A South Dakota expatriate writes and asks if it is safe to move back to South Dakota. This expat credits a sensible, practical South Dakota upbringing with career success and the great fortune of being able to retire early. This expat has always planned to come back to South Dakota (this part of the story sounds very familiar), but as a political centrist, this expat hears alarming stories from relatives and the news that bullies and threats of violence abound among right-wing nut jobs who flip out over any political expression not firmly aligned with radical theocracy and insurrectionism. “From here, it appears only the crazies are welcome,” writes my correspondent.
Before I answer politically, let me answer personally, then statistically.
In my entire adult life, I’ve never been the victim of a violent crime. I’ve come close, but only on rare occasions. In 1997, I was almost mugged by four young toughs in a Moscow suburb (I’m not sure they really intended violence, but when they asked for my money, I ran faster than I ever did for Coach Miller at MHS). In 1999 (I could be off by a year) an angry dad went belly to belly with me in Madison and invited me to settle matters outside (I declined; he never revisited). In 2016, a drunk Lakota man at the Eagles here in Aberdeen took exception to my taking exception to his harassment of a female companion (he loomed menacingly but chose to return quietly to his 11 a.m. beer). And again in 2016, a mob of angry old white men in Aberdeen tried to silence my uncomfortable rebuttal to their fantastic racism by threatening to forcibly remove me from a public meeting.
No other instances when I have felt physically threatened leap to mind. In South Dakota, Boston, Moscow, Edmonton, Vancouver, Spokane, and St. Paul, I’ve led a charmed life. I’m pretty sure Russia is a dangerous place where I would never settle. But everywhere else I’ve been seems reasonably safe and livable (except for Vancouver, which is a soggy mess).
But if you’re working the numbers to optimize your safety, South Dakota won’t make the top of your list. Last year, before the pandemic boggled lots of social science numbers, USA Today and 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the FBI’s 2018 crime data and found South Dakota ranked 18th for violent crime. Our murder rate is the second-lowest in the nation, but our overall annual violent crime rate is 404.7 instances per 100,000 people, the 18th highest in the country:
South Dakota’s violent crime rate of 404.7 incidents per 100,000 people is slightly higher than the national rate of 380.6 per 100,000. While the state has higher than average rates of rape and aggravated assault, it also has the lowest murder rate in the United States. There were just 1.4 homicides committed in South Dakota for every 100,000 people in 2018, a fraction of the national rate of 5 per 100,000 people.
The state’s low murder rate was the product of an unmatched year-over-year decline in reported homicides. There were only 12 murders reported in the entire state in 2018, a 55.6% improvement from the previous year, the largest decline of any state [Samuel Stebbins, “Dangerous States: Which States Have the highest Rates of Violent Crime and Most Murders?” USA Today, 2020.01.13].
On this count, Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire are the safest states in America. In our region, every adjoining state is less violent. Wyoming is the safest state, with a violent crime rate of 212.2 per 100K people, with Minnesota close behind at 220.4 per 100K. Iowa, North Dakota, and Nebraska are all in the 200s per 100K. Montana ranks 24th with a rate of 274.1 per 100K, worse than #25 on the list, New York, at 350.5 per 100K.
South Dakota—more violent than Minnesota and New York? Hey, GOED, put that on your Minneapolis airport kiosk and sell it.
Beyond the discouraging statistics on violent crime, our politics are doing a lot to make me question the safety of living in South Dakota. Our current Governor’s Presidential hypocritical and vituperative campaign rhetoric have only emphasized the willingness of other elected officials in her party to dehumanize non-white, non-conforming, non-Christian, non-male South Dakotans. In the midst of the Derek Chauvin trial, Governor Noem went on Fox News to brag about how South Dakota is recruiting police from across the country who may be seeking refuge from pressure to reform:
The Mount Rushmore State leader last year launched the Law Enforcement Officer Recruitment Program, aimed at filling dozens of open positions within police ranks of state government while sending a political message to the rest of the country that South Dakota does not share the anti-policing sentiments seen in other parts of the country.
