Breaking: Court Denies Standing Rock Injunction.

Courtesy Red Warrior Camp/Facebook A three-judge panel has denied the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's request for an injunction that would stop work on the oil pipeline that is slated to go through treaty-protected, sacred burial sites.

Courtesy Red Warrior Camp/Facebook
A three-judge panel has denied the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s request for an injunction that would stop work on the oil pipeline that is slated to go through treaty-protected, sacred burial sites.

Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II vowed to continue fighting the Dakota Access oil pipeline (DAPL) after a three-judge panel on Sunday October 9 denied the tribe’s request for an injunction that would have stopped the pipeline’s progress through treaty-protected, sacred burial grounds.

“The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is not backing down from this fight,” said Archambault in a statement after the decision came down at 4 p.m. “We are guided by prayer, and we will continue to fight for our people. We will not rest until our lands, people, waters and sacred places are permanently protected from this destructive pipeline.”

In a two-page ruling, U.S. District Court judges Janice Rogers Brown, Thomas B. Griffith and Cornelia T.L. Pillard acknowledged the “narrow and stringent standard” that formed their legal parameters and noted that key permits allowing the pipeline to cross under the Missouri River are still pending. It also gave a nod to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, noting it “was intended to mediate precisely the disparate perspectives involved in a case such as this one.”

The ruling came down as Native leaders gathered in Phoenix for the 73rd Annual Convention & Marketplace of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), as members participated in a Department of Interior water consultation with tribes at the Phoenix Convention Center. There was an audible gasp of disappointment from the 150 or more attendees at the consultation as NCAI President Brian Cladoosby announced that the court had denied Standing Rock’s appeal of an initial denial on September 9.

While disappointed, Cladoosby expressed some hope for closer study of the consultation process in general.

“But they left I think a window open for our trustee the federal government to really examine the 106 process and make sure that their consultation process is adequate for projects like this one that affects tribes at this level,” he told ICTMN.

The consultation had followed a day-long National Water Summit hosted by the Intertribal Council of Arizona and the Native American Rights Fund. Presenters from federal, tribal and state organizations and agencies had shared information about current Indian water rights settlements, implementation processes, economic development and protecting tribal water quality from climate change and the impact of drought. The decision to engage tribes in consultations regarding federal processes surrounding negotiation and reviewing Indian water rights settlements and potential improvements to the process had been motivated partially by the controversy in Standing Rock, Interior Deputy Secretary Mike Connor told Indian Country Today Media Network.

Thousands of water protectors have gathered in camps near the Standing Rock reservation in support of keeping the DAPL away from Lake Oahe, the tribe’s source of drinking water.

“This ruling puts 17 million people who rely on the Missouri River at serious risk,” said Archambault in the statement. “And, already, the Dakota Access Pipeline has led to the desecration of our sacred sites when the company bulldozed over the burials of our Lakota and Dakota ancestors. This is not the end of this fight. We will continue to explore all lawful options to protect our people, our water, our land, and our sacred places.”

The U.S. Department of Justice and other agencies reiterated their request for a work stoppage within a 20-mile buffer zone around Lake Oahe, but with the denial of the injunction, compliance on the part of Energy Transfer Partners is once again voluntary, the Bismarck Tribune reported after the decision.

“The federal government recognizes what is at stake and has asked DAPL to halt construction,” said Archambault in the tribe’s statement. “We hope that they will comply with that request.”

“We call on Dakota Access to heed the government’s request to stand down around Lake Oahe,” added Jan Hasselman, lead attorney from Earthjustice, which is representing the tribe. “Continuing construction before the decision is made would be a tragedy given what we know about the importance of this area.”

The justices noted that other permits are still pending, and that the pipeline can’t proceed until those issues are resolved.

“But ours is not the final word,” they wrote. “A necessary easement still awaits government approval—a decision Corps’ counsel predicts is likely weeks away; meanwhile, Intervenor DAPL has rights of access to the limited portion of pipeline corridor not yet cleared—where the Tribe alleges additional historic sites are at risk. We can only hope the spirit of Section 106 may yet prevail.”

