutually acceptable reparations must follow and, since the issue is land, I’m not sure anything short of some form of land settlement will receive mutual support [Pastor Steve Hickey, "Should We Give the Black Hills Back?" Voices Carry, 2010.01.25].

I double-dog-dare Governor Rounds to offer straight talk like that as he spearheads the "Year of Unity." I also hope Pastor Hickey's voice will carry as we try to restart Euro-Lakota reconciliation.

p.s.: Props to Pastor Hickey on being the first radical conservative I've heard to decry the IRS seizure and auction of tribal land on Crow Creek. Pay attention to his comment that the United States had better hope China doesn't take the same tack over our red ink.

Bob Ellis Spreads Misogyny and Racism in Obama Sissification

Obama hangs curtains at a teen shelter, January 19, 2009. Reuters

Bob Ellis posts one of the stupidest things I've heard from him all month. He recycles old e-mail forward fodder that I can trace back to some rag called the Oregon Catalyst, which juxtaposes photos of Ronald Reagan running a chain saw, George W. Bush clearing brush, and Barack Obama hanging curtains. Bob's clear intent: to perpetuate the "Obama is a sissy" meme (which didn't exactly win over the electorate last year).

Andrew Munson offers a good response:

I like this.

Reagan - sawing wood at his expensive ranch.
Bush - hauling wood at his expensive ranch.
Obama - hanging curtains at a homeless shelter, while doing work for charity.

Goodness, Barack. What a girl! Helping out the homeless... [Andrew Munson, comment, Oregon Catalyst, 2009.05.19]

Barack Obama paints a wall at a teen shelter, January 19, 2009. CBS

So does Erin Heidelberger:

Seriously? Why isn't serving at a homeless shelter for teenagers considered real work? He painted, too--is that manly enough for you? I think it says a lot about a man whether he's willing to work in actual service to someone else or merely clean up a little around his own ranch [Erin Heidelberger, comment, "The Measure of a Man," Dakota Voice, 2009.06.24].

I was going to say, Bob, that if you need to portray a powerful and articulate black man as a sissy just to affirm your own manhood, then fine, knock yourself out. But no. Bob, your insults are misogynist. They are sexist. They contradict your professed Christianity. And they don't contribute in the least to intelligent political debate. So knock it off.

I welcome criticism and disagreement. But when you have to stoop to calling the President or anyone else a weenie, you've got nothing.

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Update 2009.06.25 08:35 CDT: Predictably, Ellis responds with the usual mishmash of red herrings and challenges to the manhood of any man who disagrees with him. He suggests my argument is nothing more than pandering to feminists (like Anna at DakotaWomen, who concurs with my critique).

My friends, forgive me my response:

"pander to feminists": oh Bob. I take the feminist line because it is against my principles to try proving my point by getting into a silly macho showdown. I also take the feminist line because (darn, I am about to violate my principles) beating you in a silly macho showdown (what, clearing brush? hauling railroad ties? building a deck? biking 50 miles?) would be far too easy.

For penance, say it with me, Red Green fans: "I'm a man, but I can change, if I have to, I guess."

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Update 13:00 CDT: A few commenters have had some criticism, but only Tim has had the courtesy to attach his name to said criticism. Thank you, Tim. Everyone else must be trolling the blogs from their work computers....

Rosebud Lakota Criticize Madison Editorial on Airport Stimulus Funding

The Internet is a big place—it takes a while to read everything. That's why it took me until this weekend to find this criticism of Madison's news mogul Jon Hunter.

Back up to May 19, when the Madison Daily Leader publisher wrote that he was "taken aback" by the allocation of $4.1M in stimulus money to build an airport on the Rosebud reservation:

While there is no question that airports can be considered infrastructure, we question the value of building a new airport on the Rosebud reservation. This is an area that is considered among the poorest parts of the country, where alcoholism and poverty are pervasive, education is substandard and healthcare quality is questioned.

So the best way to spend $4.1 million there is on a new airport? [Jon Hunter, "Does a New Airport at Rosebud Help with Economic Recovery?" Madison Daily Leader, 2009.05.19]

Hunter says the airport money is a waste and would have had more impact if diverted to other infrastructure projects, such as the "schools, detention centers, and roads" the stimulus bill is also building.

Hunter's argument doesn't go over well with a couple of Native American writers. Rosebud Tribal President Rodney M. Bordeaux labels Hunter's editorial "stereotypical, racist, and the kind of polemic that demonstrate the ignorant and uneducated attitudes and animosity against Native Americans that lives on in South Dakota." President Bordeaux hammers Hunter for citing no sources to back his assertions (hyperlinks can be your friend, Jon!).

