It’s Not Easy Being Lakota

deciding where to stand (and who to stand with) in a hostile world

We find ourselves, today, in an increasingly hostile world. Especially for those of us who are not White, male, and heterosexual. In one of his first official acts, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to expel Venezuelan migrants aged 14 or older with alleged ties to a Venezuelan crime organization that his administration recently designated as Foreign Terrorist Organization. In the month of March alone, the United States deported 261 migrants to a notorious jail in El Salvador, defying federal court orders requiring the government in some cases to turn two transport planes around carrying detainees to the prison.

Most notably, perhaps, is the case of a Maryland man, who despite a 2019 federal order granting him protected status from gang violence in his home state of El Salvador, was deported by “administrative error” by the administration’s own admission. Now, after a Supreme Court ruling that the government must “facilitate” his return, allies of the President have spun up a war of words to win the case in the court of public opinion, even as a second federal judge orders the administration to return a second Maryland man deported in violation of a court order. Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, the FBI arrests a state court judge who allegedly obstructed the arrest of a defendant in her court by ICE, and when asked if he has to “uphold the Constitution” – which requires that every person in the United States is afforded Due Process of Law, the President (who took an oath to uphold the Constitution) says, “I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer.”

All of which raises the question for those of us not part of a targeted class of persons in the United States. “Where do you stand?”

A year and a half ago, I met a man in Rapid City named Hermus Bettelyoun. Hermus was a Lakota man helping organize an effort to provide a safe, warm space for unsheltered relatives after the Mayor and City Council shuttered the only daytime warming center in town on December 8. Rapid City reached a low that winter of -42’ that winter, as relatives were turned away from the only other shelters for either being “too drunk” or “not drunk enough.” Hermus joined with Jonathan Old Horse, the pastor at Woyatán Lutheran Church, Chris White Eagle, the Director of Wanbli Ska Teen Center, and me to image a response to the life-and-death situation facing this targeted class, the unsheltered relatives of Rapid City. Together, we pulled the pews out of Woyatán and replaced them with bunks, as Pastor Jon and I held joint services up the road at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church for our combined communities.

The night this plan was hatched, I was sitting in an office with Hermus, Jon, and Chris. Hermus – who seemed wary of me, a White priest, and of the Church more generally – gave me a hard look as we discussed sending out the buses to pick up the relatives and bring them back to the church. He then, raised his eyebrow in my general direction, and said, “Why don’t you join us?” I hesitated. It was late, and my wife was waiting on me for dinner with our kids. I told him so, and he shot back, “Why don’t you bring them along?” I hung my head, knowing that I would not get very far convincing my family to join me on an old YMCA bus riding through the streets of Rapid City picking up unsheltered relatives.

“It’s not easy being Lakota, Joe” Hermus told me. “Where will you stand?”

Hermus was right. I had a choice where I stood, unlike the relatives on the street in Rapid City who had no shelter from the deadly cold. I had a choice where I my stood, unlike the families of the unhoused of Rapid, who were desperate to try and keep their loved ones alive. I had a choice. That choice, itself, was a product of my privilege.

Hermus was right. It is not easy being Lakota. It is not easy to be on the margins of the power and privilege in this world. It is not easy being targeted by institutions of power and privilege. Those of us who are beneficiaries of those institutions, whose comfort is secured by that power and privilege have to decide. Where will we stand?

A few weeks after Hermus asked me where I would stand, one of our unsheltered relatives, Donroy, put the same question to me a little differently. We had just finished our daily church service and community meal, which I consecrated as part of an Episcopal Eucharistic service to block city officials from shutting us down with the protections of the First Amendment. All of which was part of the longest running prayer vigil in the history of South Dakota. Donroy approached me and told me how much he appreciated Pastor Jon and me for hosting him and his “street family” every day. “You have extended us hospitality in your house,” he said. “Now, will you let us welcome you to our house?”

There it was. An invitation to receive hospitality from a Lakota leader from the vulnerable community I was serving. All eyes were on me, and I readily agreed to the great excitement of those present. I learned soon afterwards what I had agreed to. A night under the 12^th street bridge. It was December 28, and it got down to 19’ that night. Donroy, Miranda, MacKenzie, Cherice, George, all looked at my sleeping bag when I arrived and shook their heads. Donroy pulled a shopping cart out of a culvert and presented me with a well-used military sleeping bag. George gave me one of his emergency rescue blankets, and MacKenzie and Cherice shared with me a slice of pepperoni pizza from the boxes of Little Caesars being handed out in the park.

Something shifted inside me that night — a turning brought about by the unexpected hospitality that kept me warm under the 12^th Street bridge on a cold December night. No longer could the Gospel call to solidarity with the marginalized be relegated to a book club that meets every third Thursday. No longer could I make a weekend hobby of Jesus’ call to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, and visit the sick and imprisoned (Matt. 25:37-39). No longer could I simply “fit in” my free time the self-giving love that Jesus modeled for me and asks me to model for others. The Gospel mandate to “Love each other” as Jesus loved (John 13:34) would either characterize all of my life or none of it.

So, back to Hermus, who never looked at me the same after my night with the relatives under the 12^th Street bridge. Hermus died unexpectedly last month from an un(der)treated illness, but his memory lives on as a testament to a self-giving love that draws us to the most vulnerable on the margins of the power and privilege of this world. And, his question still rings in my ears each morning, “Where will you stand?” I hope to have the courage to stand where Hermus stood, with the oyate, with the people. I’m sure if do, I will find Jesus there, too.

How about you?