goldendog
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This is so heartbreaking, I almost regret posting it.
Just south of the Pine Ridge Indian Reseervation in South Dakota, only about 1/2 mile south of the town of Pine Ridge, lies the town of Whiteclay, Nebraska - a small little town with a population of about 20. Also in Whiteclay are four liquor stores.
According to a March 10th, 2009 article in the Omaha World-Herald --
"Drive slowly through Whiteclay, and you’ll likely see Native American men sitting along the road, often in a stupor. Stop and park, and you see up close the despondency of individuals visibly in the grips of alcoholism.
Just up the road from Whiteclay, across the shortgrass plains country that marks the border with South Dakota, lies the Pine Ridge Reservation. Home to the Oglala Sioux, the reservation is lamentably burdened by unspeakable poverty and hopelessness. The four liquor stores in Whiteclay, an unincorporated village of fewer than 20 people, sell beer in remarkable volume to the reservation’s residents."
"Remarkable volume" doesn't even begin to come close to describing the beer sales in Whiteclay. According to the Liquor Control Commission in the State of Nebraska, in 2008 these four stores sold an estimated 175,690 cases of beer in 2008.
Let me illustrate how big that number is --
On occasion I carry beer in the truck as cargo. A pallet of bottles of beer is 7 cases to a layer, 6 layers high - 42 cases/pallet. I can carry 21 pallets of bottled beer (882 cases) in a semi-trailer without being overweight.
175,690 cases of beer = 199 trailer loads of beer. Each one of these Whiteclay liquor stores is going through about a trailer load of beer a week.
481 cases of beer sold everyday in a small town in Nebraska located just across the state line from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation... the numbers speak for themselves.
This isn't something I say lightly: I'm ashamed of my country for what we've done - and what we continue to do - to the Native Americans.
I agree wholeheartedly...alcohol was and is being used to kill the spirit of American Indians and their heritage. I agree with you I am also ashamed of my country for what they have done and continue to do to Native Americans.
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