…“We’re seeing so many law enforcement officers discouraged,” the governor said this week while appearing on Fox News where she discussed both the ongoing border crisis and the civil unrest taking place in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area after another police shooting. “They’ve spent their life in public service and we want them to know there are people in this country that value them” [Joe Sneve, “{paywall} Noem Says South Dakota’s Police Recruitment Program Has Attracted 600-Plus Applicants Since October,” Aberdeen American News, 2021.04.16].
Let’s be honest: Noem’s pitch on Fox is code for, “Hey, white cops! Escape anti-racist reforms! Come to Whitopia!” The cops she’s most likely to recruit with this openly political message are cops like Derek Chauvin who will enjoy the comfort of white majority rule.
Noem’s cop recruitment is just as political as her business recruitment, and just as harmful to South Dakota’s safety. We’ve seen her preference for image over substance and slogans over science, a preference that, combined with her self-absoprtion and incompetence, has led to the preventable deaths of hundreds of South Dakotans from coronavirus. But her recklessness does not exist in a vacuum. That recklessness exists in the hearts of the majority who elected her and who responded eagerly to her discouragement and denigration of anti-pandemic precautions. That recklessness exists in the hearts of the people who will respond to her effort to sell South Dakota as a maskless bastion of freedom where staying open for business is more important than saving lives.
Our politics are exacerbating an unhealthy sorting effect in South Dakota demographics. Sensible young people looking for job opportunities already know the big money is to be made elsewhere… is it appears was the case for my correspondent who got me thinking about safety in South Dakota. Add the vocal bullying from our Governor against those young people’s transgender friends, add the ignorance of science, add the pandemic recklessness, and more of those sensible young people will say South Dakota isn’t worth staying and fighting for (because, really, why should daily life be a fight?). That sentiment will trickle upward through the ranks of sensible South Dakota parents who saw their local school districts fail to build a safe and robust online learning system to protect their staff and students and sustain quality education through the pandemic. It will trickle upward through South Dakotans headed for retirement who were already wondering if it was safe to stay and keep shoveling snow in their golden years and now find that they may face greater risk of death from pandemics here because everybody just has to go to the rodeo to see Kristi ride horsey and cry Freedom™!!!
I have felt that pressure myself. I have always loved South Dakota. I have always accepted that a fair number of South Dakotans won’t love me back (Kristi’s Christian love be jiggered). As a minor irritant, I don’t make that reciprocal love easy. I can live with that.
But now, on top of the occasional anonymous threats of personal violence, attacks on my reputation, and attempts to sabotage my family’s economic livelihood, I have spent over a year watching my South Dakota neighbors undergo and fail a test of their community spirit. Faced with a deadly virus that can be defeated by science and a little personal sacrifice, they have rallied for a Snow Queen and selfish convenience. Many South Dakotans have stubbornly refused to alter their lifestyles even a little to accommodate their vulnerable neighbors, adopting a cavalier attitude that shrugs not just at the risk to themselves but at the risk to others. Instead of “live and let live,” a lot of South Dakotans have chosen “die and let die, because dammit, I want Buffalo Wild Wings!”
That social recklessness, the inability and unwillingness to see beyond oneself and think statistically and neighborly, poses a greater danger to our lives than those four hoodlums in that suburban Moscow park or the morning drunk at the Aberdeen bar. That social recklessness, that selfishness, rises from our failure to recognize the humanity of those around us (especially the strangers and newcomers) and undermines our ability and work together as a community to solve the big problems that cannot be solved by any one person.
That social recklessness is not unique to South Dakota. We’ve seen lots of news about lots of idiots in lots of other states not taking coronavirus seriously, believing convenient lies over difficult science, and committing violence and treason to protect their selfish privilege.
But South Dakota is supposed to be better than other places. Our rural character is supposed to make us a more caring place where we can count on our neighbors to look out for us and where we are happy to look out for them. Our pandemic year has shown that sense of small-town South Dakota niceness to be a myth. We won’t really make sacrifices for our neighbors. We’ll actually work to recruit more people (“rugged individuals”, we euphemize them) who are sick and tired of caring for others and want to live in a state where they can do whatever they damn well please.
