Ha! Oglala Sioux President Bans S. Dakota Governor From Pine Ridge

Following remarks from S. Dakota Governor Kristi Noem expressing her intention to send the S. Dakota Nation Guard and razor wire to the U.S/Mexico border, Oglala Sioux Nation President Star Comes Out has asserted his Nation’s right to keep the Governor from crossing its border:

Politico

“A South Dakota tribe has banned Republican Gov. Kristi Noem from the Pine Ridge Reservation after she spoke this week about wanting to send razor wire and security personnel to Texas to help deter immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border and also said cartels are infiltrating the state’s reservations.

“Due to the safety of the Oyate, effective immediately, you are hereby Banished from the homelands of the Oglala Sioux Tribe!” Tribe President Frank Star Comes Out said in a Friday statement addressed to Noem. “Oyate” is a word for people or nation.”

By evoking the safety of his people, Star Comes Out makes clear that Noem and her disparaging rhetoric about the challenges his constituents face as a community puts them in danger.

In the past Noem has signed legislation seeking to curb the Oglala Sioux, and the allies that supported them, in their protest against The Keystone Pipeline, an action that was immediately challenged by The ACLU:

”In 2019 Noem sought to criminalize the Nation’s protests against the Keystone pipeline by signing legislation that would increase the penalties for so called “riot boosting” for anyone who attempted to come to the aid of the Oglala Sioux during the protests, an action that was immediately challenged by The ACLU:

“The government of South Dakota has made it very clear that it does not like people who protest the Keystone XL pipeline. The state’s governor has dismissed them as “out-of-staters who come in to disrupt.” And other officials have similarly leveraged long-debunked and harmful tropes, mischaracterizing those speaking out as “paid protesters.”

In this atmosphere, South Dakota enacted a new law last week, the Riot Boosting Act. The law seeks to suppress protests before they even start and prohibits people from engaging in full-throated advocacy. It does so by creating a new, ambiguous term: “riot boosting.”

If you’re wondering what that means, so is everyone else, including those who want to speak out. And that’s a big problem.

The new law gives the state the authority to sue individuals and organizations for “riot boosting,” but it does not clearly describe what speech or conduct it considers to be “riot boosting.” The law is written so broadly that even a tweet encouraging activists to “Join a protest to stop the pipeline and give it all you’ve got!” could be interpreted as “riot-boosting” should a fight break out at the protest. The law joins two existing state criminal laws that also target such speech, meaning that advocacy could now result in up to 25 years of prison time, fines, or civil penalties — or a combination of all three.“

Star Comes Out also stressed that his action was also taken to support all of the indigenous peoples of North America who seek to cross a border that didn’t exist 180 years ago:

“Many of those arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border are Indigenous people from places like El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico who come “in search of jobs and a better life,” the tribal leader added.

“They don’t need to be put in cages, separated from their children like during the Trump Administration, or be cut up by razor wire furnished by, of all places, South Dakota,” he said.“

And he made it clear what Noem’s posturing is all about:

“Star Comes Out accused Noem of trying to use the border issue to help get former U.S. President Donald Trump re-elected and boost her chances of becoming his running mate.”

I am happy to support President Star Comes out in his effort to keep the trash out of Pine Ridge.

Now if we can just find a way to keep Noem out of the Governor’s mansion…