The Ugly American. They are just children. They are different from you. So What?!

[sheshe2]

Last edited Sun Feb 1, 2015, 01:14 AM - Edit history (1)

The trip was a reward for students who'd achieved academic and classroom behavior goals this year.



Native American school children taunted with slurs, sprayed with beer at South Dakota hockey game

Totally outrageous. Most of the children were elementary students and were whisked away:

Because of the racially-charge assault, the chaperones removed the youth from the game before its conclusion.

The American Horse School is a K-8th grade school on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/01/29/1360934/-Native-American-school-children-taunted-with-slurs-sprayed-with-beer-at-South-Dakota-hockey-game#



They are just children. On a field trip for achieving goals set for them. They were being rewarded for excelling. Then they were abused and vilified with racial slurs. It breaks my heart.

They are just children.

**********************edit to add.**************************

thank you lunasun for the heads up for AHS

The incident that took place at the Rush Hockey game Saturday January 24th 2015.
The official statement from
American Horse School Board & Superintendent

American Horse School Board has filed an official police report with the Rapid City Police Department concerning the physical and verbal abuse of their students by males in the Eagle Sales VIP Suite at the Rush Hockey Game at the Rapid City Civic Center on the 24th of January.



The incident which involved racial slurs, pouring of beer on the students, harassment and bullying the students and their AHS school staff chaperones and a parent with a 4 year old child fits the descriptors of a federal Hate Crime and will be brought to the attention of the federal authorities. The students ages 9 to 13 were on an incentive trip with the 2lst Century program, this trip was an award for academic success. The AHS Board and their legal counsel will continue to pursue legal actions necessary to bring justice to these AHS Students and Staff!

If there are any additional questions please address the undersigned!

Dr. Gloria J Coats-Kitsopoulos

http://americanhorseschool.com/

[Electric Monk]

1. Here's an LBN thread on this from Thursday, with updates

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141000981

[sheshe2]

2. I sincerely hope that the a**holes serve time.

For every charge against them. Every damn one of them!

Thank you EM

[Electric Monk]

7. and a nice fine for the owner of the offending luxury box, with the money going to sending the kids

on another field trip, perhaps to a Minnesota Wild game?

[sheshe2]

8. Agreed!

Poetic justice! Yes!

[shenmue]

3. It's so sad

I wish I could hug those kids.

[sheshe2]

5. Me too shenmue.

I hope they are getting much needed counseling from school. They need to know their lives matter. The poor babies will need it.

[lunasun]

4. Contact the school with an email of support for trial

[e-mail]
THANKS!

[sheshe2]

6. Thank you for the email address lunasun.

Will do it.

[lunasun]

9. American Horse School . They have a web site too

They can bring the emails asking for conviction , hate crime status to court

[sheshe2]

10. do you have a direct link.

in got no results.

will try their site.

thanks

[freshwest]

11. Hating the innocent, trying to blight their vision. Charges made, changes needed.

[sheshe2]

13. The sweet children freshwest.

We cry.





We cry.

[Lifelong Protester]

12. As reported here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141001174

Edited to add: What A**holes, the perps that is.

[Roy Rolling]

14. Certainly they are a-holes

But is the answer a knee-jerk reaction calling for long jail sentences? We all know the for-profit jail system many times fails to rehabilitate and often makes offenders worse.

Certainly a heinous and insensitive act was committed, but throwing offenders into a corrupt system does little to repair the damage to the children or to enlighten the offenders. We have to demand a better resolution than revenge.

[sheshe2]

15. If it goes to trial as a hate crime and they are convicted.

Yes they need to serve time.



Hate crimes add an element of bias to traditional crimes—and the mixture is toxic to our communities.

Crimes of hatred and prejudice—from lynchings to cross burnings to vandalism of synagogues—are a sad fact of American history, but the term “hate crime” did not enter the nation’s vocabulary until the 1980s, when emerging hate groups like the Skinheads launched a wave of bias-related crime. The FBI began investigating what we now call hate crimes as far back as World War I, when the Ku Klux Klan first attracted our attention. Today, we remain dedicated to working with state and local partners to prevent these crimes and to bring to justice those who commit them.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/civilrights/hate_crimes/

Hate Crime

Information and resources regarding hate crimes and bias

The U.S. Department of Justice defines hate crime as “the violence of intolerance and bigotry, intended to hurt and intimidate someone because of their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, or disability.”