So, friend, is it safe to move back to South Dakota? Well, by crime stats, South Dakota is no safer than any adjoining state. But more distressingly, our cultural sickness proves South Dakota offers no advantage for those seeking a safe community where neighbors care about neighbors.
If you move back now, you’re going to hate it here .. if you left because you’re a Liberal.
South Dakota is TRUMP country.
Caution! This is NOT the SD you most probably left. I, too, grew up in this state and was taught a hand shake was a bond, that women were to be treated with respect, that we took care of our neighbors, honesty was a virtue, that the planets orbited the sun and the Earth was not flat. When I return to SD in retirement, I thought I would be returning to state I left some 40 years prior. Sadly disappointed in what the state has become, anti-science, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, a single party rule of corruption, a new punch line for the national media. Think twice. No place is perfect, but I certainly would consider other options were I not financially tied to this state.
My husband and I moved up here to teach in 1990. And we loved it – for the first 15 years. Peaceful, friendly, a great place to live. But then things changed. Now SD is almost unrecognizable. As Loren said – anti-science, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBQT. Monolithic single-party rule that includes massive corruption (EB-5, Gear Up!, Tru-Shrimp). And, on top of that, just downright rude. I’ve seen more courtesy towards others in New York City.
SD is now a state where people have been angry at me BECAUSE I am wearing a mask. Including in my own house! (Yes, a person who came to do some work at our house tried to refuse to wear a mask, at which point, I said ‘wear it or leave.’ They did, but they glared at me the whole time, which was fine. I can take it. My husband has COPD and bad heart issues, I will do anything to protect him, especially something as simple as a piece of cloth over my face.)
Interesting question. I always felt safe in South Dakota. I pissed off a lot of folks because of the issues I was involved in, but no one ever picked a fight. One person threatened my life, but I laughed it off. I never was that concerned about my personal safety, but a couple times my wife at the time felt threatened. That pissed me off, so we reported it to the police. I was more concerned with official or semi-official State of South Dakota terrorism, which we probably escaped because we were white. If you stand up for environmental issues, especially if you are a minority, be prepared to face such things, but don’t let it stop you.
The rending of the social fabric, racism and sexism, the lack of social cohesion, the brain drain and the escape of young from the state makes it possible for a government and culture to fail to function. This has been a long time coming in South Dakota, but it’s a real big problem now that you need a competent government and social cohesion. This societal collapse was something we saw coming, and led us to leave. Still, it wouldn’t have been that bad with a competent Governor.
South Dakota is TRUMP country.
Best condemnation of Northern Mississippi ever and the best reason never to return.
We have a year left until our youngest graduates from high school and then we are looking to leave SD, for many reasons.
Chad, that was exactly the time when we started to seriously think about leaving.
Grew up there, graduated in the 70’s, and left right after. Came back occasionally – last time was last Nov. for a few days and saw everything in this article with my own eyes. Yeah, it was bad before, but now, jeez.
I’m currently north of the Twin Cities (Trump Country, too) but I am retiring as well in a couple years. I’ll get much more home for my $ in SD, but at what other cost? At least here we have a DFL governor and bipartisan legislature to provide some balance. And there is the MN Nice factor, which states that neighbors can have political differences (at least as long as you keep them to yourself) and still be friendly and helpful.
So right now, it’s still an open question. But I’m grateful you expressed my concerns, Cory.
My wife & I have lived in SD most of our lives, we are in our mid-70’s. We are from northeastern SD originally & now have lived here again for the past 30 years, currently on a ridge overlooking Big Stone Lake.
The question is interesting because this state HAS changed significantly, writ large, but also much more in small doses, it seems. In many ways circumstances & situations on a small scale have improved over time, compared to my first quarter century or so. We see so much more interaction between white & non-white, much more inter-dependence, friendships, but it is more along the lines of how you conduct your life personally.
To see this though, you best stay away from politics & try to concentrate on more personal quality of life issues, like the foods you eat, the beverages you drink, the recreations you might enjoy, the local events you might attend, the plants you might want to grow. We now have so many young people making & growing things all around us who are very much dependent upon meeting & trying to sell something of high quality to you – allowing you to become immersed in what can still be called a “quaint” lifestyle.
