Are You Ready to Defend Democracy?

Chase Iron Eyes

Are you ready to defend democracy, dissent, and tribal sovereignty? As you know, all three were already newly endangered after Donald Trump’s election to a second term, but with today’s news that he has tapped South Dakota Gov. and human rights opponent Kristi Noem to lead the Department of Homeland Security, we must now further increase our vigilance and determination.

I encourage you to watch my new video for more context, but I can also bottom line it for you by saying that Noem may be the worst possible choice for such an important post. Not only is she unqualified to lead the federal department in charge of assessing and neutralizing external threats to U.S. safety and security, but she has a long history of alienating and demonizing people in her own backyard who are no threat at all — namely the good people who live on South Dakota’s nine tribal nations

Remember that, over the past year, each of these tribal nations banned Kristi Noem from entering our territories — representing roughly 12 percent of all the land in South Dakota — after she made comments falsely asserting that tribal governments were in league with Mexican drug cartels and that Native children “don’t have parents who show up and help them.”

The work we do to protect sacred lands, waters, sites, and human rights is good and honorable.

When Noem assumes the role of Director of Homeland Security, we can expect to hear much more of this type of racially-charged rhetoric, only now it will be used to defend the mass deportation of migrants and, possibly, renewed attacks on both tribes and protestors. Importantly, the U.S. House of Representatives is currently considering HR 9495, a bill that would empower the federal government to remove the non-profit status of any group it sees as affiliated with terrorists or overly critical of its policies.

Both of those are key points. First of all, the incoming administration will have virtually unlimited latitude to determine what constitutes criticism. Environmental, Native justice, and humanitarian orgs working in war zones — like Gaza — could all be under the gun. And you may recall that I was already targeted and accused of being a domestic environmental jihadi during the NoDAPL protests of 2016 and 2017.

Of course, I consider it to be a legal impossibility for any Native person to be a “terrorist” or a “jihadi.” We are the original Americans, the real patriots defending this land and its most vulnerable people. The work we do to protect sacred lands, waters, sites, and human rights is good and honorable. We do not create violence; we merely respond to it by standing our ground.

And so I ask you again: In the difficult months and years to come, will you stand with us? It is now in our hands to defend our sovereignty as beings deeply connected to our homelands, to defend our constitutional right to dissent and freely express our opposition to tyranny, and to defend all our relatives — Native and non-Native — who will come under attack from military-industrial and corporate-political complexes.

We take this role extremely seriously, and we invite every person who believes in equality and the rule of law to stand with us. I thank you from my heart for being a friend to Lakota Law and the Lakota People. We are incredibly grateful to you for empowering our mission to win justice and defend our sovereignty.

Chase Iron Eyes is the Director and Lead Counsel for the Lakota People’s Law Project Sacred Defense Fund.