From loyal reader Stewart, a link to a letter to the Native Times regarding the ongoing controversy over the treatment of bears in Cherokee:
The bears in the pits are not pet bears and are often more dangerous than the ones in the wild, which would by nature flee human kind if not habituated to human imprint. Bears are intellectual animals that are capable of remembering the prodding, shocking, high pressure water and other manmade discomforts that bears often endure behind the scenes and they are justifiably subject to retaliate. Because a bear is dependent and may eat from your hand does not necessarily make it forever submissive. For someone to say the bears are being cared for adequately because they meet USDA guidelines is like saying Indian boarding schools were adequate because they met US Government standards while innocent Indian children were being whitewashed, molested, and deprived of being who they are. Many elders from reservation to reservation have lots of horror stories as to how their hair was cut and their bodies saturated with dust to kill lice, punished verbally and physically for speaking their only language and practicing their traditions. There is a huge parallel between the treatment of these bears and the treatment imposed upon the American Indian by their oppressors so Cherokee, North Carolina does not speak for all Indian people regarding their indifference towards animals anymore than I do. What many of us love about Native America is the ancestral philosophies and where I am not lost in the romanticized Hollywood version of Native people, I am tied to the knowledge that there were and still are true practitioners of sound stewardship.
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Two words Truthy . . . "Soverign Soil"
So think all you want, im proud the Chief asked PETA and Bob Barker off its soil. The one poster is right . . .
I want to speak on both the bears and the person using this thread to complain about the casino.
First, they make it sound like all the places here have a bear in a pit. Only 1 out of the 4 places with bears are like that. Many of us has spoke up about the the place.
The tribe is is growing fast and we have projects coming up all over the place with the funding from the casino. Right now, Cherokee looks more like a construction zone. lol
I am sure as things get bigger the bear problem will be fixed. See, to till us to just stop having them will never work. The reason is, We want to see what are grandpa’s and grandma’s are talking about. We want our kids to see them! My Grandpa use to till me, when he drove over the mountain that he seen bears and all other kinds of animals.
Ya know I have been over that mountain 100x and never seen a bear. You can thank poachers for that. I am not going to say a Cherokee’s never poached. We have bad apples just like any other. But out of it maybe 10% was Cherokee.
And many of that was to sale things before the casino in the shops to help us live. Before the casino, 90% of Cherokee closed down for winter.
And most shop owner barely made it each year. The rest of us was doing crap jobs or living off of the government to get by.
Many off us moved from the tribe to other stats and cities to take care of our kids. Were getting to come back because of that casino you ready to talk crap about. We just got dune building big Beautiful school thanks to that casino.
You said. "Tribe members are constantly encouraged to gamble"
Well we constantly encouraged to shop at food-lion and wall-mart. Lets shut them down! I get way more trash mail from Wall-Mart then I have ever got from casino.
Also let me reply to "Great idea, get drunk and go gamble"
Cherokee is 1 of the VERY few places that alcohol is not sold!
I hear that is changing and it’s a change I hate to see.
I would like to thank the US on the fight against drugs. To bad they missed the one that kills more then any other one. And finally getting it pushed on to places that have been against it from so long.
You assume too much, I didn’t gamble. And you’re right, people should take responsibility for their actions, much like the Tribe should do by treating the bears the way they do.
You had a conference at a CASINO what were you thinking?? Its like going to Vegas and pretending not to know that prostitution and gambling is legal.
No one made you gambe, maybe you should take responsibility for YOUR actions instead "wahhhh it was the mean ol Tribe that made me gamble" If you gambe that is YOUR choice no one is making you gambe, no one put a gun to your head forcing you to loose money. Maybe you should take your petty pass the buck attitude to the people that scheduled your conference.
Complaining about gambling at a casino . . . . .
For all those opposed to the way the bears are treated, a group should be ORGANIZED so that our collective thoughts and ideas can be expressed. We need more regional and national attention with this. Having Bob Barker around was nice, but we need local folks committed to addressing this constantly. If the tribe will treat their own people with little respect to their own well being, what’s wrong with treating a bear inhumanely?
Tribe members are constantly encouraged to gamble at Harrah’s even though nearly everyone loses money there in the long run. I once had a conference in Cherokee and someone high-ranking in the tribe (can’t remember his name) smiled and laughed when he enticed us to gamble and told us where the nearest spot was to buy alcohol to "make us feel good about gambling your time and money". Great idea, get drunk and go gamble, thanks Cherokee Tribe!