It wasn’t like this even as recently as a quarter a century ago, a very positive change, at least in our views.
I guess it depends upon the size of brush you wish to paint with. BSL is rapidly becoming more of a retirement enclave & perhaps our views are colored a bit more by that. This is certainly not the SD “fast track” that you might be finding elsewhere. In effect, there are still some good choices that can be made & enjoyed here.
If you think long and hard I bet you can come up with a couple more incidents in Madison—[edited—No, Tim, that slander. Just get over your personal hatred and move on. your refusal to live and let live, to keep prosecuting your old grievances, is exactly what I’m talking about here and warning my interlocutor about. —CAH]
Well Cory, I just read about Highmore and Hyde, being the second most trumpie county in the state. They did have that wonderful float with Obama and Hillary in jail. Used to that. I’m still going back, next year of course to the all class reunion to see all my friends who will be back from other states. If you want to get ahead, you have to leave. Sorry, I still love the state but even when they had the two most liberal senators in the United States you knew it was short term.
well…As a teenager, I was sucker punched by a fellow known as the “Gann Valley Kicker” outside the Rainbow Ballroom in Lane about 1965. I was down and on the receiving end of a few of his famous kicks when the owner of that fine establishment, Red Deneke, happened on the scene and threw the assailant into the middle of the street and banished him from further participation.As a young adult I got cornered in the restroom of the Rancher Bar in St. Onge by a couple of young cowhands feeling their oats. I was trying to figure out which one to hit first to try to get out the door onto the dance floor where I might have a chance when a friend of mine from Zeona walked in. “Are you havin trouble with these hands, Professor?” he asked. One of the cowboys snarled, “Who the hell are you?” and he said, “My name is Gary Sprague”The atmosphere immediately changed. “Oh, Gary Spragie, ” one of the hands mumbled, “ah, we were just havin a little fun, ” and they started shuffling about and stuck out there hands for handshakes all around. “Honest, Gary, we didn’t mean anything.”…I’ve known some dangerous people but I always tried to be pleasant and gave them plenty of room…I’d never known anyone to get upset about anything political (except maybe Viet Nam protesters) but never to the point of fighting about politics. I had one weird confrontation after Obama got elected but the guy had always had a screw loose. I was surprised when I learned he had once been county sheriff.But…you never know. Be aware of your surroundings and don’t smart off to people who’ve been drinking.
Is Northern Mississippi safe? Not for many immigrants, Native Americans, transgenders, women seeking to protect their reproductive rights, non-phony kristians, non- white males, people who expect clean water and environment, pheasants, people who don’t believe foreign korporations should be allowed to take land away from owners for pipelines, pedestrians with flashlights at night and government grants with loads of cash that never make it where they were designated because of one party guv greed.
Well you know Cory, the racist pubs are going to blame SDs high crime rate on the reservations, they always have. It would have been nice to dig into those statistics to break it down. Why does SD have a startlingly high number of prisoners? MNs is actually quite low. Is it political? Pubs tend to support the money making prison system.
grudznick’s recommendation, which is not informed by Mr. Dale’s initial and valid firsties blogging, is that you fellows should, depending on your situation
A) If you currently do not live in South Dakota, do not move back to South Dakota
B) If you currently live in South Dakota, move to Minnesota or Ohio or Illinios
C) Do not hang around Aberdeen dive bars in the morning, no matter who you are or how good the breakfast is
well…jenny, I’m old enough to remember when South Dakota had about 120 men in prison in Sioux Falls and sent a few (under 10) women down to Nebraska to prison. We now have thousands of men and women in prison. The population isn’t up that much. Is it political? You bet it is…if drug laws, vigorous DWI enforcement, and mandatory sentencing is political…and it is.
Terry, interesting observation from north of the Cities. Do you find that “Minnesota Nice” is somehow distinct from and more real than South Dakota’s professed small-town goodness?
Mask-backlash in your own house, Eve, from a capitalist hired to do work there? That’s stunningly rude and not in keeping with the conservative value of home-as-castle. I’m shocked that someone would dare come in your house and be such a jerk. When the anti=Trumpers think they can come in my house and impose their values on me, that doesn’t make me feel safe.
