And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
From: Pat Morris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Published Tuesday
August 10, 1999
Owner Working to Reopen Looted Whiteclay Store
http://www.omaha.com/Omaha/OWH/StoryViewer/1,3153,200475,00.html
BY PAUL HAMMEL
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Whiteclay, Neb. - Walking past the shattered front windows of his
grocery store, Vic Clarke pointed to places where looters started fires, emptied meat
cases and ransacked shelves of cigarettes and soda pop during a June 26 rally by
American Indian activists.
VJ's Market was a dream, the first grocery store owned by Clarke, 43, after managing
supermarkets for Safeway, Hinky-Dinky and others across the Plains, from Scottsbluff
to Omaha to Sidney to Brush, Colo. Now it's a nightmare. About $80,000 in damage was
done to the market after looters kicked in the front door. The store has been boarded
up since. Clarke, his wife and three sons have abandoned the five-bedroom living
quarters in the back of the store with the hot tub, the spacious dining room and the
recreation room with foosball and pool tables. Now, afraid to return to their home,
the family has a small home in Rushville. The youth baseball team coached by Clarke
skipped an annual tournament on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He has bought a
pistol for protection. "All this stuff in here can be redone," Clarke said Monday,
pointing to his soot-covered merchandise. "It's putting our lives back together that
is frustrating." Clarke may be the biggest loser in this small vi!
!
llag
e bordering the poverty-racked reservation since a string of marches and
demonstrations began seven weeks ago.
Four straight days of marches ended peacefully Sunday. The leader of the
demonstrations, Tom Poor Bear, left the makeshift "Camp Justice" set up by Indian
activists to go to Minneapolis. Still, a feeling of uneasiness hung over Whiteclay on
Monday. About 30 Nebraska State Patrol cruisers stood ready outside of town. Indian
activists have said they would pursue treaty claims that Whiteclay belongs to the
Oglala Sioux Tribe. Efforts by activists to seek an injunction against Whiteclay beer
sales failed to materialize Monday, and there was no evidence of efforts to keep
people from shopping at Whiteclay businesses. Business owners said they wondered if
looting or arson might recur to enforce "eviction notices" delivered by activists to
the four liquor stores in town. The notices were to run out Monday. "People are
getting angry now. Why is it continuing to go on?" Clarke asked. "People need to go on
with their lives."
The protests began in frustration over the lack of progress in investigating the
slayings of two Oglala Sioux whose bodies were found near Whiteclay on June 8. The
protests also were aimed at Whiteclay, where 4 million cans of beer a year are sold to
residents of the dry reservation, a reservation where the alcoholism rate may run as
high as 85 percent. But when the June 26 demonstration deteriorated into rock throwing
and window smashing, the anger was directed at VJ's Market, where protest organizers
say Indians have been mistreated. VJ's doesn't sell beer.
Clarke said his efforts to keep Indians from drinking on his property and from
bothering his patrons have been misunderstood. "If someone is urinating on the side of
my building and I ask them to leave, that's not racism, that's right and wrong. If
someone spits on my floor and I ask them to leave, that's not racism, that's right and
wrong," Clarke said. "I just don't tolerate it." Four of his seven employees were
Indian. Over the years, he has given $10,000 to tribal causes, such as powwows and
softball teams. VJ's Market is one of 18 businesses in Whiteclay. Besides the four
beer outlets, there are two restaurants, a gas station, an auto body shop, a lumber
business and a furniture store. Clarke said his business was thriving because he
offered quality meats and better prices than the grocery store in nearby Pine Ridge,
S.D. "We took care of people,"he said, pointing to the cash registers where three
clerks once carried out sacks of groceries. One customer from the reservati!
!
on,
James Mesteth, 31, of Pine Ridge, said he liked the fresh meats andthe fresh prices at
VJ's. "He's a nice guy," Mesteth said. "He even sponsored our bowling team." However,
Oliver Red Cloud, the chief of the Oglala Tribe, said he has heard the stories about
how Clarke treated the uneducated street people who sip alcohol in the dusty parking
lots of Whiteclay. "He threw water on one boy in the winter," Red Cloud said. "He
can't get along with the Indian people, but he likes their money."
Clarke, a short, balding, demonstrative man who grew up in the Scottsbluff-Gering
area, denies that he takes advantage of people, though he says every business takes
advantage of opportunities to make money. He said he was targeted not for his
treatment of Indians but because his store was unoccupied during the riot and his
windows are not barred, as they are at the liquor stores. He said his grocery business
was thriving, grossing more than $1 million a year, selling more than 20 million cans
of beans, soup and other groceries annually. "People don't like to hear that," Clarke
said. "There's more here than liquor stores."
While many people wonder if there is a solution to the problems associated with
Whiteclay, Clarke said there's a simple one - sell all the Whiteclay businesses to the
tribe for economic development purposes and let it decide whether the liquor stores
should remain open. But Oglala tribal officials said they could not afford the $3
million to $4 million cost and express doubt that every Whiteclay business would sell.
On Monday, Clarke was making plans to finish cleaning up his store, get repairs done
and reopen by the end of the month. He said he cannot quit the business because he
owes too much money to the local bank for a loan on a Rushville grocery he purchased
but quickly closed after a Super Wal-Mart store opened in nearby Chadron.
But life in Whiteclay will not be the same. Clarke said it will take several years
before he feels safe enough to move his family back. "We loved living here," Clarke
said. "We had it nice."
Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine
of international copyright law.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
UPDATES: CAMP JUSTICE
http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
