Target donated funds to a group that has called for closing down Mount Rushmore because it is “an international symbol of white supremacy,” according to a new report
Target gave money to the NDN Collective in 2022, a South Dakota-based nonprofit that has stated that closing Mount Rushmore, and returning the land and all public lands in the Black Hills of South Dakota is “our cornerstone battle,” Fox News reported.
“Not only does Mount Rushmore sit in the heart of the sacred Black Hills, but it is an international symbol of White Supremacy and colonization,” NDN stated. “To truly dismantle white supremacy and systems of oppression, we have to go back to the roots. Which, for us, is putting Indigenous Lands back in Indigenous hands.”
“Mount Rushmore is an international symbol of white supremacy, and as people across America rightfully pull down statues of white supremacy, we have to look long and hard at how this national monument in the Black Hills upholds and maintains white supremacy on Indigenous lands,” NDN Collective President and CEO Nick Tilsen stated in a press release.
“Our LANDBACK efforts started at Mount Rushmore as we not only took a stand against white supremacy and Trump’s racist rhetoric that day, but also in demanding that Mount Rushmore be shut down as a national monument and that all public lands in the Black Hills be returned to Indigenous people,” he continued.
NDN Collective’s “Landback” campaign has declared, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free,” a mantra that terrorist organizations that hate Israel use to describe the elimination of the Jews in Israel.
“The U.S. military is in the explicit business of taking land away from communities all around the world and using their presence on their land to carry out their own agenda for the inhabitants of that area,” NDN Collective has stated. “Violence is fundamental for the U.S. to maintain its presence, and the military is how they establish dominance domestically and internationally, wherever they may be.”
“The origin of the U.S. military and police is rooted in the establishment of informal militias composed of newly arrived settlers looking to make money and own land,” NDN continued. “The purpose of these informal militias however was not to keep the police or protect citizens, but to clear the land of as many Natives as possible by killing indiscriminately, and catching runaway enslaved Africans.”