John Dale, why does any state get to make anyone of any political persuasion feel unsafe?
Loren, Eve, I’m intrigued by this notion that South Dakota culture has changed so dramatically within just a generation. Is that change real? Can we be sure it’s not just nostalgia-colored misremembering? How can the culture of changed so significantly in just a generation?
My wife and I were both born and raised in SD. Actually in Lake County where Corey is from. My wife is retired and I am approaching retirement and we had planned on retiring to the Black Hills where we lived for the first 10 years of our marriage.
I am now dead set against moving back. I love the state, the scenery, etc but the lack of open mindedness, and quite honestly the lack of things to do and the them is a deal killer for me. Here in north east Wisconsin I am 90 minutes from Milwaukee if I want to go to a mid sized city. I can take an Amtrak route and be in Chicago in 4 hours without driving
Northern Wisconsin and the UP rivals the black hills for scenic beauty.
While SD is home, it doesn’t feel like it did when we left
It has not changed, Mr. H. The culture is exactly the same. I think your libbie friends would tell you that is what their problem is.
Twenty comments containing hundreds of adjectives.
Don’t see that all important three letter word, though.
FUN
Oh come on grudz, there are no more Aberdeen dive bars to be concerned about. No dogs allowed has been gone for a long time and the downtown stripper bars are long gone. Rapid City I’m sure is much more dangerous. My old friend Don used to serve a drink he designed called a flaming nuclear waste until a buyer caught his hair on fire. Now thats dangerous.
The question still lingers, Mr. Anderson: why was Mr. H hanging about an Aberdeen bar before noon where drunks were violent and belligerent? I can imagine a number of scenarios.
A) Mr. H was still there from the previous night, where he “closed down” the semi-private bar but the private poker game ran well into the daylight the next day, and one of the fellows who Mr. H took some loot off of was angry
B) Mr. H was visiting the bar to convert people to being Democrats
C) Mr. H was visiting the bar as part of an outreach from his wife’s church to save the people who hang around bars on a weekday morning, before a proper lunch even
D) Mr. H was circulating a petition and knew where he would find a crowd
D.1) a crowd, according to his own accounting, that could be easily swayed into signing any damn document put in front of them.
Is it legal to sign petitions when drunk, or to trick or coerce drunks with more beers into signing? I’m just askin…
well..Grudz, you’ve been caught with your pants down on this one. You’ve had nothing to say about the nasty, belligerent attitude of steadfast Trumpites except that Republican Conservatives have always been nasty and belligerent. That’s not true. Archie Gubbrud was not nasty. John McCain was not, nor was George Bush anything but a gentleman (a misguided gentleman in my view but a pleasant fellow). They did not then, and do not now, want to “Hang Mike Pence.” I think you’re distributing taffy.
Everybody is moving away from coasts, hot and humid scorching globe warming areas and housing everywhere else will rise.
On the subject of “Having Fun In South Dakota”.
-SD is off the charts on the boredom scale.
-There are however a couple options most employ to have “fun”.
1. Deriving fun by denying “yourself” fun. (i.e. discipline) e.g. Cory outside running when it 20 degrees below zero. The exercise, in crippling weather, isn’t what he likes. He likes dwelling on the self-discipline needed to do something over and over that most see as foolish.
2. Deriving fun by denying “others” fun. One needn’t look far in SD, especially Pierre, to observe someone finding glee in telling other people what not to do.
Worldwide, people who live by these two tenets are described and labeled simply as “German”.
It’s probably not as bad as many of us think it is. We used to have a cooperative food buying club in Pierre during the Janklow years. There were all sorts of people with different views, but we all had good food in common. When you have good food in common, there are a lot of issues surrounding that one thing that you have in common. I’m sure this still happens. Political differences never got in the way of uniting around an issue like stopping the Oahe Irrigation Project or keeping nuclear waste out of South Dakota. Those were issues that brought people of different ideologies together. It does take a lot of effort to do that, and you have to face the money that political parties have at hand to divide people against themselves. That’s how the special interests win. They use their money and political machinery to divide people.