Now we can go back and forth on whether saying there's poverty and alcoholism on the reservation is racist. Beyond that discussion, Bordeaux argues exactly how a new airport can help address some of the problems Hunter identifies:

Adequate health care for Tribal members is a priority of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. A new airport in Rosebud , South Dakota, would permit the transportation of emergency status patients directly from Rosebud to larger hospitals in either Rapid City, or Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where there are trauma centers, burn treatment centers, and emergency surgery bays. At the present time the only airport for transporting patients is about 15 miles away from Rosebud, and is not sufficient to meet our needs. There are more than two hundred seventy plus flights a year from our hospital alone!

A fully functioning airport not only provides emergency medical transportation, but can foster economic development in the areas of tourism, hunting and fishing, and other tribal economic development projects. Approximately 150 jobs will be created by this funding [Rodney M. Bordeaux, President, Rosebud Sioux Tribe, "Rosebud Sioux President: Stimulus Will Help Tribe," Indianz.com, 2009.05.27].

Kevin Abourezk, a Rosebud Lakota who reports for the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal-Star and writes a column called Red Clout, says Hunter's editorial "borders on racism."

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 [Kevin Abourezk, "Criticism over Tribal Airport Borders on Racism," Red Clout, 2009.05.28].

Abourezk argues that improved access to emergency health care for 20,000 tribal residents is plenty of justification for a new airport. One would think that Madison's 6,500 residents, served by their very own municipal airport, would agree.

McDonald's Recalls Custer Toys from Lakota Country Happy Meals

Hat tip to AllGov.com!

Marketing rule #1: Know Your Customers. That might include knowing your history. It might stop you from doing silly things like handing out General George Armstrong Custer dolls in Happy Meals in Rapid City, where Native Americans constitute 10% of the population. The figurines are a tie-in with the new Night at the Museum movie. Tim Giago reports from the metropolitan hub of the Republic of Lakota:

Bobbie DuBray, Administrative Assistant for the Lakota Peoples Law Project was not only shocked by this apparent display of racial insensitivity, but also angered by it.

DuBray says, "I went through the drive thru at McDonalds on East North Street to get a Happy Meal for my five-year-old son. I got home and my brother opened the meal and found the Custer doll." She said he then asked her to come and look at what he found. To her shock it was Custer toy. Her son wanted the toy and she told him, "No. that's a bad toy." She said that her 10 year old daughter did not understand why the toy was bad. She and her mother, Betty Handley, then gave the girl a history lesson "My daughter was not taught about this in school. What are they teaching our children?" she asked.

DuBray, visibly upset by this experience, said, "I think it's insulting. It's like handing out KKK dolls in the south where there are a lot of Blacks" [Tim Giago, "Custer Rides Again in McDonald's Happy Meal," Huffington Post, 2009.06.09].

Interestingly, one observer lays blame on the very East Coast elites we like to think are the big liberals:

[Oglala Lakota Jason Wolters] added, "Most advertising agencies are in the east and the people who put the ads and flyers together have absolutely no idea about the demographics out here in Indian country. We Lakota never see an Indian in the flyers of Kohl's, J. C. Penney's or Wal-Mart. They never stop to consider that our Lakota children never see people like themselves in the flyers and ads they send out here and yet you can go to Chicago or San Francisco and see ads with African Americans and Asian Americans" [Giago, 2009.06.09]

McDonald's appears to have quietly pulled the figurines, which feature Custer riding a motorcycle, from Rapid City stores.

Why I'm Glad I'm Not Black in Madison

The Madison Daily Leader reports a brazen, broad-daylight burglary and minor beating in our fair city. Saturday afternoon, a fella comes to someone's door, asks for help, gets let in, then shoves the resident to the floor and swipes money and jewelry.

The description offered by Chief Pulford: black male, 6'4", 150–200 pounds, dressed all in black.

Hm... skinny 6'4" black man in Madison. First thing I think: Shouldn't be hard to find him. My guess is that there might be two guys in town who fit that description. (But 150 pounds? I'm 5'10" and 150 pounds, and people think I'm skinny. Stretch that weight out across 6'4", and you have a guy who's probably not healthy enough to knock anyone to the floor.)

So now for the next few days, folks who've heard about Saturday's assault will look at every black male in town as a possible suspect...

