Rez Ramblings & Reasonings

I am not a great advocate of gambling. When I was around the age of thirteen went to my friend’s house and we were sent to go the movies. He was a little older than me and I liked hanging out with him. We did many things in the inner city of Denver. One of the things we liked doing was playing billiards. Back in the seventies there were many pool halls and pool sharks just waiting for a mark. I was never a mark because never really had any money. My friend Rick had about three hundred dollars and we were going to go to the movies and to eat some burgers. We walked a few blocks from his house to a nearby pool hall and walked into this room that had about thirty tables. This guy walked up to us after we started playing and wanted to play a few games. They played for two dollars a game. Rick won a few games in the beginning but in the end and later that night we walked out completely broke. My dad Doug Matthews, told me, “Son the house al ways wins.” Of course he was saying when you gamble, the chances of win ning versus losing tips toward the own ers of the gambling business.

Next month Governor Mike Rounds will be holding a meeting in the Rotunda in Pierre to mark the 20th year of Rec onciliation between American Indians and the White Americans. I think it is a great day that the Governor and the Tribes would seek to reconcile their dif ferences in the state. Gambling is a huge deal in South Dakota due to the video lottery and Deadwood. The Indian Casinos are limited in their machines because of the state not wanting their revenue to go down. It should be a les son to tribes the way the State does business. South Dakota lives for tourism and there are some great things here in South Dakota. The tribes need to find ways of bringing tourists to their homelands. Our casino on the Pine Ridge is the biggest source of non federal monies coming to the Oglala. I believe we need to have a destination point to build the source. Here is an idea, maybe we should have a fuel station that sells other items the people would like to buy from us.

I realize we need to have reconciliation in South Dakota. But we need to build trust in order to have true reconcilia tion. I met the governor a couple of years ago at the National Day of Prayer at Mount Rushmore. Of course it was humiliating for me because I was asked to say a prayer at the shrine of democ racy but just before the event was going to start a coordinator came up to me and said I was not needed to pray, instead I was to come up front and I was going to have my name announced. I thought that was ridiculous that they would not allow me to pray. This was when I met Governor Mike Rounds and I thought it was nice to meet him. We talked about our philosophical beliefs and it was a great pleasure. It is very sad that the church needs to be reconciled as well.

It would be a great show of true recon ciliation if the state and tribes renegoti ated the gaming compacts. It would show the tribes the State would like to sit down and take a serious look into our gaming interests. I would also like the tribes to begin to take a stronger stand on self determination and what it looks like in the next decade. It is pure and simple when it comes to taxes and rev enue. Every time the dollar is spent the tribe gets four percent. So if we get more businesses we get more monies. It is time for us to grow up and become our own leaders. We can work as partners because we are coming to maturity. Our people need money to feed their chil dren. It is time again for us to hear from our leaders. Remember our votes do matter and we can vote our elected lead ers in or out.

Leon Matthews has traveled across the world and does motivational speaking. He can be reached at this email : owo@gwtc.net