Via ICTMN. Stay woke, stay informed, help if you can. You don’t need money – signal boosting and spreading the word is more helpful than you can possibly know. A whole lot of non-Native people don’t have the slightest idea of what’s happening, even as close as Montana, which is right next door. Cops are going apeshit, breaking out all the military gear, and itching to hurt people. We need people to know what is going on, so if you can do nothing else, please, please, spread the word, spread links, get a chain of wakefulness going!

https://twitter.com/RuthHHopkins . https://twitter.com/lastrealindians . https://twitter.com/zhaabowekwe . https://twitter.com/SimonMoyaSmith . https://twitter.com/indiancountry . https://twitter.com/hashtag/NoDAPL

The why of the “holiday”.

Christopher Columbus. Sebastiano del Piombo/Metropolitan Museum of Art/Wikipedia.

Christopher Columbus. Sebastiano del Piombo/Metropolitan Museum of Art/Wikipedia.

“In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” is the poem many elementary schoolchildren learn, but how did a man who stole, raped, enslaved, and never even landed on Turtle Island get his own holiday?

According to History.com and the Library of Congress, the first celebration of Columbus Day took place on the 300th anniversary of his first voyage on October 12 1792, when New York’s Columbian Order—also known as the Society of St. Tammany—held an event to commemorate the anniversary of Columbus’s landing. After that, various celebrations around the country started popping up to honor Columbus’s Italian and Catholic heritage. Then, on the 400th anniversary of his landing, President Benjamin Harrison issued a proclamation encouraging people to “cease from toil and devote themselves to such exercises as may best express honor to the discoverer and their appreciation of the great achievements of the four completed centuries of American life.”

The proclamation went on to call Columbus a “pioneer of progress and enlightenment,” and said, “Let the national flag float over every schoolhouse in the country and the exercises be such as shall impress upon our youth the patriotic duties of American citizenship.”

[Read more…]

For Indigenous Peoples Day, Write to Columbus.

Tomahawk Greyeyes/YouTube Deezbaa Andrea O’hare reads a letter to Columbus written by Corrina Gould. Tell Columbus how you feel in your own letter.

Tomahawk Greyeyes/YouTube
Deezbaa Andrea O’hare reads a letter to Columbus written by Corrina Gould. Tell Columbus how you feel in your own letter.

Have something you want to tell Christopher Columbus and think there is no way to get it off your chest? Tomahawk Greyeyes, Navajo, has just the thing, an artivist project that calls for letters to Columbus on Indigenous Peoples Day.

The Letters to Columbus will be gathered and some will be shared with the world online and some will be read and performed on YouTube.

Greyeyes calls this a “socially engaged art project about expressing the rage that comes from colonization.” He launched the project on October 12, 2015, gathered letters and took them to read aloud at the Columbus statue that faces the Pacific Ocean in San Francisco.

“You [Columbus] are being charged with genocide, ethnocide, colonization, slavery, rape of people and lands, destruction of the Mother Earth, stealing, maiming, and continued perpetration of lies,” reads Corrina Gould’s (Karkin and Chochoenyo Ohlone) letter to Columbus. “When found guilty your name will be stricken from all histories as a hero.”

Here the full letter, performed by Deezbaa Andrea O’hare, Navajo, below:

One-page letters are due by October 10, and can be submitted to letterstocolumbus@gmail.com.

Via ICTMN.

Sunday Facepalm.

This took place in September this year. The governor of Oklahoma declared a day to be Oilfield Prayer Day. Yep. Good old Christian Dominionism at work – look at all this nice stuff god blessed us with, now let’s get out there, destroy everything and fuck it all up! There is not enough facepalm.

oil

Whereas, Oklahoma is blessed with an abundance of oil and natural gas, allowing the state to be a prosperous producer of these valuable resources; and

Whereas, Christians acknowledge such natural resources are created by God; and

Whereas, the oil and gas industry continues to produce countless opportunities for wealth generation for Oklahoma families; and

Whereas, Oklahoma recognizes the incredible economic, community and faith-based impacts demonstrated across the state by oil and natural gas companies; and

Whereas, Christians are invited to thank God for the blessings created by the oil and natural gas industry and to seek His Wisdom and ask for protection;

Now, Therefore, I, Mary Fallin, Governor, do hereby proclaim October 13,

Oilfield Prayer Day.

