Hockey fans hurl beer and racial slurs, chasing dozens of Native American kids from game

[liberalhistorian]

130. I'm a white gal living in South Dakota; in fact, I live

on one of the state's nine Sioux reservations. This is, sad to say, no surprise at all, and ESPECIALLY not in Rapid City since it's the Selma of the state as far as Indian-white relations are concerned. This state remains openly racist in nearly every aspect of life; it is institutionalized in the educational and criminal justice systems. Police shoot young native men in the back and get away with claiming "self-defense". The state's attorney general is as racist as you can get and has no problem showing it. He used to be the state's U.S. Attorney under Bush and took every opportunity possible to prosecute Indians however he could (as the federal prosecutor, he had jurisdiction over many crimes committed by Indians on reservations). The government does whatever it can to screw over Indians. At high school sports games of Indian school teams against white teams, the white teams and their fans can be openly racist in attitudes and hurled epithets, including the old South Dakota stalwart of "go back to the rez"; never mind that thousands of Indians live off the reservations, including in the cities.

Rapid City is especially bad, though. I would not want to be Indian in Rapid City for anything. The racism there is so ingrained and so spoon-fed from the beginning, and so openly and blatantly expressed, that it is sometimes like being in the 1940's south. I lived there for a year and I remember, when I first moved there from an eastern state, expecting there to be racism. I was not naive at all on that count, I'd vacationed there in the Black Hills with my family for most of my life and had some idea of how bad it could be. But I was unprepared for just HOW open, blatant and deeply institutionalized it was. People assumed that, because I was white, I felt the same way they did and would openly express relieve themselves of their racist sentiments whenever they thought there were no Indians around. I enjoyed watching them sputter when they realized that I was not one of "them" and was not going to join in on the "fun". At that time, I worked for an organization that served a lot of Indian clients and necessitated traveling to and working at Pine Ridge and other reservations. You would NOT believe the openly and blatantly racist bullshit I was treated to sometimes when people found that out.

I remember one time I was walking along the bike and walking paths that wind along Rapid Creek all through the city. There were a couple of groups of Indians that were also walking along the trails and others that were just hanging out by the creek. Police were always coming around checking out the trails and often harassing Indians. Well, a police car pulled up onto the park grass and they started interrogating the Indians, who were doing NOTHING. I repeat, doing NOTHING. I was doing the same thing they were doing, but the policemen were paying no attention to me at all. A couple of the Indian women looked at me and just shrugged, as if to say something like "this is just the way it is." Infuriating and disgusting.

What DOES surprise me is that security was not on the ball here. They should have been right there, stopping this shit in its tracks and evicting those motherfuckers. Racism against anyone of any age is bad, but especially so against children. And these were CHILDREN. Where the FUCK was security and why the hell was it allowed to go on so long? Where was everyone else around them? Why the fuck should the children have had to be the ones to leave? Rapid City will be voting very soon on whether to pay gazillions of dollars to expand the civic center and the Indian vote is a substantial bloc in the city. This may very well affect that vote.

Then again, maybe I shouldn't be too surprised that security was nowhere to be found there. It IS Rapid City, after all. Sigh.