Tatewin Means: Indigenous must free themselves from colonial institutions

Tatewin Means is from the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota, Oglala Lakota, and Inhanktonwan nations and is the daughter of the late Lakota activist, Russell Means. She is Executive Director of Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation and is running for Rapid City Area Schools Board of Education from Area 2.

In the effort to create educational systems that are free of white supremacy, the church, whiteness, and settler colonialism, we are shifting the narrative in Indigenous Education to recognize that our languages and lifeways are, and have always been, our educational system. TVCDC believes that in order to create a school founded in our language, lifeways, and philosophy, we can not depend on anyone to do it for us. We want and desire a place where our children can openly and freely be Lakota in every aspect of their mind, spirit, body, and life. We are doubling down on the liberation of our children. [A Continuing Legacy of Lakota Liberation]

Although the term “socialist” wasn’t widely used until the nineteenth century it's of little consequence as it has existed in its purest form for nearly all of human history. Collectivism is arguably the most important feature binding every surviving human culture on the Earth today yet modern purely socialistic societies have struggled with longevity. Why? Probably because US capitalists have warred against any and all efforts at pure socialism around the globe since it was defined in the modern sense even as those wars are bankrupting America today. 

One reason Republicans don't like Common Core history standards is that the curriculum long-ignored by textbooks includes genocide and near-extermination of American Indians by European colonialism. It's estimated christians have slaughtered over 100 million Indigenous people since landing in the New World. Capitalism has destroyed hope in Indian Country where throughout herstory family and community have been more important than money and consumerism for countless generations. Indigenous cultures lived in collectivist economies long before migrating to this hemisphere. 

In South Dakota white people steal money slated for American Indian education and murder their families when the jig is up then place a complicit attorney general at the head of the investigation. Native journalist, Tim Giago has even called for a boycott of South Dakota. 

NDN Collective has announced that an Indigenous-led community based school in Rapid City is expected to open in Fall, 2022.

Read more from Tatewin Means linked here.