Christians just can’t fuck off enough. Seriously, you have not only ruined and destroyed things forever, but you continue to do so, and in the worst possible way. Apparently, this was the governor’s response to Oklahoma’s failing economy. Wow, what leadership. As Mark Trahant points out, the move, right now, to clean energy can not only bring temporary and permanent jobs, in the thousands, it can massively boost a state economy. How about that, Ms. Fallin, instead the of the standard christian pillage and not give a fuck? How about that, rather than some limp appeal to prayer, which has never worked, and never will. No one is listening, so that means you need to actually do something your self.

And the nerve of setting this 3 days after “Hey, here to fuck you over forever!” Day.

The PDF is here, if you want to see it in all its nauseating glory.

Standing Rock (Inyan Woslata).

Standing Rock Joins the World’s Indigenous Fighting for Land and Life.

 

Frank Cooper and Kaya Littleturtle of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina greet Sami representatives from Norway, Inger Biret, Kvernmo Gaup, and Sara Marielle Gaup Beaska on Friday. Desiree Kane.

Frank Cooper and Kaya Littleturtle of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina greet Sami representatives from Norway, Inger Biret, Kvernmo Gaup, and Sara Marielle Gaup Beaska on Friday. Desiree Kane.

From Paris to Standing Rock It’s the Climate Choices Ahead.

 

President Barack Obama congratulates Senior Advisor Brian Deese on the first day of the implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change, in the Oval Office, Oct. 5, 2016. Deese worked with Secretary of State John Kerry and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to make the agreement possible. Chief of Staff Denis McDonough watches at left. Pete Souza/White House.

President Barack Obama congratulates Senior Advisor Brian Deese on the first day of the implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change, in the Oval Office, Oct. 5, 2016. Deese worked with Secretary of State John Kerry and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to make the agreement possible. Chief of Staff Denis McDonough watches at left. Pete Souza/White House.

Militarization and Mistaken Identity: Police Crack Down on DAPL Protectors.

 

An increasingly militarized police presence is cracking down via video and other technology to identify and arrest water protectors at Dakota Access pipeline construction sites—even when they're not present. Mary Annette Pember.

An increasingly militarized police presence is cracking down via video and other technology to identify and arrest water protectors at Dakota Access pipeline construction sites—even when they’re not present. Mary Annette Pember.

Dalrymple has managed to “borrow” up to 6 million dollars from a state owned bank, to feed police to protect people from the scary Indians and allies.  And Kirchmeier is planning to call on cops in Laramie, Wyoming, to come here and “help”.  I’m furious and disgusted.

Tribal Leaders Speak at DC #NoDAPL Rally.

 

All via ICTMN.

Standing Rock: Cops Continue to Lie.

Courtesy Sacred Stone Camp Police raise weapons and approach unarmed water protectors at a peaceful action on September 28, 2016

Courtesy Sacred Stone Camp
Police raise weapons and approach unarmed water protectors at a peaceful action on September 28, 2016

 

A police officer raises his weapon at unarmed water protector. Courtesy Leland Dick.

A police officer raises his weapon at unarmed water protector. Courtesy Leland Dick.

 

Women plant willow tree seedlings in the path of Dakota Access construction on September 25. Courtesy Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN).

Women plant willow tree seedlings in the path of Dakota Access construction on September 25. Courtesy Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN).

As I wrote in this post, cops are getting increasingly worrisome here in Ndakota. Sarah Sunshine Manning has a column up at ICTMN, please go read, and more importantly, share! We need help getting the truth out, and countering the increasing amount of lies coming from cops and oil corps.

