The Red Dollar

By Chase Iron Eyes
Contributing Writer

I recently read in a comment section of a local newspaper how one person is “never going to another Indian casino if the Fighting Sioux name is changed.” I offer this as a response. American Indians, Indian Casinos and a multitude (50-100 separate budgets) of Tribal Programs do a tremendous amount of business and employ a considerable number of non-Indians with border towns on a daily basis. In fact, I assert that all towns near reservations, including every major city in North and South Dakota, are significantly impacted by “red dollars.” The collective economic activity of Indians keeps some towns afloat. I think all Indians know this, but I do not think that most non-Indians know just how important the red dollar is. Likewise, I do not think Indians know how consequential our buying power is. Why do I think like this? Let me illustrate.

More often than I want to admit I receive substandard customer service when dining out at a restaurant in a border town, which happens consistently, as I reside in a border town. When I demand better service I am met with seemingly flippant recovery comments that trivialize my disappointment with my perceived substandard customer service or I am stared upon as if I am upsetting the natural order. When I walk into a commercial establishment I am not greeted, sometimes I am followed. Every Indian knows what I am talking about. Most of my friends are not rabble rousers. We do not seek out these opportunities to play victim. Yet we are bound to encounter such treatment in the Northern Plains. The purpose of this writing is not so much to lament these treatments as it is to create an awareness that it does not have to be like this.

Every Indian that has lived in a city or state that is not located in the Northern Plains (North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, and Wyoming, and other states with significant rural Indian populations) also knows that the Northern Plains are far behind in terms of social-political economic parity. The Northern Plains are unlike most everywhere else; in most other places our money is as green as the next customer’s. What will change this?

Change will come when Indians start respecting each other as goods and service providers. Indians should, at the very least, buy Indian. In fact, federal law requires that in some cases. Every chance I get I buy fuel, goods, services, etc., from any Indian that provides these things. More importantly I buy beadwork, quillwork, artwork, star quilts, chokecherries, turnips, wild tea, plums, and any other item produced by indigenous hands. When we spend our money locally we are empowering ourselves, we are enfranchising ourselves, and growing our nations, locally. A meaningful shift such as this would definitely show up in border town business ledgers. Thus, on and off-reservation perceptions of Natives will change for the better; our self-respect will improve as we will provide and demand better goods and service.

All you have to do to realize that we do not appreciate the value of our buying power to watch the stream of cars leaving the reservation every payday and every first of the month, taking our red dollar straight into the non-Indian economy, throwing away our buying power. These non- Indian economies, largely controlled by White people in border towns, do not appreciate our red dollar and cannot be expected to pump that dollar back into Indian country; no doubt we ask them to every year when we request assistance from the states for road maintenance, education, and a host of other needs. Every time we give our red dollar to a border town we pay state sales and other taxes, taxes that do not come back to us in any form.

Our buying power is certainly not limited to paydays and first of the months. Our buying power is more substantially bolstered by the billions of dollars that our Tribes, colleges, and casinos spend off the reservation, consistently. I am currently unaware that any Tribe in the Northern Plains has quantified its annual spending, including all programs, departments, colleges, casinos, businesses, ancillary organizations, etc. We need to know what these numbers are.

Why?

We need to know what our impact is because as realization of our buying power grows, so does our demand for respect and equal treatment in this society. Speaking strictly within the context of corporate western capital society, we will walk around with our heads a little higher, demand better service, appreciate our own goods and service providers, and increase our social-economic-political standing on and off the reservation just by realizing that we are a very vital part of and contributor to the societies that sometimes do not appreciate us.

When the non-Indians, on and off the reservation, understand that Indian spending is a huge reason for steady and growing economic performance, non-Indians will better cater to the red dollar whether that red dollar is coming from Native haves or have nots. Indians stand to gain respect when non-Indian economies fight for the red dollar, as opposed to Tribes and Indians blindly and continuously throwing away a means to our own self-sufficiency.

The time is long past due for Tribes and/or States to perform comprehensive economic impact studies, even if only on the casinos. Commercial interactions between Indians and non-Indians are good for both parties and will remain. All I am asking is that we as Natives stop underestimating the magnitude of our buying power and start exercising it to our benefit. Lastly, I ask that non-Indians respect the importance of the red dollar and treat us accordingly.

Hecegla (that is enough)

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[Editor’s Note: Chase Iron Eyes, attorney and writer, is launching a new website on New Year’s Eve @ ]http://www.lastrealindians.com]