Friday,  June 14, 2013 • Vol. 14--No. 329 • 17 of 30

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Sioux Tribe on the neighboring Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The tribe for years fought the store owners, going so far as to sue the country's largest beer distributors last year.
• In one cartoon satirizing the Whiteclay issue, Two Bulls draws four adults huddled around a picket line with signs denouncing the town. Two young children stand nearby holding their own sign: "Just quit drinking," it says.
• Another drawing shows a Native American man, dressed in jeans, cowboy boots, a bandanna and with a long braid down his back, talking on his cellphone, a gas container by his side. The man asks, "Hau Bra ... Can you give me a ride to the Keystone pipeline protest?"
• Both illustrations show the sometimes hypocritical nature of tribal members, Two Bulls said.
• "If everyone quit drinking, then Whiteclay would go away. If everyone stopped driving their cars, Keystone would go away," he said. "It's simplistic. It's the way a child would look at the problem, but you know a lot of times the most simplest answers are the hardest to face because of that person in the mirror."
• But Two Bulls has faced criticism from fellow Native Americans for his approach. After one particularly controversial cartoon, someone drew a cartoon of him as a colonizer, he said.
• While the 51-year-old tackles a wide variety of issues, he said he has a particular soft spot for those affecting Oglala Sioux tribal members.
• "That's kind of why I started -- for my people," he said. "When topics come up that affect them, I like to really do it with them in mind."
• Rob Capriccioso, the Washington bureau chief for Indian Country Today Media Network, calls Two Bulls one of the "sharpest political cartoonists working today." Capriccioso said mainstream audiences might not always understand the Native American-centric topics he lampoons, but he piques curiosity.
• One topic that always stirs debate, Capriccioso said, is when Two Bulls tackles the use of Native American imagery in team names or mascots.
• "Several of his cartoons plainly ask readers to think about how odd it would be if a team name were called 'Whites,' or if stereotypical imagery were widely accepted that is racist and offensive toward minority groups other than Indians," he said. "To fans of the teams and names he highlights, his work is controversial. To an Indian reader, his work is less shocking, yet more appreciated."
• Two Bulls' work always has a point to it, said Anthony Janis, an Oglala Sioux tribal member living on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
• "Whether I agree with it or not, it still comes across," said Janis, 50. "There are a lot of issues here and some are sensitive, and he is addressing them in his way.

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