South Dakota governor banished from Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation
Channel: BikiniBottom Fish 🐟
Date: 2024-02-08

For the second time as governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem has been banished from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Last week, the Oglala Sioux Tribe said the Republican governor was no longer welcome on tribal lands, and its leaders referred to her rhetoric linking immigration and crime as opportunistic and dangerous.

WHAT IS THE GANG THAT NOEM REFERENCED?
Tony Mangan, a spokesperson for the South Dakota Attorney General’s office, said the Ghost Dancers are affiliated with a motorcycle gang called the Bandidos. The office does not know if the group is connected to drug cartels, nor does it know if the Ghost Dancers are present on the reservation, Mangan said.

Noem has cited cartels as responsible for homicides on the reservation, though her office didn’t share recent examples. Fury, the governor’s spokesperson, pointed to a 2016 murder on the reservation that was related to a drug cartel, but he declined to provide any information on other gang or cartel-related murders or any connection to the Ghost Dancers.

“Murders are being committed by cartel members on the Pine Ridge reservation and in Rapid City, and a gang called the ‘Ghost Dancers’ are affiliated with these cartels,” Noem said last week in a speech to state lawmakers. “They have been successful in recruiting tribal members to join their criminal activity.”

Star Comes Out, president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, said he had not heard of a gang called the Ghost Dancers until Noem mentioned it in her speech, and that he was unaware of any presence by this gang on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

WHAT IS THE GHOST DANCE?
The Ghost Dance was a religious movement that spread across Native American communities in the U.S. in the late 1800s, after a Paiute elder had a vision that their homelands would be restored and they would be reconnected with their ancestors if they practiced it. He also foresaw the removal of white settlers, whose violence and spread of disease had devastated tribes.

For many, the practice represented resiliency in the face of the tremendous loss brought on by colonization.

The dance involves holding hands and moving in a circle while singing throughout the night. In the early 1890s, U.S. political and military leaders tried to outlaw the Ghost Dance, fearing the movement was a precursor to an uprising in communities it subjugated. Around the country, tribal nations adopted the practice, and in South Dakota it became part of one of America’s most infamous massacres.

In 1890, hoping to stop the spread of the Ghost Dance, federal agents went to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to arrest Chief Sitting Bull, who they believed was behind its influence there. After a dispute, agents shot and killed Sitting Bull and several other tribal members. Following this, a group of about 300 Lakota men, women and children left Standing Rock hoping to reach safety at the nearby Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The group was intercepted by U.S. troops, who killed hundreds of Lakota people in what would become known as the Wounded Knee Massacre.

WHY WAS NOEM BANISHED BEFORE?
Multiple times since taking office in 2019, Noem has been at odds with tribal governments.

In response to her support for anti-protest legislation following the 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline protests at Standing Rock, the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council unanimously voted to ban the governor from the reservation in 2019.

Months later, the council lifted the ban after Noem and the American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota reached a settlement, ensuring the state would not enforce parts of the “riot boosting” laws that Noem had crafted.

She also clashed with several tribes during the COVID-19 pandemic when they set up coronavirus checkpoints at reservation borders to keep out unnecessary visitors. When Noem was unsuccessful in getting the checkpoints dismantled, she turned to the Trump administration for help.

Nick Estes, an assistant professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota and a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, said he sees Noem’s adversarial relationship with tribal nations as an attempt to seize a political opportunity and position herself as a strong Republican leader. “It’s obvious signaling to Trump,” he said.