When you hear that a town with a population of only 14 sells around 12,500 cans of beer every day, like Whiteclay, Neb., does, you probably wonder what the hell is going on. There can only be a few possible explanations. The town could either be close to a college campus or a large colony of drunken leprechauns.
But neither is the case for Whiteclay, which sits approximately two miles away from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home of the Oglala Lakota Sioux nation. Of the reservation's 20,000 residents, USA Today estimates that more than 50 percent live below the poverty line, and four out of every five are unemployed. In addition, an estimated 80 percent of the population suffers from alcoholism, according to the Lincoln Journal Star.
In other words, what is going on in Whiteclay is the targeted exploitation of the Oglala Lakota Sioux people.
Indeed, author Ian Frazier states in his book "On the Rez" that more than 90 percent of Whiteclay's business comes from the Pine Ridge Reservation. Besides the four liquor stores (all of which are able to sell only beer and malt liquor), Frazier states that Whiteclay includes a car-repair shop, a convenience store, a secondhand store, a post office, two grocery stores and a pawn shop.
Pretty much the bare necessities. And beer.
While the residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation barely get by, some are so poor and desperate for alcohol that, according to Nebraskans For Peace, they buy on store credit of food stamps or sexual favors, the people of Whiteclay are making bank. According to the 2000 Census, not one resident of the small town lived in poverty, and the average household income was $61,250 per year.
Even those residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation who aren't going to Whiteclay to buy alcohol on a regular basis can't compete with Whiteclay's wealth, as FEMA estimates the average household income on the reservation is only $3,700 per year. There is literally a difference of $57,000 in average household income in this two-mile radius.
The effects of alcohol are strangling the Oglala Lakota Sioux, and Whiteclay is providing the rope. Not only are the vast majority of the Pine Ridge Reservation's residents suffering from alcoholism, but crime and other health problems are also rampant.
Whiteclay no longer has any bars because so many offenses were taking place under the influence of alcohol. Now, the only liquor licenses that are administered in the Nebraska border town are for the sale, not service, of liquor, meaning that alcohol cannot be consumed on the premises of the businesses.
Closing all the bars in town hasn't proved very effective, however. When thousands of people are walking a couple of miles to buy alcohol that they aren't allowed to take home to their dry reservation, they are left with basically two options: drink in the abandoned buildings or the street.
The alcohol consumers in Whiteclay take advantage of both. Thus, the town is littered with brawls and drunk drivers. It isn't uncommon to see sexual favors being exchanged for a beer or two. A homicide in 1999, still currently unsolved, is even believed to be alcohol-related.
But the story doesn't stop there. USA Today reports that suicide, infant mortality and fetal alcohol rates are higher than average on the Pine Ridge Reservation. In addition, the newspaper states that alcohol-fueled car accidents in the area are nearly three times as common as in the general population.
James Abourezk, a former Democratic U.S. senator from South Dakota who was the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs in the late 70s, said in a New York Times op-ed that other consequences of the liquor problem at Whiteclay include spouse beatings, child abuse and theft.
In addition to all of this, though Whiteclay itself is technically in Nebraska, the majority of the Pine Ridge Reservation lies just over the border in South Dakota. So Nebraska's government has to worry only about those things that take place within Whiteclay while our state simultaneously creates a problem, and large budget burden, for our northern neighbor.
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