South Dakota Racism
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Such was the case when a group of academic achievers from the Lakota tribe were rewarded for their good work with a trip to a minor league hockey match in Rapid City, South Dakota. The third through eighth grade students from the American Horse School were with their middle school teacher Consuelo Means when she overheard adults in the the executive suite above them asking some of the young girls where they were from. The teacher was understandably concerned about seemingly drunk strangers talking to little girls and asked that the men leave the children alone.
The men didn’t listen, instead, they continued to talk to the children. When the team scored the men told the children they should shout later because they were “from the Rez.” The teacher immediately went to look for security to ask for help. When she returned, beer was dripping on her head. The men were dumping it on the children. She told other chaperones what was happening and they attempted to intervene. That’s when the men allegedly shouted to the group to go back to “The Rez.”
The children were silent on the drive back to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, one young girl crying.
“I didn’t think it was appropriate for [the men] to be talking to my students,” Consuelo Means, the middle school teacher explained to ThinkProgress. “We’ve been there five years and nothing like that’s ever happened.” While she completed an incident report for the stadium security, law enforcement was never contacted.
That event was back in January. One man is being charged for disorderly conduct but didn’t even bother showing up at the first day of the trial. It’s South Dakota in a nutshell. Also, in all the discussion of race in this country it’s remarkable to me how Native Americans are hardly ever talked about, almost an afterthought at best.
Also, here’s the Facebook page for the cartoonist who produced the above image.