Forty-one states and the District of Columbia have laws against hate crimes. This means that if bias is involved, a crime such as vandalism, assault, or murder is also a hate crime, and the penalty is more severe than it would be otherwise.

People commit hate crimes for many reasons:

They are ignorant about people who are different from themselves (and terrified of the difference)
They need to be able to look down on others in order to compensate for their own low self-esteem
They have been brutalized themselves (though not by their victims) and therefore see brutalizing others as fair game.

Hate crime is a serious societal problem: the FBI reported 7,722 incidents of hate crimes in 2006, of which about 52 percent were directed at people because of their race; 19 percent, because of the victims’ religion; 16 percent because of their sexual orientation; and 13 percent because of their ethnicity or national origin.

http://www.ncpc.org/topics/hate-crime

Not knee jerk. Fact.

[Bluenorthwest]

21. In 2013, the percentage of South Dakota inmates held in privately owned prisons was 0.4%

a small handful of special needs prisoners. Talking about 15 people or so.

[newfie11]

16. Discrimination against the Lakota is widespread in SD

Sad to say but true. I've worked on 3 rez, Cheyenne River, Rosebud, and Standing Rock and find the Lakota great people.
Idiots like the ones in the civic center, I would bet, have never known a Lakota personally as a friend but instead Just as someone to look down on
Just like all people, there are good and bad.
In 16 years of doing mobile mammography, unloading and loading a 600 pound machine into different sites (on and off the Rez), it was only Lakota men that offered to help move the machine from the Van to inside the buildings.
There was always food provided by the tribe for the ladies coming in.
If you don't know a person of a different race-culture then you need to.
Learning different cultures is eye opening and these idiots at the civic center are an abomination.

[polly7]

20. I've seen it up here too, newfie11.

We have a reservation about a half hour away, I've met some really great people from White Bear when working in Carlyle (the closest town to it) with the ambulance. So kind and helpful and they never forget you to say hello and smile. Also .... some of THE best hockey players around here I've ever seen - or anywhere, actually. We have a Bix 6 Hockey league, which is very competitive. White Bear had only just built a small skating arena and I believe were only in the league for about 3-4 years, but watching them on the ice was like watching magic some nights. They were so fast they seemed to fly over the ice passing back and forth, from one end to the other. Even though probably none of them had had the years of minor hockey experience and discipline most of every other team 's members had most likely gone through (it's so expensive - the equipment, the gas to travel for the season ..... I don't know how much part that played in it, but they never had a minor hockey program), they were amazing. They had miles of lake though, and I wonder if they played their hearts out on it from the time they could skate. But, as young men ...... they pretty much beat the pants off all of the other men's teams in the league - and fight ---- whoo, boy, even our tough guys soon learned to pick their battles wisely.

It was always a full house at 'our' arenas when they came, but disgraceful to see that only a few of us would go to theirs to watch. Our rec. boards made most of their money from these games, I know theirs would have been hoped to do the same and that lack of support from the rest of us couldn't have gone unnoticed. I don't think it's used much anymore, at least I know they haven't had any kind of organized hockey there for a long, long time. But I do still remember how exciting it was to see them play. If they'd had the opportunity and backing, some could probably have had good careers playing up here, if not in the NHL.

My heart breaks for these kids. What they went through is just absolutely horrible and something no child should ever have to experience, let alone have to remember for a lifetime.

[Dorian Gray]

17. Awful

human beings. Who can do this to children?

[MH1]

18. Response from Eagle Sales - "it was a client" - "won't happen again"

This is a good statement and if this is true, it is very unfortunate for the company.

http://www.kotatv.com/news/south-dakota-news/Eagle-Sales-workers-harassed-following-racial-incident/31009538

Still, I think Eagle Sales , maybe with help from the hockey team (or the closest major league team) should organize and fund a special event for these kids as a concrete way of apologizing and trying to make it up to them.

[madokie]

19. Words fail me