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Witnesses testify on racism at ACLU trial
http://www.rapidcityjournal.com
April 15,2004
By Denise Ross, Journal Staff Writer
PIERRE -- In the third day of a voting-rights trial on Wednesday, five
American Indians told a federal judge that they have experienced racism in South
Dakota.
The testimony is designed to establish a history of racial discrimination as
the American Civil Liberties Union seeks a court decision to carve out a new
state legislative district favorable to American Indians in the south-central
part of the state.
The ACLU claims that District 27, which includes the Pine Ridge and Rosebud
Indian reservations, contains too high an Indian population, at 89 percent, but
the Indian population in District 26 is too low, at about 30 percent.
The districts should be reconfigured to give Indians a significant population
in two districts, and a single-member House district should be created to
favor Indian voters and candidates, according to the ACLU lawsuit.
Alfred Bone Shirt, named as the first plaintiff in the ACLU's suit against
the state of South Dakota, said he first experienced racism as a child shopping
with his family.
"We would be followed around and told, 'Don't touch that,'" Bone Shirt, an
enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, said. "Our parents told us, 'This is
why, because you're Indian.'"
Belva Black Lance, also of Rosebud Indian Reservation, said she encountered
problems when she first attended school in Todd County. Students were severely
disciplined by teachers, she said.
"We couldn't talk in our own language. If they didn't understand, we'd get in
trouble. We couldn't go out and play at recess. One of the teachers normally
had a ruler and would hit our hands if we said something wrong," she said.
"Now, they're hiring people to teach that (Lakota language). It's all turned
around."
As a grown woman, Black Lance said she still fears leaving the reservation
because she believes law enforcement officers will stop her.
"I'm afraid when I leave the reservation. It seems like we left a safe area
and go to an area where it's prejudiced," she said.
Black Lance said she has been stopped "just about every time I left the
reservation."
The traffic stops ended when she bought a car that did not bear a license
plate number from a reservation county, she said.
"That sure seemed to help a lot. I haven't been stopped since," she said.
Arlene Brandis, an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, said that
while growing up in Winner, she experienced racial slurs and social segregation.
She described race relations in the Winner area as "very strained."
"In high school, we walked to school and walked home. As we were walking down
the street, cars would drive by. They would holler at us and call us names:
'Dirty Indians, drunken Indians. Why don't you go back to the reservation?'"
she said. "There were five Indians in my graduating class. We stuck together,
pretty much. We didn't really socialize with our non-Indian classmates."
Brandis, who teaches at Sinte Gleska University in Mission, said that about
30 years ago, she and her husband, a schoolteacher, had trouble buying a house
they had picked out.
Monica Drapeaux, an enrolled member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe who lives and
owns a hotel in Martin, said she remembered racial tension when, about 10
years ago, some Indian students tried to end the local school's long-standing
homecoming ceremony. As a member of the school board, Drapeaux said, she mediated
a public forum on the matter. She said she found the ceremony offensive
because students dressed as a medicine man, and a chief selected a princess by
assessing girls' physical attributes.
"I was knocked over. I compared it to Al Jolson," Drapeaux said of her first
viewing of the ceremony.
The ceremony was changed after Drapeaux left the school board, she said.
Lila Young of Parmalee said she believes whites and Indians vote in different
patterns and vote as blocs. White candidates have only lately campaigned on
reservations, she said, and noted the credit Indian voters got in Sen. Tim
Johnson's victory over John Thune in the 2002 election.
"All of a sudden, we pulled ourselves out of a hat and fooled them," she
said.
But she said she and others predicted the voter fraud allegations that arose
from voter registration drives on reservations two years ago.
"When they were doing this registration push, a lot of us knew it was going
to cause questions and problems. When that came up, a lot of us just poked each
other and said, 'What'd I tell you?'" Young said.
On cross-examination by state lawyers, the witnesses said they had not had
trouble registering to vote or voting. Drapeaux said she is a leader in her
community, and a copy of a newspaper advertisement in which the Rural Electric
Association recognizes her as such was entered into evidence.
When asked if she believed white people in Martin accepted her, Drapeaux
replied, "I'd say so."
Two witnesses testified about how the Legislature responds to issues and
bills that affect Indians.
Mary Ann Bear Heels-McCowan said that she helped found the lobbying
organization First Voices after she worked as a committee secretary for the Legislature
and saw what she believed was short shrift given to American Indian issues.
She said she has lobbied on such issues as racial profiling, redistricting
and voting issues and has been heard "somewhat."
ACLU of the Dakotas lobbyist Jennifer Ring described the South Dakota
Legislature as "fairly unresponsive."
There has been improvement in the past two years, she said.
"Prior to that, these issues were largely dismissed. The hearings were. One
always got the sense we were taking time away from important issues," Ring
said. "You really had the sense that if any other set of people were here in these
kinds of numbers, the Legislature would fall over themselves to try and do
something, but because it was this group and this issue, nothing could be done,
or you needed to wait for it. The last two years, people at least have gotten
polite before they vote against us."
The trial continues today and then resumes on Thursday, April 22, and
continues into the next week.
Contact Denise Ross at 394-8438 or denise.ross@rapidcityjournal.com
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