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Platte SD House Fire - Native Response



South Dakota... Great Faces, Great Places?

I can't understand how I came to be brown.  I was just born this way.  But since I have never been able to live a day in South Dakota without a reminder of the fact I am brown, despite how green my money is, despite how established I or my family am/are, despite all I have ever been or will become... I am brown.

 Since I am brown, a Native American, and since I am so very aware of my own skin, I have really failed to come to any understanding of life in South Dakota; as well as the way people see it from the outside looking in; from the non-Native world to the Native, and from the large city to the dusty communities we call home.

 News in South Dakota is basically where Natives are unseen, unless there is burglary, robbery, or murder; or perhaps in the section in our local newspaper called, "From Federal Court."

 When Native American issues do hit the news, the news is overlooked.  When learning about a murder-suicide where a man managed a company that is under fiscal scrutiny because of mismanagement of funds intended for South Dakota's Native American youth, the entire thing is glazed over with talk about anything but the fact that Native people have been stolen from again!  And, under the fiscal oversight of the SD Department of Education!

 No big deal?  Here was my response to other people's response, which was all about gun control:
I cannot/will not join the gun debate here, but let me just say that most of you are missing the point! But since 96% of those who have commented are totally off topic, let me try this…
How different would this conversation be if the headline had read that a husband murdered his children and wife, then committed suicide because his company was refused the Girl Scout Cookie contract because of problems with the audit where his company may have paid non-Girl Scout members to do Girl Scout business, clearly defrauding the Girl Scouts? I think the response would be, “What really happened here? Who are these people who worked for a company that ripped off the Girl Scouts?”
But no, sadly, its just about some Indian Education program the SD State Dept. of Ed. is the fiscal oversight for; also a program where some hundred children attend a summer program with at the SD School of Mines and Technology every summer. And this involves a contract non-renewed to a person writing the checks and overseeing the fiscal management of a company who conclusively may have defrauded the Native American students for which the federal funds were intended? I don’t think I am Sherlock Holmes here for thinking we have a “fall guy” (no longer) in our midst who took a violent way out and his family with him (if he indeed, did inflict his own wound.)

Sadly, the only response of this in SD and in the “mid-central” area will be the issue of gun control… I do, however, think Craig may have gotten the point.
I haven't blogged in awhile.  I can't wrap my head around this... You can read more by reading the articles here:

 Here the man is glorified...  http://www.blackhillsfox.com/home/headlines/Death-of-Platte-family-emotional-for-local-GEARUP-program-328330421.html

http://www.ksfy.com/home/headlines/Attorney-General-Platte-family-killed-in-328597201.html

http://www.capjournal.com/news/ag-dad-killed-wife-kids-before-fire-in-platte-sd/article_648358b6-60da-11e5-a7c5-2f83645cf8de.html

And the most truthful article:  http://dakotafreepress.com/2015/09/22/platte-family-dies-by-shotgun-not-house-fire-father-managed-accounts-for-audit-flagged-ed-coop/
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