Last week, water protectors from the camps near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, engaged in peaceful non-violent direct action at three different Dakota Access Construction sites. And despite the peaceful and prayerful atmosphere at all three sites, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department quickly released a statement alleging that the demonstration turned violent, and that one unidentified Dakota Access security worker was assaulted by “protestors” as knives and guns were wielded.

Water protectors on the ground vehemently refute this claim, and they contend that the allegations of the Morton County Sheriff’s Department are completely fabricated.

Still, just days later on September 28, police confronted water protectors with armored police vehicles blocking the road, and with shotguns drawn, as water protectors gathered for another peaceful action.

The unarmed water protectors reported being terrified, and many made frantic and fearful pleas over social media calling for support and help.

“Please share and make everyone aware!” Linda Black Elk posted on Facebook. “COPS WITH GUNS DRAWN APPROACHING UNARMED PEACEFUL PROTECTORS.”

For many water protectors, social media has become a means of documenting actions in order to counter the continued false narratives of the Morton County Sheriff’s Department.

The tactics of the Morton County Sheriff’s Department and Dakota Access continue a tragically predictable pattern of villainizing peaceful protests in order to justify excessive police, security and military presence.

It is critical that the voices of water protectors on the ground be elevated.

Nick Tilsen, an organizer and executive director for Thunder Valley CDC, was among those present at the prayerful action Sunday as well as the action where the alleged violence occurred; the same alleged violence that prompted excessive police force later in the week.

In an interview with Sonali Kolhatkar of the show “Rising Up with Sonali,” Tilsen said of the accusations of violence and the attack on a security worker “is 100-percent wrong. This false accusation is totally made up.”

Tilsen said the allegations were nothing more than propaganda.

“By the time we got to the construction site, all of the workers had packed up and left, because they saw us walking for a quarter of a mile,” Tilsen said. “We actually didn’t have interaction with the security guards or interaction with the workers that day.”

According to water protectors and journalists on the ground, all actions that day were peaceful. Additionally, women, children and elders continue to be among those standing in prayer for water and life.

The first peaceful action on September 25 took place much earlier than the action where the alleged violence took place. This earlier action was at a Dakota Access construction site in South Dakota, where a handful of water protectors gathered before daylight and strung over a thousand small prayer ties across Dakota Access machinery.

The full article, and more images is here. If you are able, please, please share, get this news out, get it everywhere, we need help with this.

Britain: Human Rights, Just Vexatious Claims.

British Prime Minister Theresa May. AFP.

British Prime Minister Theresa May. AFP.

London (dpa) – The British government on Tuesday announced measures to end “vexatious” claims against its troops, saying it planned to remove the application of European human rights law to future conflicts.

“Over the past decade a series of court judgments have extended the extra-territorial jurisdiction of the European Convention on Human Rights to the battlefield,” the government said in a statement.

Exempting British troops from the human rights convention will protect them “from the kind of persistent legal claims that have followed recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan on an industrial scale,” it said.

“It will help to protect our troops from vexatious claims, ensuring they can confidently take difficult decisions on the battlefield,” Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said.

Fallon said the change will allow Britain “to spend more of our growing defence budget on equipment for them rather than fees for lawyers.”

“Combined with the biggest defence budget in Europe, the action we are laying out today means we will continue to play our part on the world stage, protecting UK interests across the globe,” Prime Minister Theresa May said.

Opting out of human rights during war. Why is this an “opt out” situation? Soldiers, regardless of what side of anything they find themselves on, often commit despicable acts, that’s hardly any sort of secret. There has to be some way to stop full scale despicable acts, at the very least, acknowledging that everyone on a field is human, and has fundamental rights is one small way to keep people accountable, but now it’s opt out. I am appalled.

Via Raw Story.

Ride Against the Current of the Oil.

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Honorearth.org

Honorearth.org

Ride for Our Sacred Water – STOP Dakota Access!

From October 8-13, Honor the Earth is proud to join forces with the Wounded Knee Memorial Riders, the Dakota 38 and Big Foot riders, and many horse nation societies, in a spiritual horse ride to protect our sacred waters from the Dakota Access pipeline and all the black snakes that threaten our lands.

