Editor's note: In my first post about the Daily Beast story, Bluestem quoted most of the article. That was not fair use of the material, as the author correctly advised me. and I have removed all but the extended lede. Go read the article at the Daily Beast. [end note]
Update: At the South Dakota Searchlight, Mackenzie Huber has more in Oglala, Rosebud tribal presidents demand governor apologize for comments last week [end update]
On Thursday, Bluestem posted In Winner, Noem links tribal leaders to cartels, based on South Dakota Searchlight reporting and earlier Bluestem entries.
At the Daily Beast on Friday, veteran South Dakota journalist Tom Lawrence (now at the South Dakota Standard) reported in Tribal Leaders Furious at Kristi Noem’s ‘Malicious’ Smear:
The head of a Native American tribe is demanding that South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem apologize for her “malicious and defamatory” allegation that tribal leaders are in cahoots with drug cartels.
“Her remarks were made from ignorance and with the intention to fuel a racially based and discriminatory narrative towards the Native people of South Dakota,” Rosebud Sioux Tribe President Scott Herman told The Daily Beast.
Noem’s remarks at a town hall meeting Wednesday have further damaged her relationship with the state’s tribes—one of which had already banned her from its reservation after similar insinuations.
Noem has been highlighting drug use and trafficking on reservations for months.
Read the rest at the Daily Beast.
My neighbors and friends here on the Lake Traverse Reservation, home of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate were not happy about Noem's remarks in her address to the legislature, and Chair Renville and the tribal council later met with the Governor in Pierre, as Bluestem reported in SWO Dakota to Governor Noem: don't single out reservations when drugs are a statewide problem.
I highly doubt they'll greet this new iteration with any more cheer than the first time, though at least she didn't mention the Oyate by name this week.
Screenshot: Governor Noem as she talks about tribal leaders "personally benefitting from the cartels being here." From a Facebook Watch video.
Related posts
- In Winner, Noem links tribal leaders to cartels
- SWO Dakota to Governor Noem: don't single out reservations when drugs are a statewide problem
- Noem banned from Pine Ridge Reservation over remarks in border speech to state legislature
- Explaining and gaining? Noem concedes Texas costs were gift to Lone Star state; meets with two South Dakota House tribal members
- Drug cartels have infiltrated reservations, Noem says, but some tribal voices call speech ‘political’
- Noem to address Legislature on ‘potential South Dakota response’ to Mexico border situation
- No word on who paid or if she packed razor wire: Noem travels again to Texas-Mexico border
- South Dakota Searchlight: Tribal leaders urge legislators to support reestablishment of Lake Traverse Reservation boundaries
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