South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is piling on to conservative backlash against a retail giant, in part, for donations it made to a Native-led nonprofit.
She said the company, Target, is fundamentally tearing down America.
Conservative activists and media are criticizing the Minnesota-based retailer for offering swimsuits for transgender women.
Noem is joining calls to boycott the company by pointing to donations it has made to NDN Collective, a social justice organization in Rapid City that calls for returning the Black Hills to the Lakota.
In an appearance on Fox and Friends Wednesday morning, Noem said the group is “anti-American.”
“This is a very extreme organization that’s raising these dollars from nonprofits such as Target and going forward and buying land and using it to infiltrate our American way of life and our value system," Noem said. "It’s dangerous. Steve, I’m like a lot of Americans. Love to shop at Target, but we just can’t anymore.”
Noem said the group wants to shut down Mt. Rushmore.
“It’s kind of madness that we’re in this era that efforts to fight for social justice are being villainized," said Nick Tilsen, the president of NDN Collective, the group Noem is criticizing.
He said Mt. Rushmore is a symbol used to obscure indigenous history in the United States.
“If we’re going to achieve racial justice and a reckoning and a healing in this country—the only way to do that is to tell the true history of this country," Tilsen said. "I think in the future Mt. Rushmore can be a place that that happens.”
Target Corporation has not returned requests for comment.
Twenty-four hours after Noem’s appearance on Fox and Friends, the term-limited governor sent out a message through a Republican fundraising text bank linking to her federal political action committee.
