We were warned by a friend who works as a congressional staffer that Kristi Noem was known among staffers serving both parties for being a nincompoop.
One of her new campaign ads--coupled with choices back in April for the second studies standard work group--provide another illustration of nitwittery.
A new Noem ad is scolding Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jamie Smith for supporting teaching critical race theory in South Dakota schools, citing a February 15 nay vote on 2022 House Bill 1337 as evidence.
We can only wonder why one of our state representatives, Tamara St. John, was appointed as a member of that work group, since she cast the same vote against the bill. Apparently on Planet Positive Pants, such things happen. (We're not slamming St. John here, a respected tribal archivist and genealogist, but sauce for the gander should be sauce for the goose when they vote the same way).
Here's what led to this post:
Wednesday, Dakota Free Press's Cory Allen Heidelberger reported in Noem Lies, Says Smith Vote Against Thought-Control Bill “Actively Promoted” CRT:
For over a year, we’ve been begging Governor Kristi Noem to give us examples of any teacher anywhere in South Dakota endangering students with her great bugaboo, critical race theory, and other radical leftist falsehoods in our schools. Governor Noem has never given any examples. Her entire Department of Education spent three months looking and didn’t find any examples.
Just in time for the fall campaign season, Noem has finally found a culprit—nay, the culprit, the one South Dakotan she can identify as actively promoting critical race theory in South Dakota. Coincidentally, that one culprit happens to be the one man running against her for Governor, Representative Jamie Smith . . .
“Fact:” says Noem, “Jamie Smith actively promoted the training of Critical Race Theory within our state.” Noem’s ad voicer says, “Jamie Smith even voted to bring CRT to our kids’ classrooms.”
Fact: Noem is lying.
If you squint below the one-liner, you’ll see Noem cites 2022 House Bill 1337 and Smith’s February 15 nay vote thereon to back this claim. HB 1337 was one of Noem’s two school thought-control bills this Session. Neither Noem’s original version of HB 1337 nor the watered-down House version mentions “critical race theory”. The words “critical race theory” do not appear in HB 1337. The Trump-begotten “divisive concepts” enumerated and forbidden by HB 1337 do not constitute tenets of critical race theory. . . .
More importantly, the 18 members of the House (Smith and the other seven Democrats plus ten Republicans) who voted against HB 1337 were not “actively promoting” the training of anything, be it the explicitly stated “divisive concepts” or the never-mentioned “critical race theory.” Those 18 Representatives and the four Senate Education Committee members who killed HB 1337—Democrat Troy Heinert and Republicans V.J. Smith, Kyle Schoenfish, and R. Blake Curd—were not voting to “bring CRT to South Dakota.” They were voting not to pass a problematic and poorly worded bill that sought to stifle debate and intellectual inquiry.
Representative Jamie Smith’s vote against House Bill 1337 on February 15 (and Larry Tidemann’s, and Mike Derby’s, and Tamara St. John’s…) did not actively promote critical race theory. Representative Jamie Smith (and Jess Olson, and Roger Chase, and Doug Barthel…) did not vote to “bring CRT to our kids’ classrooms.” They just voted against a garbage bill designed to tee up lazy, lying campaign ads. Kristi Noem’s claim to the contrary is exactly that sort of lazy campaign lie.
This is world-class lazy lying on Team Noem's part.
Here's candidate Kristi Noem's tweet cited in the DFP article:
Fact: Jamie Smith actively promoted the training of Critical Race Theory within our state.
— Kristi Noem (@KristiNoem) August 30, 2022
My response? C'mon man!
Our economy is strong and we’ve proven conservative policies can and will work here in South Dakota. We do NOT need another Joe Biden. pic.twitter.com/5wDclm8yWa
Update September 4: There's an update on this story in Tamara St. John Helped Write Book on Critical Race Theory,at Dakota Free Press. An interesting read.
Neither St. John nor Middlebury scholar Susan Burch are the problem.
Bluestem thinks the problem here is Noem's notion of banning "divisive concepts," perhaps the crudest form of historiography I've come across in my academic work in American studies and working for nearly five years at Ben Franklin's Library Company back before I switched to creative writing.
I've read much of Committed: Remembering Native Kinship in and beyond Institutions via JStor's Open Access (Burch is a generous scholar). It's fine work, with which many students participating in a Post-Secondary Enrollment Option (PSEO) or Advanced Placement would readily master. It's part of the University of North Carolina Press's Critical Indigeneities series.
There's even a down-home connection there with the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate, of which our romantic partner is a citizen and elder. Kim TallBear, University of Alberta, serves on the editorial board; she's a citizen of the SWO. I've met her mother.
Again, neither St. John's involvement nor Middlebury scholar Susan Burch's scholarship are the problem. It's Noem's weaponizing the study of history in a culture war without knowing much history. [end update]
Photo: Tribal historian, archivist and genealogist Tamara St. John, a enrolled citizen of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate (Dakota), SD District 1 State Representative and 2nd social studies standards work group member. She cast the same vote that the new Noem ad uses to damn Jamie Smith as a CRT guy. Noem seems confused.
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