Pubdate: Fri, 24 May 2002
Source: LA Weekly (CA)
Contact:  2002, L.A. Weekly Media, Inc.
Website: http://www.laweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/228
Author: Nancy Rommelmann
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/campaign.htm (ONDCP Media Campaign)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/walters.htm (Walters, John)

WONKS VS. THE REAL WORLD: THE NATIVE BRAIN ON DRUGS

Thursday afternoon near downtown, at the Robert Sundance Family Wellness
Center, an intertribal gathering place on Temple Street that provides health
and human services for local Native Americans, four men play the drums and
quietly sing as 60-plus people take seats on folding chairs to hear John
Walters, head of the White House Office of Drug Control Policy, a.k.a.
President Bush's drug czar. Dave Rambeau, executive director of United
American Indian Involvement, Inc., stands at the head of the room, which is
usually reserved for adult day care and A.A. meetings. On display are new
anti-drug posters featuring kids and elders communing amid amber waves of
grain, and copy that reads, "Grandmother, when you talk, I will listen. When
you teach, I will learn."

"We're honored to have John Walters here today," Rambeau says. "We will
begin the presentation with a prayer song."

Drummer John Funmaker offers a prayer in HoCak (language of the Winnebago
tribe). Margo Kerrigan, California director of Indian Health Service, then
talks about the importance of getting the anti-drug message to urban areas.

"There's a tendency to not see Native peoples in urban areas," Kerrigan
says, "but we're here, and this is the audience we're trying to reach."

She turns over the podium to Walters, who wears a smart tan suit and an
earnest expression.

"It's the first time we've specifically reached out to the Native
community," says Walters, reading from a prepared text. "We believe it's
important we craft it effectively so that it reaches both youths and adults
effectively."

Walters signals a PR person to roll tape: a 30-second ad starring a
bare-chested, loin-clothed Native youth running past mesas, fancy-dancing in
full regalia, riding a horse and working on an oil-painting of a warrior,
while his narration explains over the warble of flute music, "It's about not
doing drugs."

"This ad will run tonight on ABC, and also on BET, MTV, Nickelodeon and the
Sci-Fi Channel," says Walters, adding that print ads will appear in hundreds
of newspapers and magazines on and around reservations. "We worked with the
attitudes and beliefs of American Indian adults and youth to develop
powerful, effective ads."

Everyone in the room wants to be hopeful -- it's good to see Natives
represented in the media -- but the almost laughable irony of this last
comment appears to leave many attendees suspect: What Native peoples did
Walters work with? And why would Natives trust the federal government to fix
the appalling alcoholism and drug-use rates among Natives?

Just this morning Walters was admitting to Juan Williams on NPR that the
nation's five-year, $929 million campaign to keep kids from doing illegal
drugs -- featuring the Dixie Chicks and other pop figures -- was an utter
failure.

"In fact," Walters told Williams, "some of the exposure by younger children
[to the ads] may have been negative in encouraging drug use and actual
initiation of marijuana."

The new national campaign, Walters explained, employs an old tactic, namely,
mixing horror into anti-drug messages, in the style of the '80s classic
"This is your brain; this is your brain on drugs." The new hard line: "Drug
money helps support terror. Buy drugs and you could be supporting it too."

But this fear factor is missing from Walters' presentation here at the
Sundance Center. Why do Indian kids get the flutes-and-feathers soft sell
while other American kids get the scared-straight campaign? Whether or not
Walters picks up on the change in the room's emotional temperature, he
begins what sounds like a broad mea culpa.

"The federal government . . . the best we can do is be supportive," he says.
"We can't prevent drug use, but we can support . . ." He stumbles, then says
something about prevention being the key and makes a point of thanking "all
those people who are sober, who've led the way, who are here today."

A young Acoma Pueblo girl presents Walters with a T-shirt from a recent
"Sobriety Run," Rambeau gives him a homemade cake, and the drum starts again
as everyone congregates around a table laden with fry bread, beans, meat and
brownies. Walters glad-hands for two minutes, and then is out the door for a
photo-op with the littlest kids from the center.

Ten feet away, near the curb, stand four Native teenagers. What did they
think of the ads? Did they think they'd be effective?

The teens look skittish and knowing, in that way only 13-year-olds can.
Finally, a boy with his hair gelled into several dozen spikes says, "Maybe
if they had some buildings in the pictures."

What does he mean?

"Well, they say they're trying to get urban kids, right?"

His friend, who sports a Mohawk, says softly, "We could move to the
boonies."

So, do they think the ads will make a difference to them?

The teens giggle into their fists and cover their faces. One glances at the
kids having their picture taken with Walters and says, "Maybe for the little
kids, like under 10. But after that . . ."

He shrugs imperceptibly, and looks down Temple.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk