1992 “It’s racist – it’s trying to stir things up"
Prairie Island plant bans
cartoon mocking Indians
by Bob von Sternberg
1992 April 30, Star Tribune
Copies of a cartoon portraying members of the Prairie Island Sioux tribe wearing braids, traditional Indian garb and speaking pidgin English were removed from the walls at the Prairie Island nuclear power plant this week after a plant worker complained.
“It’s racist – it’s trying to stir things up,” said Willie Hardacker, the tribes attorney.
“I personally found it offensive,” said Mike Wadley, operations superintendent at the power plant, located next to the Prairie Island reservation near Red Wing. “It doesn’t affect Native Americans in a positive light. I took down five copies of it.”
After employees brought the cartoon to Wadley’s attention Monday morning, he told staff members and contract employees at the plant that NSP doesn’t tolerate harassment on any grounds. “There’s zero tolerance,” he said. “If an individual finds something offensive, it is.”
In the past, relations between plant workers and Indians have been cordial, but those have been strained in recent months because of the battle between the tribe and NSP over the company’s plan to store nuclear fuel outside the plant.
Wadley said he doesn’t think the cartoon is traceable to that tension, and tribal council members weren’t making that claim, Hardacker said. “We’re committed to a good working relationship and sometimes that can get stressed,” Wadley said.
Hardacker said tribal officials suspect the cartoon could have stemmed from the tribe’s practice of giving away meal vouchers and gambling money at the door of its casino. NSP workers have been seen taking those freebies, he said. One of the Indians in the cartoon is telling a plant worker, “got-em free breakfast, free money.”
Wadley said the worker or workers responsible for the cartoon haven’t been found. He declined to say how they would be punished.
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| 1992 April 30, Star Tribune |
