Governor Kristi Noem’s vaunted Executive Order 2022-02 only pretends to ban critical race theory from K-12 schools. The order won’t do what she’ll tell her fearful racist base it does; it will only give her one more reason to bark on Fox News, stir her supporters, trap her opponents in the culture war, and distract everyone from her miserable policy failures.
But if we have to have this fight over Noem’s abuse of critical race theory as a campaign slogan, Chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Harold Frazier is ready to fight. He issued a statement yesterday branding Noem as a dictator bent on denying truth and controlling thoughts:
On April 5, 2022, the Governor of the state of South Dakota has made it clear that the United States is not responsible for any of its actions. In true dictator fashion she is forbidding the educators of our children to hear, speak or discuss critical issues that would enable our future generations to solve the problems in which we have failed.
I condemn the recent executive order issued by the Governor of South Dakota for all the polished ugliness that it represents. I can go on being critical of the statement but I would like to tell you what it means for us. The style of leadership which dictates thought and restricts educators from encouraging critical thinking is not the leadership my people deserve.
This executive order [PDF] is divisive and contributes to the very political indoctrination that it professes to prevent. Under the cover of great virtue, the Governor is promoting a great evil by dictating the thoughts of our teachers and children.
This may earn her the title of champion to those who believe that the people are not responsible for their nation but as we have seen on the other side of the world when the people can claim ignorance of their governments actions, the government can attack other countries and commit atrocities. We must be critical of our leadership and own our governments as that is the everyday work of democracy.
Any law or order meant to restrict our freedom to teach and learn is a restriction on freedom.
This executive order tells every minority in the state of South Dakota that you do not care what you have done, what you are doing or what you will continue to do.
The truth must be taught and told. Hecetu elo [Chairman Harold Frazier, statement, posted on Indianz.com, 2022.04.07].
Noem’s executive order may prohibit the Department of Education from engaging Chairman Frazier as a speaker in any teacher trainings or curriculum development committees, but it doesn’t stop local school districts from inviting Chairman Frazier and other tribal leaders to speak to their students about tribal history, racism, and the proper role of critical thought and expression in a democracy.
Update 12:25 CDT: While Governor Noem issues a defense of her order titled “The Lessons of History” (hilarious, since the Governor is trying to deny access to real history lessons), the NDN Collective joins Chairman Frazier in critiquing Noem’s political ploy as deceptive and racist:
“Noem’s executive order is yet another move that tragically diminishes the capacity of our young people to see difficult historical truths with empathy,” said Sarah Manning, Director of Communications at NDN Collective. “We need leadership whose actions ensure all of our youth will have enriching learning opportunities that prepare them for a transformative future. This executive order does the exact opposite, setting our children back and undoing generations of victories from civil rights leaders, Native educators, and policymakers in South Dakota and nationwide.
“Noem is doubling down on the continuation of white supremacy, which flies in the face of the collective good. Time and again, her policies perpetuate a legacy of racism in a state where Indigenous people already suffer daily racial assaults in both covert and overt ways.”
“Kristi Noem’s attempt to cut opportunities for historically accurate education is a way to further perpetuate the systemic racism Indigenous people are fighting,” said Sunny Red Bear, NDN Collective Director of Racial Equity. “Right now, we are being forced to respond to an act of overt racism by the owner of the Grand Gateway hotel – a developing situation where ‘good Native, bad Native’ language recycled from the past has emerged from the woodwork yet again, demonstrating how much more work we have to do in South Dakota and beyond.
“Noem is misconstruing the purpose of the Civil Rights Act – which was meant to address inequities, discrimination, and racism that communities of color were and are facing – to double down on white privilege. Noem’s order speaks to her blatant attempts to use Indigenous people as scapegoats to further her own political advancement.”
“Critical Race Theory has never been taught in K-12 classrooms but rather in higher education, specifically law courses,” said Mary Bowman, NACA Inspired Schools Network (NISN) fellow. “It is deeply disturbing that creating false issues just to promote white supremacy is a priority for Governor Noem, while the educational system of South Dakota continues to fail our Indigenous students.
