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All photos by Aaron Huey and can be seen at the New York Times interview here.

Aaron Huey arrived on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota at the start of a self-assigned photographic road trip to document poverty in America.

The poverty he found on the reservation stopped him cold.

"Pine Ridge is the scariest place I've ever been - more so than in a Taliban ambush," Mr. Huey said.  "It was emotionally devastating.  I'd call my wife late at night crying."

Overwhelmed by the poverty – and at the same time by scenes of people trying to maintain the Lakota way of life – Mr. Huey abandoned the rest of his nationwide project to focus on Pine Ridge.  Five years later, he's still photographing on the reservation, which includes the Wounded Knee battlefield.

Mr. Huey, 33, is a photgrapher for National Geographic Adventure and National Geographic Traveler.  He also freelances for The New Yorker and Geo.  In 2007, he photographed in Afghanistan for The Times.

Still Wounded is an amazing photo series and great interview on this photographer and what he sees on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.

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http://www.abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/story?id=7882746&page=1

via ABC News:

“Alcohol is connected to suicides across all [racial and ethnic] groups,” Dr. Alex Crosby of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control said.  “When programs try to address suicide prevention, they should definitely include alcohol as one component.”

Alcohol has long been a known risk factor in suicide, said Dr. Eric Caine, chair of psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, N.Y.

But the study is unique because it examines the role of alcohol in suicides across all ethnic groups — data that has been limited in prior studies, Crosby said.

“This is a really importan paper because it underscores how much a common risk factor such as drinking contributes to something like suicide,” Caine said. “Here’s more data on how something like alcohol is fuel on the fire, and we need to ask ourselves what we are going to do about it.”

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http://64.38.12.138/News/2009/014978.asp

from Indianz.com:

A city on the Yakama Nation in Washington is cracking down on public drinking.

Offenders up to 90 days in jail and up to a $1,000 fine for drinking in public in Wapato. “It’s something to say, ‘Hey, we’re not playing games — we’re doing something about it,” police chief Richard Sanchez told The Yakima Herald-Republic. The Yakama Nation tried to ban alcohol sales on the reservation a few years ago. But non-Indian businesses in places like Wapato objected. It’s those businesses that cater to a largely Indian client base. “This is an everyday thing we do out here,” Valerie Jolene Sampson, a tribal member, says of her drinking habits.

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plainoljane:

wikirocks:

This is the poem that the short story “What You Pawn, I Will Redeem” from Sherman Alexie’s Ten Little Indians is based on. I know that I keep talking about this book, but it has turned out to be very special to me. The story is about a homeless Spokane Indian that sees his grandmother’s stolen regalia (it was a Native American garment) in a pawn shop and spends 24 hours trying to get $1000 to buy it. He is battling alcoholism, but he wants to be a hero and buy it back because his grandmother, who had died many years prior, meant a lot to him.

Admonitions

boys
i don’t promise you nothing
but this
what you pawn
i will redeem
what you steal
i will conceal
my private silence to
your public guilt
is all i got

girls
first time a white man
opens his fly
like a good thing
we’ll just laugh
laugh real loud my
black women

children
when they ask you
why is your mama so funny
say
she is a poet
she don’t have no sense

-Lucille Clifton

That story was tragic and funny, heartbreaking and amusing.

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http://www.reznetnews.org/article/nebraska-beer-sales-natives-protested-30860

deltafoxtrot:

About two dozen protesters gathered at the state Capitol to protest beer sales to American Indians in the northwest Nebraska village of Whiteclay.

There are four beer stores in the town, which is within walking distance of the reservation. They sell about 11,000 cans of beer a day, mostly to residents of the reservation, where alcohol is not allowed.

The gathering and Indian prayer ceremony at the Capitol preceded a screening of a recently released documentary, “The Battle for Whiteclay.”

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http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/articles/index.cfm?id=21798§ion=news

When Cecil White Hat was 5 years old, he stood in the back of his dad’s car in Mission, S.D.

The streets were jam-packed with cars. It was 1953 and the first day it was legal for American Indians to buy alcohol.

White Hat described the scene he witnessed as a young boy in his presentation, “How Alcohol Came To The People,” Wednesday at the third annual Red Lake Drug and Gang Summit in Red Lake. The two-day summit continues today.

White Hat, a Lakota Sioux who is originally from Rosebud, S.D., recalled that day in 1953.

“That whole town was packed,” he said.

When the liquor store owner opened the store that day, nobody went in for what seemed like a long time, White Hat said. Then, one American Indian man entered the store, bought alcohol and walked outside – with no arrest. After that, White Hat described, there was a stampede on the store.

White Hat said his dad later told him, “Our communities went down very fast after that.”

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deltafoxtrot:

1
Cain lifts Crow, that heavy black bird
and strikes down Abel.

Damn, says Crow, I guess
this is just the beginning.

2
The white man, disguised
as a falcon, swoops in
and yet again steals a salmon
from Crow’s talons.

Damn, says Crow, if I could swim
I would have fled this country years ago.

3
The Crow God as depicted
in all of the reliable Crow bibles
looks exactly like a Crow.

Damn, says Crow, this makes it
so much easier to worship myself.

4
Among the ashes of Jericho,
Crow sacrifices his firstborn son.

Damn, says Crow, a million nests
are soaked with blood.

5
When Crows fight Crows
the sky fills with beaks and talons.

Damn, says Crow, it’s raining feathers.

6
Crow flies around the reservation
and collects empty beer bottles

but they are so heavy
he can only carry one at a time.

So, one by one, he returns them
but gets only five cents a bottle.

Damn, says Crow, redemption
is not easy.

7
Crow rides a pale horse
into a crowded powwow
but none of the Indian panic.

Damn, says Crow, I guess
they already live near the end of the world.

- Sherman Alexie

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http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096417695

Volunteers staged another blockade aimed at keeping beer out of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where alcoholism is rampant. This time, tribal police cooperated.

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deltafoxtrot:

TO THE MAN AT STARBUCKS, WHO SAID TO HIS FRIEND,
“AT LEAST HE’S BUYING COFFEE INSTEAD OF WHISKEY…”

To have the patience stones
have, you must hold in your hand
an imaginary knife
and squeeze it until blood bobsleds
down your fingernails
and off your palms.

When you can render fists
like this
without flinching
you can cast a smile
and wait.

My pockets are lined
with loose change and loose beads
of blood. This my currency.

I could bitchslap your face red
make you swallow your teeth whole
pull your top lip over your chin
and tie your ears behind your head
but instead
we’ll be bros, parting ways
with head nods.

You’ll go on, head held high
but intact and full of pride
as fake as Hollywood breasts

and I will go on, smooth as stones
to my studio. I will empty my pockets
onto another canvas. This is how I invest.

I don’t pick my battles
I wage war on empty wall space.

Bunky Echo-Hawk

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