Whiteclay: The Movie

Nebraska Report

Former NFP President Mark Vasina has just completed a twohour documentary on the controversy surrounding the alcohol sales at Whiteclay, Nebraska. The product of five years of work (including an earlier half-hour version), The Battle for Whiteclay is now in final preparation for public distribution and screenings at film festivals. In the following interview, Mark provides some background into the making of this timely and heartbreaking documentary.

Nebraska Report: You grew up in Colon, Nebraska, near Wahoo, served as a founding director of the Open Harvest Food Co-op in Lincoln in the ’70s, studied accounting and economics in the ’80s, and worked on Wall Street in the ’90s. How did you get into filmmaking?

Mark Vasina: In high school I was fascinated by the American new wave films of the time, such as Bonnie and Clyde, Medium Cool and M*A*S*H. I was struck by the power of film to introduce audiences to events and ideas outside of their immediate experience, and to move and inspire them. Since that time I nurtured a secret wish to make films. Few choices were available to study film production, and ‘low-budget’ filmmaking was not as low-budget as it is today, with affordable digital video cameras and computer editing. By 1999, I had saved some money and decided to quit my job with a New York brokerage firm and enroll in film school.

Nebraska Report: It’s a long way from Wall Street to Whiteclay. What got you interested in the Whiteclay issue?

Mark Vasina: I had developed a love for documentary films, particularly those of Frederick Wiseman, Barbara Kopple and other ‘direct cinema’ filmmakers. I wanted to make these kinds of films and combine my interest in social activism with documentary filmmaking. After film school I returned to Nebraska to make a film about Hispanics in a small town. This project remains unfinished. But I made a film in 2003 about the anti-war rally in Lincoln which took place before the Iraq invasion. At about that time I was elected to the board of Nebraskans for Peace.

Whiteclay came to the attention of NFP following the discovery of the brutally murdered bodies of two Lakota men near the tiny reservation border town of Whiteclay in June 1999. The still-unsolved murders highlighted the neglect by Nebraska authorities regarding the regulation of alcohol sales in Whiteclay. Four off-sale beer stores in Whiteclay sell over 11,000 cans of beer a day to a Native clientele with virtually no legal place to drink them, since the sale and possession of alcohol is banned on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Reports of sales to minors and intoxicated persons, and in exchange for sexual favors from young Native women, were widespread. The 1999 murders were rumored to have been tied to unpaid liquor tabs. NFP joined Native efforts to get Nebraska officials to address the situation in Whiteclay — to provide adequate law enforcement and end the licensing of liquor sales.

My own education about Whiteclay began in March 2003 when NFP organized a teach-in at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. NFP State Coordinator Tim Rinne suggested I videotape it and consider making a film about Whiteclay. I agreed, and followed up by taping the annual march from Pine Ridge to Whiteclay held four months later.

Nebraska Report: The film covers an eight-year span of time, but by the movie’s end, there are still four dealers in Whiteclay and the alcohol sales are continuing. There’s no feel-good ‘happy ending.’ When you started making the movie, did you foresee that there wouldn’t be any sort of closure?

Mark Vasina: The film includes video of the 1999 march to Whiteclay during which nine people (all Natives) were arrested by the Nebraska State Patrol for “crossing,” as Frank LaMere says, “an imaginary line.” However, the film is essentially the story of events recorded over a four-year period between March 2003 and June 2007.

My original intent was to record events for one year, beginning in March 2003. But little had changed during that time. I came to realize that the kind of film I wanted to make demanded a time span of several years. At the end of the first year my involvement had led to a much deeper commitment. And I had come to believe that audiences would be moved not only by what happens in the streets of Whiteclay but also by what takes place in the meeting rooms of the state and local governing bodies where much of the ‘battle for Whiteclay’ is actually waged.

Nebraska Report: Watching the film, you’re gripped by the tragedy of it all, by the utter horror of what alcohol is doing to the Pine Ridge, but the movie isn’t particularly ‘preachy’ about what should be done. What was your filmmaking vision in creating the documentary?

Mark Vasina: Early on I recognized the complexity of the issues around Whiteclay and the difficulty one faces trying to grasp the public policy implications. These issues evolved for me throughout my work on this film. The question I asked as a filmmaker was how to shape this film to help the viewers work through these same issues.

Everyone agrees in principle that public policy decisions should be made based on careful evaluation of the best available information. But in reality policy debates are often more about battles between groups with different values and competing interests than about objective analyses of the issues. It is this dimension of conflict that I wanted to capture. My task as filmmaker is to help the viewers construct the issues, obstacles and possibilities from the unfolding events as they observe the participants operating inside the process of conflict. If viewers fail to recognize the roles of racism and greed in the public ‘debate’ over Whiteclay, I haven’t done my job.

I realize that this style of filmmaking embraces a large measure of ambiguity; all the pieces are not tied together into one forceful conclusion. It is left up to us to interpret what we see and suggest actions to resolve the conflicts. But I believe the film contains all the elements needed to do this.

Nebraska Report: So, in your view, what should be done?

Mark Vasina: The ‘problem’ of Whiteclay is not, as some suggest in the film, how to control alcoholism on the Pine Ridge Reservation. It emerges, I think, from a focused series of questions: What is the appropriate role of public policy regarding the regulation of alcoholic beverages in the service of public health? Are liquor laws enforced adequately in Whiteclay, or not? If not, do state regulatory authorities have a responsibility to end alcohol sales? Is justice served when Nebraska officials ignore the concerns of the residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation, the community actually ‘served’ and harmed by alcohol sales in Whiteclay?

We must ask these questions again and again of our state officials, until they take notice. The Governor can direct the State Patrol to enforce liquor laws more effectively in Whiteclay, and can appoint Liquor Control Commissioners who will take seriously their duty to protect the public — not just the liquor industry. The Liquor Control Commission can more forcefully assert their official role to “promote the health, safety, and welfare of the people of the state, and encourage temperance in the consumption of alcohol.” The Legislature must address, over the objections of liquor and retail lobbyists, weaknesses in our state liquor law so that conflicts between liquor licensees and public health are not routinely resolved in favor of the licensees. Liquor law must be amended so that citizen protests of existing licenses may be heard at the state level.

For information on how to order The Battle for Whiteclay DVD, visit: www.battleforwhiteclay.org.

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