RC Central Lakota students stage walkout

RAPID CITY—Recent changes to South Dakota education curriculum standards have alarmed the South Dakota Native community. That alarm prompted a one-hour walkout by students at Rapid City Central High School Monday afternoon. The walkout was conceived by 16 students of the Lakota Club and their supervisor, Jeremiah Marino, who teaches Lakota language and culture at Rapid City Central.

 

Marino addressed the crowd of several hundred people which spread far out over the grass along the south entrance to the high school. He filled them in on the basic history and culture of the Oceti Sakowin, the Seven Council Fires, of which the Lakota are one council fire. References to this distinct and ancient identity are what have been recently edited from curriculum standards, along with what Marino described as “beautiful concepts about respect, resilience and perseverance.”

 

“There was a lot of nerves and excitement,” said senior Nia Dukes, a member of the Lakota Club “All day we were planning, making banners and posters, trying to tell everyone to spread the word. We were thinking about how many people from our school would actually support us, but when two o’clock hit kids just started coming out from all different directions. They started doing the drum, and we walked with them, and it was really eye opening.”

 

Freshman Kai’len Turning Heart added that: “Some thought that only Native people were allowed to go, because some teachers said that they weren’t allowed if they were white.” Turning Heart said that every effort had been made to make it clear to the staff and students that “everyone was welcome.”

Turning Heart’s grandfather, Jeff Turning Heart, said the protest made him very emotional, to see “representation from our young generation that want to get involved with their culture and traditions. They want to make others aware that they need to know our background, our heritage, our foundations in life.”

 

Despite the misinformation from the high school staff, there were a fair number of non-Native students in the large throng surrounding members of the Lakota Club, attired in distinct orange T-shirts. Some students carried banners decrying what they perceive as Governor Kristy Noem’s assault on tribal identity and dignity. Law enforcement presence was slight, just one patrol car across the street in an empty parking lot. There were no incidents of any kind despite the crowd spilling over somewhat into the crowded parking area east of the building. There were no counter protestors.

 

There was the notable absence of leaders of the Rapid City Indian Community and tribal leaders from prominent organizations and nearby reservations. None of the school officials spoke to the crowd, and although the local media were there, no non-Native civic leaders were present at the protest.

 

An oft repeated catch phrase at the protest was ‘Oceti Sakowin culture is not part of South Dakota history, South Dakota is a part of Oceti Sakowin history.”

 

Whatever the specific threat to Native education and identity that prompted the protest, Ka’lin Turning Heart summed up the student perception of the issue: “Native American culture is very important, and we just wanted to show that we care about the Oceti Sakowin.”

 

One banner did address specific changes to the curriculum standards, and the banner was read aloud to the crowd. All references to Oceti Sakowin and any specific Lakota tribe have been removed and replaced by a generalized classification of diverse cultures in the curriculum standards. The history or motivations concerning these curriculum changes were not discussed beyond observations that the people behind the changes are racist or ignorant or jealous.

 

The actual story behind the curriculum changes began with the controversy over Critical Race Theory (CRT), which was prompted by the public outcry over the murder of George Floyd. Conservative political groups balked at the teaching of this theory in schools. Noem opposes CRT calling it “anti-American indoctrination at the state and local level.” Instead, she was proud to be one of the first governors to sign the 1776 Pledge to Save Our Schools. This is the pushback movement against CRT. The document promises to restore “patriotic education” and goes on to call for the prohibition of “any curriculum that pits students against one another on the basis of race or sex.”

 

An example of how thorough the changes to the South Dakota curriculum standards are, would be the change to banking references. Before the curriculum called for studying federal, state and tribal banking systems, now it just calls for studying banking systems.

 

“Teaching our children & grandchildren to hate their own country & pitting them against one another on the basis of race or sex is shameful & must be stopped,” Noem tweeted back in May of this year.

 

But is that what CRT does? Here is the definition of CRT from Purdue University: “…a theoretical and interpretive mode that examines the appearance of race and racism across dominant cultural modes of expression. In adopting this approach, CRT scholars attempt to understand how victims of systemic racism are affected by cultural perceptions of race and how they are able to represent themselves to counter prejudice.”

 

Ironically, Noem’s editing of state curriculum standards to exclude specific references to the Oceti Sakowin and tribal identity as being divisive and undermining patriotic love of country, are a textbook expression of the very racism and marginalization CRT was developed to address.

 

Tribes have remained curiously silent on CRT, not understanding that this was the catalyst behind the removal of specific tribal references in education curriculum.

 

Many prominent historical figures addressed patriotism from a negative perspective, prompted by the tenor and circumstance of their time:

Charles de Gaulle: “Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”

Edward Abbey: “A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”

Samuel Johnson: “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”

 

The battle in South Dakota is squaring off to be between patriotic rhetoric, and tribal identity; whether the patriotism promoted by eliminating specific references to tribal distinction is love of country or nationalistic intolerance of others.

 

Other states are also wrestling with this issue. Parents of 18 students in Montana filed a federal lawsuit in July. The suit alleges state constitutional requirements requiring all students be taught about the unique culture and heritage of Native Americans are being violated.

 

Two years ago, a survey by the National Congress of American Indians found that ninety percent of the surveyed states had some sort of activity underway to improve the quality and access to Native American curriculum. This was before the CRT pushback, and it is not known how many of these efforts are now under assault by “patriot” political actions.

 

According to the Associated Press, three states are moving to broaden reference to Native Americans in curriculum. Beginning in the 2023-24 school year, Connecticut schools are mandated to teach Native American studies. In North Dakota, a bill was passed last year requiring all schools, public and private, to include Native American curriculum, with emphasis on tribes within the state. In Oregon, a similar law passed in 2019 calling for “historically accurate, culturally embedded, place-based, contemporary, and developmentally appropriate” American Indian and Alaska Native curriculum in five subject areas.

 

While South Dakota is headed in the opposite direction under a Noem Administration, at this point tribes, elected officials, and Native community leaders have not gotten together to form galvanized opposition to Noem’s “patriotic education,” particularly how it threatens the distinct identity of Native culture, and the damning aspects of conflict with tribes in the 19^th Century.

 

(Contact James Giago Davies at skindiesel@msn.com).

 

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