by John Schreiber

Scene: 1860's. Pristine Minnesota landscape. Woods. Lakes. Prairie. Potential farm land.
White man's greed denies hungry Indians their deserved food. Indians, reluctantly led by Little Crow, protest with violence. White man gets Indian land. The Indians either hang, starve, or are driven out of Minnesota.

Cut to 1980's. Minnesota introduces gambling on a broader scale and throw in a few horses as well. The gambling catches on, but the horses are left in the dust. Let's add a lottery. Let's advertise. Let's entice people to give money they've worked for to gain money they haven't.
The few Indians remaining in Minnesota decide to capitalize on white man's greed. It's only fitting. White man's greed destroyed the Indian culture. Why not let the Indians finally gain something by catering to that greed?

Gambling booms.

Fast cut to 1993. A small town Minnesota high school, not unlike other small town high schools.
This past winter, while monitoring the lunch room, I overheard two students discussing their plans for their eighteenth birthday--go to Red Wing and gamble. I thought how odd it was that students' interests had changed so drastically since I was 18.

A month later a student said she wasn't able to finish her assignment. Not an unusual occurrence. But the excuse was new: she had been forced to babysit because her mother had gone gambling.
A few weeks after that, a different student came to class angry. She confided that her mother had gone to a casino and lost their federal tax return. She had run out of money and had returned home about 4 A.M.

Last week yet another student came to school distraught. His parents were in danger of losing their home. His mother had been gambling away the last five months' house payments.

Shortly thereafter, in literature class, when discussing Thomas Paine's "The Crisis, Number 1", I pointed out Paine's statement that "What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value."

A senior objected, stating quite vehemently, yet also quite sincerely, that it didn't matter "how we got something. It doesn't matter if you work for it or if you win it gambling. It's just as good."

With the work ethic now being firmly replaced by the gambling ethic, who needs to worry about Japanese competition? In fact, why worry? Why work? With enough time, we'll eventually win. We have to. After many losses, didn't we eventually master Nintendo?

Cut to the Minnesota legislature. White man's greed is now desiring a piece of the Indian's pie. Let them. It's only fitting that the white man destroy the white man.

Call it Little Crow's revenge.