Yes, Cory, I was surprised as well that someone was going to try to make money off of doing some work in my house while telling me that I didn’t have the right to make him wear a mask in my house. He caved once I told him it was mask or leave. But I will never forget that – and I will always remember how ENTITLED that man felt to “his rights”.
But apparently this anti-mask even in your own home / backyard is the new conservative way: Tucker Carlson is now telling his audience to harass people who wear face masks outside. “They’re the aggressors,” Carlson said of people who wear masks during the segment. “It’s our job to brush them back and restore the society we were born in. So the next time you see someone in a mask on the sidewalk or on the bike path, do not hesitate. Ask politely but firmly, ‘Would you please take off your mask? Science shows there is no reason for you to be wearing it. Your mask is making me uncomfortable.’” If they see children wearing masks, Tucker says the response should be no different than when you see a kid being abused — “call the police immediately, contact child protective services”
So much for anyone’s rights but his.
Gotta love Tucker Carlson and the Right Outrage Machine. Anytime you can take a position that people wearing a mask pose a public threat that needs to be addressed, but people openly carrying weapons does not pose a threat, and you need to keep any objection to the perverse obsession of gun ownership to yourself, you have clearly set up shop in crazy town.
And at a time when President Biden is getting Americans vaccinated and back to work/school/normal (while mitigating the effects on those who cannot), The Fox Outrage machine screams our burgers are being taken away.
As it has become more and more clear, the answer to is SD safe (politically, economically, healthy . . ) to move back to is answered with this question: are your priorities focused on yourself or others? It feels like is is the well-off class asking this question far more than laborers.
I still have Rapid/the Black Hills where I grew up on my retirement list. We’ll see how the next few years in the state go. My family on both sides goes back to Dakota Territory times.
The rise of first, “conservative” talk radio and then Fox “News” and then four years of the Former Guy and then the Covid pandemic has brought all the ugliness and craziness out in the open. White men and their wives ran the show for a very long time, and they will kick and scream and do damage to prevent the world from changing. Change it will, though, regardless.
Gun violence is off the charts in our country.
Trumpie bigotry and denying people the right to vote is at an all time high.
We ve always been two countries, one of bigots and another of Amazing forward looking people. Trump bigot gun licking element will be here for awhile. Apparently they think their right to orgasm with every gun purchase is more important than a child’s right Not to get shot and killed.
Do we really need to hunt (food is plentiful)? No. Are all gun purchasers rigorously tested for psychological profile or is it just buy first massacre later, with no real limits in place?
Rhode Island and Hawaii have low gun ownership rates, less than 15%
Overseas looks good. Many civilized countries limit gun ownership rigorously. Taiwan, Uk, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan. They rate human life there More than a gun. They show us how.
As John Dale put it, South Dakota is LYING LOSER country.
If I was going to move anywhere it would be to a peaceful country.
It seems the change is rooted in media. Free talk radio, conservative radio used to be on every desk, work site, the air base, the guard camp, the mining college, all conservative bastions which inculcate their members; the long car drives across the state; now every professional office waiting room, fast food spot has Fox cable news on all day, high school sports game reporters, and most all the local talking heads are conservative, KOTA had Paul Harvey, then Rush Limbaugh and all the rest, now Grey Media bought out KOTA etc and is returning to conservative religious programming. I have left SD for good many times but family always brings
me back. Other than the environment, which is being overrun, there is not much reason to stay. Just look at how Hill City has exploded.
State politics seems so entrenched, along with the Ag Industry, that until Republicans ruin it all, nothing will change in SD, politically. A volunteer Democratic party simply has no horsepower.
And sneaky Republicans are right now trying to create the next finance industry (credit cards was the first) on the secretive business of hiding billionaire wealth behind tiny red state legislators who pass laws for the wealth industry. Joop Bollen seemingly came, saw and conquered Pierre.
EB5 was the complex tip of an accounting iceberg that no one really understands. That’s why he is known as “smiling Mike Rounds”. The Senator that recently threatened President Biden with the one-liner: “Joe, come and take it. And the dog bites too”. He advertises his insurance company on Public Radio all day every day. Our US Senator.
Impunity.