David Rooks and his high school buddies would sneak out, “borrow” a parent’s car and drive to Whiteclay on Friday nights.
The 61-year-old freelance journalist grew up just northwest of Pine Ridge. Whiteclay was an Old West town, where bar fights would inevitably spill out onto the streets.
Hecetu, he says. That’s just the way it was.
Rooks spent more than two years working at a beer store as a clerk and assistant manager.
His time there instilled compassion in him for those who drink in Whiteclay and for those who sell alcohol there, knowing the compromises he was forced to make with his own conscience to peddle beer to his people.
He said he had to take responsibility for his own actions to get sober 25 years ago.
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The Lakota people need to do the same, he said.
“The problem still exists. They think they’ve won a great victory. They haven’t.”
Rooks
