What a gravely embarrassing, misinformed and downright ignorant opinion was offered in the name of commentary by Frank R. Parlato Jr. on the Gazette’s March 22 opinion page. In failing to recognize the obvious weakness of his argument, Parlato exemplifies his idiosyncratically circular mindset regarding the local economic situation.
Here is a circumstance that is primarily and solely about that one thing that no one can get enough of — money — and it is magnified to become an issue of racism, spite and dissent. Unfortunately, opinions of this sort are available in abundance in this area, and it’s time that people took the initiative to digest the magnitude of what they are saying and what they truly know and understand about the United States.
For anyone living in reality and taking an honest look around this area, it is clear that Niagara Falls, as a whole, has continued to wane for the past 50-plus years, far before the casinos every crystallized into a concrete enterprise on which to blame every local problem from debt to crime to slovenly, undereducated citizenry.
Foremost, the debate over pros and cons of Indian-owned casinos is consistent with gambling in any area. Statistics exhibit that gambling does affect local economies in many ways, both good and bad.
Not a person around can deny the number of jobs created and expanded since the casino opened, doing more to boost local incomes than the previously underused convention center had ever accomplished.
Similarly, the casino has created its own share of problems as well. Whether or not casino gambling falls in line with “traditional” native ways is not only dubious, but almost debasing and hypocritical to the concept of indigenous culture as a whole. While it is true that simple gambling games were common in indigenous re-colonization societies, foreshadowing of large massive corporate enterprises is something that cannot be considered appropriate.
But that’s not their fault, is it? Whose idea was it to stampede into North America, claiming it as a new world of endless opportunity, vast availability and hundreds of thousands of uninhabited territories, not paying any mind to the well-developed cultures that survived off the land without destroying it since time immemorial?
I hardly believe the treaties currently upholding the Iroquois’ right to tax-free status were created so that cheap cigarettes, gambling venues, big screen televisions and other odd goods could be made available in abundance.
That, however, is the hand dealt to Senecas and other tribes as well — tax-free reservations, typically remote plots of land unsuitable for anything other than rotting away in the name of accepted genocide, in exchanged for exploitation of the land, which in traditional believe cannot be owned by anyone for any purpose.
They are taking that hand and educating themselves, exercising their fundamental right to that precious thing, that one precious thing warned about in traditional teachings: money. An Ojibway proverb states: “Only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last river has been poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught, only then will you find that your money cannot be eaten.”
The Seneca Gaming Corp. does not represent the “red man” wholly, nor does anything about their operation, practices or values.
If Parlato wants to discuss ancestors and their placement, perhaps he would like to consider the ancestors of the Senecas and countless other tribes who are likely rolling over in their graves, watching their people lose sight of ancient wisdoms and practices in the name of monetary gain, the warnings and premonitions of Seneca prophet Handsome Lake thrown aside.
But that’s not his concern. He and many others are interested in placing blame on someone, anyone, for their failures and difficulties, both personal and non-personal.
Unfortunately, this blame game is what forces little businesses out and big ready-to-conquer machines, well-oiled and well-equipped, to outrun others in a system of glorified Darwinism.
That system is called capitalism and is the way of this society, regardless of tax rights, George Custer, or the “unlearned, unsmiling” legions of automatons exercising their free will by pulling improbably cranks on slot machines in downtown Niagara Falls.
This occurs anywhere local citizens are outrun by mass enterprises that generate more money, more perpetuation of the ruthless manifest destiny-inspired idea that economic development, at whatever cost, is the key to success in this world.
Parlato and those like him merely have an obvious minority in which to base their scorn, envy and time-wasting editorial articles. If there’s anything to blame in this situation, it is the all-too-common, human inability to move past injury into recovery the tendency to dwell on what is wrong rather than how to fix it.
The solution is neither immediate nor simple and starts with the individual — not a faceless mass of business people simply dubbed “the red man.”
Kristin Gansworth is a resident of Sanborn.