“Noem has made her intentions clear, from the revision of the Social Studies curriculum last year that attempted to further erase the history and impact of the Indigenous people that walked this land first, to her nonsensical executive order this week. Indigenous students need to see themselves in what they are learning to understand who they are and where they come from. This helps to heal the trauma caused by the compulsory boarding schools our ancestors were forced into – a historical trauma our young people still carry today. Our wakanyeja need healing” [NDN Collective, press release, 2022.04.07].
Mrs. Noem is a tool of the extreme white wing of the Republican Party so Democrats have to hold all three branches of the federal government to drive the buyouts of the welfare ranchers who occupy the Mountain West and High Plains then offer tribal nations reparations through land repatriation.
Wow. As usual the Indians hit it out of the park!
It’s beyond me how snowjob noem’s executive suggestion is constitutional.
How does the snowjob expect teaching the US Constitution . . . she wasn’t even able to vote for 150 years . . . 3/5th of a person . . . really?! . . . Indians not citizens in land they occupied for at least 24,000 years . . . all the US wars – there was no good or evil . . . she’s trying too hard to be a good German . . .
Her executive suggestion and news releases are as ludicrous as are news releases and denials coming out of the Kremlin.
Yeah its getting bad when S.D. is being told how to think. T.G. some people notice that and speak up. I was hoping someone would expose what is going on with South Dakota’s so called “Democracy”.
That list of ‘divisive concepts’ in that EO has nothing to do with CRT and no decent teacher is teaching them in schools. Those concepts, however, are taught in homes. All this EO does is open the door for more restrictions and banning to come because of some nut job parent or politician has a “clutch their pearls” moment and decides something is pornographic or offensive.
Not too long ago it was Harry Potter books, a couple decades before that was music lyrics and before that it was Elvis and his hips. If parents are so afraid of the minds of their children then keep them home and teach them there. Turn off the TV and internet and never take them anywhere so they are not exposed to this dangerous and perverse world.
Perhaps there is a hidden but altrusitic motive to Noem’s nonsense. It is pretty well documented that once adults tell kids, especially adolescents and teens, that they can’t look at something or do something, the kids immediately try to figure out how to get around the adults proscription. After all, if it is prohibited it must be fun. Perhaps Noem is just using reverse psychology on the kids to encourage them to seek out and study the prohibited matters on their own and behind the backs of authorities. Who would have imagined?
“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22
Describes snowjob noem and her pootin loving GQP party to a “T”.
Her soul is as rotted as the army’s Old Guard horses’ guts dying with 40 lbs. of sediment in their colons in D.C. after being fed for years brittle, dusty sticks on heaps of excrement. The KBHB Radio’s report today on the death’s of our Arlington Cemetery’s full honors funeral horses not only described the foul conditions in which these dutiful horses died, but also the state in which our governor’s spirit wallers in.
My covenant and I will be sure to ‘pray’ for her parasite ridden soul when the next appropriate moon fall occurs. I rarely dabble, but have decided this energy under the lid has to go somewhere so it will be converted to stop evil.
The dead have consequence and my dear Winkte friend has certain skills even I’m apprehensive of. If we don’t correct her now, it’s only a matter of time before books are burned. Once that happens, my kind are next, without fail. I’m pretty sure there’s proof. Oh, there is. Right there in history, written in blood.
Governor Noem finds History to be upsetting…she obviously doesn’t read much History or think much about it. When you’re lost in the moment, History interferes with your impulses. She won’t allow that to happen to her or her administration.
Sometimes the truth, Mrs. Noem, is inconvenient. For you, it’s inconvenient because it stands in your path to pander to racists and haters who are suckers for lies.
For me, the truth is inconvenient because you are a pandering moron to racists and haters, yet you are still my state’s governor.
We are in a quandary until you finally leave public office.
