Jul 11, 2013 - Explosive White Clay, Walking out on Nebraska’s Gov. & Johnny Depp buying Wounded Knee -Oglala President Bryan Brewer

Explosive White Clay, Walking out on Nebraska’s Governor and Johnny Depp buying Wounded Knee -An LRI Update with Oglala President Bryan Brewer

Coming off a recent arrest at an #EndWhiteClay protest march near Camp Zero Tolerance, President Bryan Brewer called the State of Nebraska Governor’s office to set up a meeting on how to address the White Clay disgrace; White Clay is a Nebraska hamlet of 14 people that sells near 5 million cans of beer per year to the Oglala people of the Pine Ridge reservation. Nebraska Governer Heineman agreed to meet. When asked about his thoughts on the recent meeting which resulted in President Brewer walking out in disgust, well President Brewer gave Lastrealindians an earful, here it is verbatim:

[BREWER] “Well, first of all when he agreed to meet he wanted all these stipulations that only I could come to the meeting, no press, no prior press notice, and no post meeting press, and frankly that’s a paranoid response. What is he concerned about, he actually stated that I wanted the meeting in private which couldn’t be further from the truth. This needs to be out in the open. Then there’s the sarcastic tone of the Governor stating to others before the meeting even happened that “If they want to solve the White Clay problem then legalize alcohol” this coming from a man who is receving campaign contributions, according to Alcohol Justice, of $95,000 to $175,000 in the last few years. But I felt a responsibility to meet with the Governor anyway and when I show up theres 5 armed police, highway troopers and these other I dont know, armed security or para-military guys, just real threatening, totally uncalled for, I’m barely out of a wheel-chair and the elected civil leader of the Oglala Sioux Tribe coming to have a dialogue on how to fix a very volatile situation and one of the first things he says, after refusing a picture with me at the request of his staff, one of the first things he says is ‘White Clay is your problem, it is not our problem’ this was in the first 3 minutes of the meeting and it was getting heated so I just left, it was clear to me that he was not about helping or creating solutions, at least not then, he needs to help in the future. He told me to ‘handle it’ and that as long as White Clay was legally selling alcohol that there was nothing he could do. Excuse me, White Clay has been the center of underage sales, human trafficking, selling to beyond intoxicated people, unsolved deaths or murders and who knows what else; ask any of our community members, for years we’ve been putting up with this. Well, our people are tired of protesting; we are tired of it. I am legitimately concerned about the safety of everyone, our people and the people in White Clay. I don’t think Governor Heineman realizes the scope of this; somethings going to happen; White Clay is explosive, we need to prevent that -he and I as leaders need to do all we can to stop that. Who wants to see that? You know, let’s be sensible. We’re counting on the good people of Nebraska, we know they’re there, to question why their tax dollars are supporting this debacle, is this really the image the State of Nebraska wants to send to the world in 2013 -that it doesn’t care about White Clay? This land where White Clay is standing is our land, it is legally ours under the 1868 Treaty between the Lakota nation and the USA. Governer Heineman told us to ‘handle it’ and thats what we are going to continue to do!” ENDQUOTE

[LRI] *pause* [awkward silence from interviewer as the goosebumps settle] Uhhh, is that all Mr. President about White Clay for now [President Brewer chuckles], how about Johnny Depp, is it true you’ve been in contact with him about possibly buying Wounded Knee?

[BREWER] Yes! Johnny Depp, I’ve been put in contact with his representatives and we had a talk. They expressed to me that he’s interested in potentially securing Wounded Knee for us and all I can say is that I would love for Johnny Depp to come out, the Lakota Nation would welcome him for a sit-down to see that our name “Lakota” truly means Allies or Friends.