...though I wonder: is that any different from how our African-American residents feel viewed around town any other time of the year?

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Update 2009.04.22 08:05 CDT: Busted! KJAM reports Madison police have arrested 19-year-old Christian McMillian, formerly of Las Vegas. Evidently lots of neighbors called in with information. Now let's see the evidence....

Sioux Falls Neighbors Hide Anti-Islam Fear Behind Property Values

Don't be fooled by all the positive 'We are one country" sentiment of the Obama Inauguration: we still have a long way to go to accepting all colors and creeds and full partners in the American dream.

Case in point: As Islam expands in Sioux Falls, the faithful see the need for a second place of worship in the big city. But one man in the Garfield Elementary neighborhood, a couple blocks east of Kiwanis Avenue and Sherman Park, doesn't want their kind saying their prayers near his house.

Of course, Mr. Clinton Stickle doesn't express any outright racism or religious discrimination. Oh no, it's not that, really. He's just an upstanding citizen concerned about all the increased traffic and parking those Muslims will bring every Friday afternoon. Even worse, says Stickle, a Muslim house of worship will "flatten property values around here just like that."

Property values. Didn't folks use to say the same thing about blacks moving into the neighborhood? (Oh, darn, some people still do say it.) Even if Mr. Stickle has an economic point, lower property values due to an Islamic prayer center or some other outcropping of ethnic diversity only demonstrates the vile discriminatory attitudes the neighborhood and the broader society still harbor. The only reason an Islamic house of worship would lower property values is that the land-buying yahoos among us would say, "Eeewww, Muslims. I won't pay to live near them."

You know, it never occurred to me that the extra traffic and parking at the St. Thomas Catholic recreation center a half mile down the road from me here on Lake Herman was lowering my property values. And those darn Catholics are taking up good land that the county should condemn and sell to some good secular materialists like me who would build big houses and raise all of our property values.

Now I have a separate beef with discrimination in the name of Allah (check out the main Sioux Falls Islamic Center's blueprints for a new worship center, complete with separate and unequal worship spaces for men and women). But as Sioux Falls city planner Jeff Schmitt points out in the KELO report, Muslims "have a right to worship here."

President Barack Hussein Obama reminded us yesterday that Muslims are Americans, too. Guess we need more reminding.

It may sound impractical, but I'll make this suggestion: Muslim friends, if your Sioux Falls neighbors won't welcome you, come pray out here at Lake Herman. Heck, buy the lot next to me and build a big old mosque. Drive my property value down all you want and keep those Sioux Falls people from buying land near me. I think hearing the muezzin's call echo across the prairie and looking east to Mecca across Lake Herman to pray would be rather inspiring.

Obama Bringing Racist Worms out of America's Woodwork

Wait a minute: weren't some folks saying Obama's victory would trigger "payback" violence by blacks? Oops: looks like its cranky white folks perpetrating more hooliganism than anyone else.

Seeing President Barack Hussein Obama every day in the papers and on TV is going to drive the racists among us bonkers. Some of them will do stupid things. But President Obama will draw that stupidity out into the open, where we can more easily kill it.

Speaking of seeing the next President of the United States, there he is, on YouTube! Weekly YouTube addresses—so easy, and so sensible. White House 2.0!



Update: Fireside chats for the 21^st century... I like that, Scott!

Obama, Dems, America Make History Tonight

Tonight, August 28, 2008, a black man will accept the nomination of the Democratic Party to run for the Presidency of the United States.

Once again, in presidential politics, I didn't get my man. Anna didn't get her woman. And most of our conservative blogging colleagues aren't facing the GOP nominee they wanted.

But Georgia Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis reminds me this morning on NPR that our partisan disappointments pale to insignificance before the historical import of this moment (listen to the audio for the full impact):

"When Barack Obama accepts the Democratic nomination to become the president of the United States of America and starts speaking, I think all of America and many parts of the world — the hopes, the longings, the aspirations and the dreams — will be hanging on every word he says," Lewis says.

"It's going to be incredible. You know, people died. Some people didn't make it to the March on Washington. They were beaten. They were tear-gassed. Some were shot and killed. And even after the March on Washington, where there had been so much hope, so much optimism, we had to deal with the bombing on a church in Birmingham, where four little girls were killed. But I've cried all my tears," he says.

Lewis says he feels blessed to have lived to see this day come around.

[Linda Wertheimer, "Lewis Sees New Racial Era with Obama's Success," NPR Morning Edition, 2008.08.28.]