See on the War College where the Governor has issued a screed about how much she loves History, or more to the point, how much she likes statuary and Ronald Reagan. She quotes Martin Luther King in an exercise of classic doubletalk worthy of Groucho Marx, my favorite Marxist.
Well in the early 50s it was Comic Books that were bad and banned. Seduction of the Innocent. Then it was Rock and Roll even worse. So bad, you can’t show it from the hips down. Both of those things went away, right?
You have to thank the righties for publicizing Critical Race Theory, who would have heard of it otherwise? It will now be a major force in enlightening children who will look it up. Hey kids, start with 1619, its as good a starting point as any.
I’d like to know what books Noem has read regarding US history. She says in her article on history that she wants to know more about those presidents on Mt. Rushmore. It’s not difficult to find those histories, and she should list them and give a little book report about what they are about and why children might want to read them. But I won’t hold my breath. I don’t think Noem really reads anything like a dense history of any of those Presidents or the time they lived. She writes as if she has a fifth grade understanding of US history, not someone who is really interested in the subject enough to study it.
My ancestors came to South Dakota after the civil war. Byron Pay was the first, and he came in order to deliver food to a newly created reservation, where the Dakota Indians were to be stashed. They had their families split up, kind of like what Trump did to many families whose crime was trying to escape violence in Central America. I was always under the impression my great great uncle was a hero and a good guy, but upon further reading of the history of what happened to the Dakota after that uprising, I sort of changed my view. He wasn’t a hero, but a cog in the effort to commit genocide against the Dakota.
I read further history about how the Nazis developed their racial theories and their strategies to corral, segregate and then exterminate Jews and other “undesirables.” It turns out the Nazis based their racial theories and strategies on our history of slavery and Indian policy.
You see some people look at our history for inspiration. We have a history of grand ideas of freedom and equality. We rarely live up to them. And even the people who wrote those words didn’t really believe them, or believed them only for themselves.
I think that’s the lesson of history Noem wants us to get. The one the Nazis learned.
1619 was late. The Acoma Pueblo was rebuilt after Spanish cannons leveled it and vanquished the population in 1599. Some original emplacements can be seen under newer adobe: a material introduced by the invading forces led by catholic friars who enslaved entire cultures.
Today, after consultations with stakeholders New Mexico’s Public Education Department hopes to provide instruction that is relevant to English language learners and Indigenous students alike by adding ethnic, cultural and identity curricula to the state’s social studies standards by emphasizing tribal sovereignty, social justice and sustainable futures.
What she needs to read, what should be read by all is:
A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES by Howard Zinn
If you haven’t read it, I beg you to do so. It is based strictly on eye witness accounts from 1492 to present. It is not written by the absolutely evil conquerors and conquistadors, but by The People who bore witness to Columbus refusing to walk, opting for piggyback rides on the backs of young Natives. Columbus himself wrote about how he would line ten young Native boys up and, to check the sharpness of his sword blade, would see how many arms he could completely sever with one swing. It tells a lot that we honor that sick mofo with a federal holiday. I learned about Jack London’s wretched environs growing up a bastard in the filthy early days of San Francisco and the Asian slave trade there. It goes on and on, yet to cease. Hurry and read it before it is banned.
A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES- Howard Zinn
Lost in the Moment
A gun. A man. A wife. A baby. Thoughts and prayers?
You would think Kristi has had enough 4 am moments to become compassionate. Instead she is a hardened killer. A Republican.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7YP4f1xe_NA
Florida guv De Santis banned 50 plus math books he claimed included CRT propaganda. Problem is, the only examples he could find come from a worksheet published in Missouri and altered so much the publisher wouldn’t claim them.
https://www.rawstory.com/ron-desantis-math-books-fraud/
Examples are shown from Missouri. None of the banned math books had any of these problems in them.DeSantis is typical magat liar and fraud. They all are!
MFI, I had assumed the problem was that the rejected math texts had lessons about addition — that sounds too much like “inclusion.”; Gov. De Santis would have Florida children learn only division.