Whiteclay Conspiracy Analysis

The Whiteclay Conspiracy One course, offered at Nebraska Wesleyan University, is Women’s Global Health. In taking this course, one of the required activities involved watching the documentary, “The Battle for Whiteclay.” The responses from fellow classmates were coherent in the fact that most had never heard of Whiteclay, Nebraska nor the plight of the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe members living just to the north on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The images of Native Americans intoxicated and slumped over on sidewalks and against the various liquor establishments located within Whiteclay was deplorable. This alcohol epidemic is responsible for many of the problems afflicting this tribe its use being blamed for causing some of the highest rates of suicide, unemployment, domestic abuse, infant mortality, and violent crime in Indian Country (Associated Press, 2013). Inadequate funding, lack of resources, and our society’s “blind eye”, in viewing the problems of the Lakota tribe, have led to impoverished conditions giving them the distinction of having the shortest life expectancy (between 45 and 52 years) except for Haiti,

Just 250 feet south, across the state-line in Nebraska, is the town of Whiteclay whose population of twelve residents and four liquor stores sold approximately 1,009 cans of beer per resident, per day (Murphy, 2013). The problem lies in that it is not the residents of Whiteclay consuming these insurmountable amounts of alcohol, but within the inhabitants of Pine Ridge. These businesses capitalize on the alcohol ban across the border by selling inordinate amounts of beer to the residents of Pine Ridge leading to binge drinking, homelessness, violence, and other associated