Melvin Martin on Tiger's mistress

Correspondent Melvin Martin weighs in on Jaimee Grubbs, Tiger Woods's mistress, and her attack on Indians:

Melvin Martin:  Tiger's philandering and Indian Country"They get their free money..." has been around in various permutations since I was a kid growing up in Rapid City, South Dakota in the early '50s. This is by far the most mythic assumption by the majority of non-Indian America, that Indian people throughout the country receive a "monthly check" for simply "being Indian." If this were true, well then, where's my money? I'll be 57-years old in February of 2010 and not once in all that time was I ever given one red (no pun intended) cent by the federal government solely for possessing Indian heritage. This particular falsehood is the most damaging to Indians as it implies that we are indeed bred and born with a strong aversion to work for a living--why should we want to work at all when we get free money?

"They drink and that's all that matters..." is to be found in the KKK's member guide to hating the American Indian. Yes, Indian people do suffer from alcoholism at rates far greater than other ethnic groups and a lot of Indian people drink. But, we are most definitely not defined by what essentially constitutes a disease that was foisted upon us, a people who had never had a few thousand years to biologically acclimate to alcohol. Factor in generations of Indians who have been horribly victimized by all sorts of abuse by the dominant culture and is it any wonder why so many of us seek escape by way of alcohol? I'd like to point out here that in 1968 when the Soviet Union invaded what was then the nation of Czechoslovakia, that within a mere 24-hour time period, every bottle of alcoholic beverages in that whole country had been either purchased, traded for or stolen--by a citizenry under siege by an oppressive, murderous super-power.Comment:  For more on the subject, see The Essential Facts About Indians