Not satisfied with the no apology they received from Mayor Bloomberg over his insensitive "cowboys and Indians" statement, members of a number of Indian Nations gathered on the steps of City Hall to chant for "leadership." Onondaga leader Oren Lyons explained to the Times-Union, "What's wrong with a Jewish man egging on a black man to shoot an Indian?...I had a lot of respect for that man and what he's done in New York City, but now...His people went through a holocaust and they have a museum in Washington, D.C., to show the pictures. We don't have a museum to show the holocaust; they wouldn't show the pictures."
As you may recall, Mayor Bloomberg was accused of being racially insensitive by suggesting Governor Paterson don a cowboy hat, grab a gun and force Indian reservations to pay taxes on cigarettes. The Seneca Indian Nation at first demanded his resignation, but said they would settle for an apology. And over a week after the incident, Bloomberg still hasn't given one. George Stonefish of the American Indian community House wondered, "Why doesn’t he just apologize?"
Instead of apologizing, Bloomberg praised the Second Circuit Court of Appeals for denying the Long Island Poospatuck Indians the right to sell cigarettes without taxes. Bloomberg said in a statement, "We couldn't be happier that a court has yet again prevented a tribe from selling large quantities of cigarettes—19,000 cigarettes a day for every man, woman and child on the reservation—without paying the taxes owed and draining billions of dollars from the City and State."
