
Rapid City Journal’s racist headlines on homelessness
Monday, December 7, 2020
Native Sun News Today Columnist
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The recent headlines in the Rapid City Journal about the homeless situation can be interpreted as racist. No amount of rationalizing will change that.
For this reason alone, the reservation governments must direct their attention on their homeless natives surviving on the mayor’s streets. Actually, many have died within city limits over the years, and forgotten because it is a burden on the city’s coffers.
One may be thinking that the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) has nothing to do with the homeless situation in the city. For starters, part of the preamble in the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s IRA constitution states “…in order to establish a more perfect organization, promote the general welfare, conserve and develop our lands and resources, secure to ourselves and our posterity…” The oath every elected official swears on is similar.
This preamble, written by non-native government official’s 80-plus years ago, explains each IRA government’s purpose and underlying philosophy. I’m not sure what the authors were intending to accomplish but Oglala Lakota County (Pine Ridge Reservation) today holds one of the nation’s “poorest county” designations. This means as much as half the residents are impacted by a long list of negative results.

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Ivan F. Star Comes Out can be reached at P.O. Box 147, Oglala, South Dakota, 57764; via phone at 605-867-2448 or via email at mato_nasula2@outlook.com.
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