Playing politics will only get you so far.
Day in and day out, we watch the spin doctors come out and so forth, but my heart, mind and soul cannot allow the omission of political leadership in South Dakota. I believe in giving credit where credit is due, and while I can appreciate Frank Carroll calling out and referring to Ted Nugent statement as: "...an unequivocal statement that the kind of Neo-Ku Klux Klan views expressed by Ted Nugent recently about the president of the United States and senior tribal members at Coeur d’Alene are unacceptable and intolerable. Period. ... " I feel forced to show to the Nation how the political leaders of South Dakota were too cowardly to stand up against bigotry when it visited their doorstep.
But if only Frank Carroll could have written about the blanket of love being woven by diverse backgrounds where the white man and the brown man stood with the red man against bigotry. That's the real story in my opine. Perhaps you had to be ingrained into the event experiencing and praying all would go well during the civil disobedience in order to understand it.
History must be recorded and recorded through the lens of the colored peoples.
That said, I witnessed how James Magaska Swan of Urban Warriors, nor leaders of the American Indian Movement (AIM) have yet to receive an apology by Michael Ballard, owner of Full Throttle who has a net worth of $5 million dollars. Native American leaders of South Dakota made a simple request of Ballard to host a free outdoor concert with Native American artists performing. This is a reasonable request that would render healing and blessing on the sacred Lakota grounds of the Dakotas.
But we see nothing ... nada from the likes of Michael Ballard.
Where are the spineless South Dakota political leaders at?
Have any of them rebuked or repudiated Ted Nugent openly?
Nay, they would rather toe the politically correct line instead.
What is holding Michael Ballard back? Was he raised in such a way where he cannot humble himself before a colored man? Does he believe he is superior, too? Why is it hard for him to bring himself to a mere simple apology that could begin the healing in Lakota country?
Too many times we have seen businessmen fail to step up to the plate during a time when social justice was needed. I watched this happen here in Arizona and saw Republican business owners rise to the occasion only after-the-fact when their profit margins took a hit by at least 30%. Unfortunately these business people pay their own price for turning a blind eye. Businessmen forgot how in the universe, we really do reap what we sow -- or karma for those who believe in other philosophies. A simple act of love to my Native brothers and sisters would go along way. Surely Ballard and South Dakota politicians can understand how tough love is necessary when bigotry has been embraced by Tea Party Republicans who profess to be Christians.
Have we quickly forgotten the contributions of Native Americans who fully took in the pilgrims on Plymouth Rock when they were starving and needed to know how to survive? Indeed, it is not taught enough in our public school systems how Native Americans via the Cherokee Nation were the first peoples to introduce the ideas that laid the foundation of our United States Constitution. In fact, the representative democracy of the Iroquois was extensively studied and praised by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, who proposed it as the basis for the United States Constitution.
It is my prayer and hope that the tribal leaders will continue to maintain the tough love line. I pray they will reject every single South Dakota leader who did not take stance against Ted Nugent during the 2014 Sturgis bike rally when we needed them the most. I pray that Full Throttle's business will implode for condoning bigotry if Michael Ballard continues to refuse to apologize to every single Lakota leader in the Dakota's and Native American leaders out of respect for the treaties that should have been honored to begin with.
So be it.
C/S