As should we all. In a nation with a long history of slavery, segregation, and racism, a black man is running for President, and enough Americans are willing to look him in the eye, shake his hand, and listen to what he has to say that he stands even odds of winning.

Rep. Lewis was on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with Martin Luther King on August 28, 1963, to hear King proclaim his dream for America. Lewis will be in Denver tonight, in sight of the mountaintop, to himself address the convention and then to hear Obama proclaim the continued pursuit of that dream.

Lewis was asked what he thought King would say about Obama's nomination. He said he couldn't say for sure, "but I have a feeling he would look down and say, ‘Hallelujah.’”

Hallelujah, indeed.

Lewis addresses the convention in the 5 o'clock hour Denver time (6 p.m. Central). Obama speaks in prime time, 9 Central, 8 Mountain. Tune in. See history.

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Update 10:15 CDT—It's LBJ's dream, too: read Robert Caro, "Johnson's Dream, Obama's Speech," New York Times, 2008.08.27.

Update 11:37 CDT—Can I get another Hallelujah? More on history, racism, fear, and hope from Lewis and other veterans of the 1963 march on Washington who are now delegates in Denver: read Michael Powell, "Witnesses to Dr. King's Dream See a New Hope," New York Times, 2008.08.27

Clinton Magic? Not on the Rez...

I was ready to offer the conclusion that the Clintons won South Dakota because of their vigorous face-to-face campaign. Here in Madison, I got to shake hands with both Senator Clinton and the mister, and in Lake County, which Clinton won 61% to 39%, that personal contact appeared to beat the pants off all the door-knocking and phone-calling that the eager organizers waged. (Nate! I told you: Obama has to come here and go fishing! Put that on the calendar for September!)

But before we give any theory of personal campaigning the stamp of approval, check out this map:

Actually, check out the interactive CNN version, which is much cooler. A lot of that dark Obama blue is Indian Country, which the Clintons fought hard for. Bill Clinton came to Indian Country twice during his Presidency, and the Clintons were banking on fond memories to bolster the charm campaign this time. But the Clinton magic didn't materialize in places like Pine Ridge, Eagle Butte, and Fort Thompson.

What happened there? Maybe the youth vote on the reservation came through for Obama. (Remember: the Indian population skews young in South Dakota compared to the white population.) Or maybe the Indians heard what the Clintons said repeatedly to the white folks in this state, that Hillary was winning because of "people like you in places like this." Maybe they recalled Hillary's claim to be the choice of "hard-working Americans, white Americans." A century and a half of broken promises can make people a little sensitive to racial code talk like that. The results from Indian Country suggest those signals from the Clinton camp came through loud and clear enough to undo some hard-won Clinton support.

"A White Obama?" The Wrong Question

SDP's Prof. Blanchard joins the Ferraro camp, asking rhetorically, "Would a White Obama have been able to challenge Ms. Clinton?" Blanchard's answer: no, Obama's race is an asset.

I suggest Professor Blanchard and the rest of us pasty tundra dwellers ask Senator Obama himself if being black is an asset. But more importantly, I suggest that Blanchard (like Ferraro) is asking the wrong question. What exactly is "a White Obama"? The question has no answer, like a bad Zen koan (What is the sound of one hand clapping? If Badlands Blue falls in the Potomac and no one is watching, does it still make a splash?).

"A White Obama" -- the question hardly qualifies as parlor entertainment, let alone useful political analysis. What does it mean? A man with exactly the same oratorical abilities? Maybe. The same political positions? Perhaps. But keep working down the checklist: the same experience as an Illinois legislator, campaigner, community organizer, Harvard law student, dark-skinned child born in Hawaii to a Kenyan man who split and a Kansan woman who remarried an Indonesian man?

There the concept of "a White Obama" collapses in meaninglessness. Even if you posit the sci-fi "what if" of a shift one gene to the right and out comes a white son to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., and Ann Dunham, the concept collapses. Different color, different experiences, different life. "A White Obama" makes about as much sense as "a Black Cory Allen Heidelberger" or "a female Bruce Whalen."

Barack Hussein Obama is who he is, like each one of us, the product of his every experience. Race and sex and all the other labels don't in themselves doom or destine anyone to anything, but they do shape us uniquely. To compare the Kenyan-American, male, Christian, slim, straight, Democrat Obama to illogical chimera serves no practical purpose. The real task before us now is to compare him to the very real and unique individuals competing with him for the Presidency.