[env-trinity] Racism Stains Klamath River

[Richard Pruitt]

ECONEWS: Racism Stains Klamath River 
Posted by: NEC on Friday, February 01, 2002 - 12:28 PM
 
by Tim McKay
Overt racism reared its ugly head in December on the upper 
Klamath River, where conflicting demands for not enough water 
have entangled fishers, tribes and farmers.

The tense situation was aggravated further when President* 
Bush came out on the side of subsidized farmers.

Hard on the heels of last summer’s anti-government occupation 
of the federal Bureau of Reclamation facility in Klamath Falls, 
three residents of the nearby town of Bonanza capped a hunting 
and beer-drinking trip by shooting up the town of Chiloquin in 
December.

The village of 500 residents is the headquarters for the Klamath 
Tribes that consider the imperiled fish they call c’waam and qapdo, 
and which the whites call suckers, to be sacred gifts of the Creator.

Sucker Lovers

Perry Chocktoot, among those who witnessed the incident, said the 
trio pulled up in front of his house while he was working on his 
truck and fired a shotgun blast into a portable toilet across the 
street, yelling: “Sucker-lovers, come out and fight!”

After firing at signs and buildings around town, they pulled up 
behind a stopped school bus unloading kids for a basketball game. 
They asked the children if they were Indians, Chocktoot said, 
and then “they shot over one kid’s head.”

Three weeks later, ranch hand George Curry, logger Richard Sharp 
and their friend Adam Lee were charged with felony intimidation, 
unlawful use of a weapon, conspiracy, criminal mischief and reckless 
endangerment. They have not been jailed and no trial has been held.

Two weeks later, Oregon State University and the University of 
California at Davis released a draft assessment which found 
that racism is a deeply embedded social problem and a barrier 
to finding solutions to the water over-allocation situation.

The full 301-page report can be found on the web at
 http://eesc.orst.edu/klamath or at the NEC library.

 
 



Richard Pruitt
rickpruitt at earthlink.net
Why Wait? Move to EarthLink.
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