Notes from Indian Country
Rapid City Mayor refers to Natives as “Those People”
Rapid City’s Mayor was not raised in Rapid City. The introduction in his biography states: Steve Allender is a native South Dakotan, and was raised in a military family.
After his father retired from the Air Force, his family moved to Belle Fourche, where Steve attended grade school through high school. Steve began his career in law enforcement in 1983 working for the Belle Fourche Police Department. In 1985 he joined the Rapid City Police Department and spent the next 29 years serving as a patrol officer, detective, sergeant, crime lab director, lieutenant, captain and eventually chief of police. He retired from the RCPD in May 2014.
Allender’s latest comments about the problems he is encountering with Rapid City’s homeless would surely indicate he has never been raised around Native Americans unlike former Mayor Don Barnett who spent his teen years growing up with the Native Americans in North Rapid.
Mayor Allender referred to the homeless Native Americans living in “HIS” city as “Those people.” Reminds me of what the mayors of Southern cities said when referring to the Black population living in “their cities.”


Contact Tim Giago at najournalist1@gmail.com. Tim is the founder of the Native American Journalists Association and Indian Country Today newspaper, and is currently editor and publisher of Native Sun News Today.
Note: Content © Tim Giago
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