New Mexico Business Journal: So I was wrong - entry of gambling operations in Indian reservations

I used to think most Native Americans were lazy and unproductive, and the reservations they lived on was the black hole of our welfare system.

A lot of folks had that attitude.

And the ones who sympathized with the Native Americans, well, those people were just misguided.

I used to think Native Americans didn't want to assimilate, didn't want an education, didn't want a job. I thought all they wanted was a government check every month so they could get drunk and make the pickup truck payment.

They were hard to do business with, didn't understand the way free enterprise worked and didn't care, but were first in line for anything free from the feds. And if they didn't get it, they sued for it.

That's what I used to think.

But the older I get and the more I observe, the more I have to come to understand that my attitude was wrong.

It simply didn't dawn on me that what my culture celebrates -- competition and individualism -- wasn't shared by a culture that celebrates community and harmony.

I didn't see that it is the American Way that kept Native Americans in poverty, stealing their resources, relegating them as a people to the lowest rung on the American ladder.

But maybe it's just not possible to have community and harmony in America today, at least not the kind Native Americans not only worship but, given a chance, actually practice.

What I observe now is a struggling culture, a culture incompatible with mainstream America.

Native American culture could well be swallowed up and forgotten by progress and industrial development.

I know with certainty that the mainstream culture can no longer view itself as superior. We can no longer support the attitude that other cultures are something to be consumed or conquered.

There is something happening on reservations all over America that just might bring change.

It could save a culture of community and harmony.

It's called gambling.

Whether it's bingo palaces or Las Vegas style casinos, it's an opportunity for Native Americans to derive money, protect their culture, provide jobs for their youth and launch health care and economic development initiatives.

It can help.

But I'd like to see the pueblos and reservations that go into the gambling business keep every cent of that income for themselves, payrolls and profits included.

In New Mexico, there's a kind of conspiracy of silence about some of the proposed arrangements to open up new gambling operations on reservations.

I suspect my one concern is the same concern shared by Gov. Bruce King, state Attorney General Tom Udall and some pueblo officials.

New Mexico doesn't need outside syndicates or worse running the operations with an eye toward finding tax breaks and soaring profits while giving Native Americans on any of the reservations only a piece of the pie.

I suspect King and Udall would view the matter entirely differently if Native American leaders in New Mexico would get together with an all encompassing pact that they'll run their own operations, hire their own and put all of the profits to use where they belong.

On the reservations and pueblos.

It's worth a try.

Thanks for reading.