Page, Arizona Mayor Makes "Insensitive" Remarks About Navajos

Above, a map of the massive Navajo Nation at the Navajo Museum Library
 & Visitors Center in Window Rock, Arizona. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

As we are almost two months into the lockdown and stay-at-home orders in various states, it is understandable that nerves are frayed a bit and some things are being said and done that shouldn't be and normally wouldn't be.

The latest involves the mayor of Page, Arizona and the Navajo Nation.

From The Middletown Press:

PAGE, Ariz. (AP) — Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez called on elected officials in reservation border towns to work with the tribe to combat the coronavirus after one mayor made a comment he said was insensitive. 

The Navajo Nation has been hit harder by COVID-19 than any other Native American reservation and has one of the highest per capita rates in the country. As of Saturday, 2,292 people have tested positive and 73 have died. 

The tribe instituted nightly curfews and weekend lockdowns, closed its tourist destinations and tribal offices, and ordered people to stay home. 

Levi Tappan, who is mayor of nearby Page, Arizona, and isn't Native American, posted a comment online over the weekend that said, “I wish he would battle alcoholism as hard as COVID19.” It came after Tappan wrote a letter to Nez asking if he would consider reopening some popular recreation areas on the reservation. 

The comment has since been deleted, and Tappan apologized. 

“I know he’s devoted a lot of resources to combating COVID-19, and I think when the number settles, it will show that alcohol is still far deadlier for our residents, and so I just wish that we could work with those kind of resources on all of our diseases,” Tappan said Sunday. 

Alcoholism is one of the largest social ills on the 27,000-square-mile (70,000-square-kilometer) reservation that reaches into New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. The sale and consumption of alcohol largely is banned there, fueling bootleg operations or leading people into border towns that are hubs for basic household supplies, alcohol sales and water hauling stations. 

Albuquerque was sending water tankers to Gallup on Monday, a much smaller New Mexico city about two hours west on the fringes of the Navajo Nation. Gallup is on lockdown until Thursday to prevent nonessential travel after a rise in coronavirus cases was linked to an outbreak at a detox center.

A portion of the Navajo Nation is just across Interstate 40 from our community of Jamestown, New Mexico. The Iyanbito Chapter of the Nation is directly north of us.

I am pleased to read that water tankers are being sent to Gallup for the tribes in the area (the Zuni Pueblo is south of Gallup). Food and other provisions should be also sent to the tribes since Gallup is under lockdown and non-residents aren't allowed in.

To read more, go here.