How is it possible that a town of 12 inhabitants sells 11,000 beers a day
El País
Xavi Sancho
January 13, 2018
During the summer of 1999 two Oglala Lakota Indians, hailing from the nearby Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, were killed outside one of the Whiteclay bars, just across the border from Nebraska. This remote town (Whiteclay) 600 kilometers from Omaha was known in the area for its liquor stores and bars, despite having only 14 inhabitants at the time. Many Native Americans roamed its streets drunk. They came here, some on foot, some by car –the crosses on the road of those who died in traffic accidents, almost always due to drunk driving, decorate the road, but they do not serve as any warning– from the reserve, where the sale of the Alcohol was banned since the late 19th century.
There were a series of protest demonstrations by the Lakota community, demanding an investigation into the event. At that time, the region still had a police force made up of 100 officers. Later, George W. Bush reduced it to 32. There were violent clashes between the Indians and the forces of order. The bars were closed and, for the first time, the national press reported on the case of the people who were destroying the Indian community on the border between South Dakota and Nebraska.
As of spring 2017, there were only 12 residents in Whiteclay and the bars had closed, but up to four liquor stores were still open, dispensing an average of four million cans of beer a year (11,000 a day), almost all to the Oglala Lakota Indians of Pine Ridge. Alcoholism affects one in three Indians in this area, whose unemployment rate reaches 80%.
It is the poorest area, with the lowest life expectancy and the highest number of suicides in the US Speaking to The Guardian , a young Oglala recalled last September that in the last year 10 of his friends had killed their lives. The murders committed here in 2016 doubled those recorded the previous year. The relationship of alcohol with this reality is clear.
Despite all this, it wasn't until the spring of 2017 that Nebraska authorities revoked the licenses of the four liquor stores. According to the car, there were not enough police in the area - three officers within 90 kilometers - to guarantee safety. "There had been quite a few attempts to shut down liquor stores in the past, but none had gone anywhere," recalls Paul Hammel, a reporter for the local section at the Omaha World Herald and one of the journalists who has most closely lately followed the evolution of the Whiteclay case.
Hammel continues: “So a couple of years ago, an Oklahoma attorney specializing in alcohol-related legal issues made a documentary titled Sober Indian, Dangerous Indian, in which the Whiteclay case appeared. But in another way. While the reports until then had been based on images of drunk street people who urinated and slept where they could, this one focused on how the excessive consumption of alcohol in the area had led to an inordinate number of children born on the Pine Ridge reservation, with fetal alcohol syndrome, which affects the baby both in its physical and mental development. Thus, the story mutated and became one that dealt with innocent children with a ruined future because of their parents' alcohol addiction. It was then that those conservative groups that value life and children so much got involved in the fight against liquor stores. Everything changed."
Around the same time, the Wounds of Whiteclay project started, led by professors from the University of Lincoln Nebraska and in which a dozen students from the institution participated. The intention was to create a website that recounted the history and current reality of this macabre anomaly. In May, the project received the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. They defeated projects presented by HBO, National Geographic or The New Yorker and became the first students to win this award in its 50-year history.
Marcella Mercer was one of those students, and her most prominent contribution to the project was a journalistic piece about the story of Nora Boesum, a South Dakota woman who had adopted several children with fetal alcohol syndrome. The piece, signed with photographer and fellow student Carla Kessler, earned them the Mark of Excellence award for university journalism. “My report focused on the history of this family. One girl needed up to three million dollars [2.5 million euros] in medical bills in order to survive her first three years of life. His mother was one of the best known drunkards in Whiteclay. In fact, he had it right there at the liquor store, ”Mercer recalls.
"During our work we contrasted data from the Pine Ridge Hospital and concluded that life expectancy there was not only the lowest in the US, but one of the lowest in the world," he adds. One of the teachers who led the project was Rebekka Schlichting, who was in a state of shock after watching the aforementioned John Maisch documentary by Hammel. So he decided it was time to do something. He began researching the situation in Whiteclay and launched into lecturing at the University and recruiting students for the project. It took him years to dare to visit the town of the four liquor stores and the 12 inhabitants. “When I arrived,” he recalls, “there were about 30 absolutely drunk people roaming the street. The poverty was extreme. I was broken. The third world in my own country. It broke me to see my own people in that state. " Rebekka is of Native American origin.
"Let's see, these people just wait for someone to come and fix their problems. That is unlikely to happen. We live in a free market world. If there is demand, there must be supply. Liquor stores exist and are the result of market forces, not racism. It is simple economics. Closing them is going against that.” This was the public statement of Loren L Paul, Sheridan County Commissioner, to which the town of Whiteclay belongs, after in September, in response to the appeal filed by the liquor store owners, the Nebraska authorities ratified themselves in the order to close the establishments that dispensed alcohol in this tiny town.
"This argument is heard a lot," recalls Hammel. And he adds: "But there are also those who insist on blaming the Indians, because it was they who decided that alcohol should be prohibited in Pine Ridge." Once the businesses were closed, two doubts arose. One, regarding the future of Whiteclay himself; the other, about the future of all those Indians addicted to alcohol.
Hammel responds to the first: “Of course there is a future for Whiteclay. It is located next to a reserve where 25,000 people live. Thus, these months a grocery store, two cafes, a greengrocer and a boot repair shop have been opened. They are going to do very well ”. Reality responds to the second. During the week after the Whiteclay liquor stores closed, the 50-kilometer highway that separates the Pine Ridge reservation from the town of Chadron, Nebraska, was the scene of up to 10 car accidents. In all of them, the driver was driving drunk. Half a dozen people died. The last, a six-year-old girl. The Indians have already found another place to get alcohol.