Thousands have come together in a historic gathering of tribes at the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers, where Dakota Access threatens a concentration sacred sites and the water source of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, as well as the 18 million people downstream.

This is our moment. Tribes and First Nations are standing up and standing together to demand an end to the desecration of our lands and the poisoning of our sacred waters…to demand a better future for our people. We are the river, and the river is us.

On October 8th we will gather at the Standing Rock encampment, and ride against the current of the oil.

Please stand with us. We need your support.  For more info, visit www.honorearth.org/mniwiconi

Oh, and in case you’re wondering about that Standing Rock to Tioga, it means Tioga, ND, which styles itself as ‘The Oil Capital of North Dakota’.

This reminds me of another embarrassing white person moment at the camps last week. The Dakota 38 were expected, and we were hoping to see them. A white woman laughed and shrugged, saying “I mean, I don’t even know what that is. What is the Dakota 38.” Yeah, okay, I know the ‘history’ taught in uStates is a whitewashed mess, but still…

Even if you’re just a solidarity tourist, try to not only be respectful, but try to learn. Aaaand, this is the internet age, how hard is it? The Dakota 38, the largest mass execution in the history of the United States. A criminal injustice, perpetrated in Mankato, Minnesota.

20101222_dakota-hanging1_33

Tipi-hdo-niche, Forbids His Dwelling

Wyata-tonwan, His People

Taju-xa, Red Otter

Hinhan-shoon-koyag-mani, Walks Clothed in an Owl’s Tail

Maza-bomidu, Iron Blower

Wapa-duta, Scarlet Leaf

Wahena, translation unknown

Sna-mani, Tinkling Walker

Radapinyanke, Rattling Runner

Dowan niye, The Singer

Xunka ska, White Dog

Hepan, family name for a second son

Tunkan icha ta mani, Walks With His Grandfather

Ite duta, Scarlet Face

Amdacha, Broken to Pieces

Hepidan, family name for a third son

Marpiya te najin, Stands on a Cloud (Cut Nose)

Henry Milord (French mixed-blood)

Dan Little, Chaska dan, family name for a first son (this may be We-chank-wash-ta-don-pee, who had been pardoned and was mistakenly executed when he answered to a call for “Chaska,” reference to a first son; fabric artist Gwen Westerman did a quilt called “Caske’s Pardon” based on him.

Baptiste Campbell, (French mixed-blood)

Tate kage, Wind Maker

Hapinkpa, Tip of the Horn

Hypolite Auge (French mixed-blood)

Nape shuha, Does Not Flee

Wakan tanka, Great Spirit

Tunkan koyag I najin, Stands Clothed with His Grandfather

Maka te najin, Stands Upon Earth

Pazi kuta mani, Walks Prepared to Shoot

Tate hdo dan, Wind Comes Back

Waxicun na, Little Whiteman (this young white man, adopted by the Dakota at an early age and who was acquitted, was hanged, according to the Minnesota Historical Society U.S.-Dakota War website).

Aichaga, To Grow Upon

Ho tan inku, Voice Heard in Returning

Cetan hunka, The Parent Hawk

Had hin hda, To Make a Rattling Noise

Chanka hdo, Near the Woods

Oyate tonwan, The Coming People

Mehu we mea, He Comes for Me

Wakinyan na, Little Thunder

Wakanozanzan and Shakopee: These two chiefs who fled north after the war, were kidnapped from Canada in January 1864 and were tried and convicted in November that year and their executions were approved by President Andrew Johnson (after Lincoln’s assassination) and they were hanged November 11, 1865.

You can read more about the Dakota 38 + 2 here and here. Also, here.

Amnesty International Smacks Kirchmeier.

Via Facebook.

Via Facebook.

Amnesty International has turned their attention to Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, an incompetent bigot who has repeatedly run to media with reports of pipe bombs, guns, knives, and violence in the camps at Standing Rock, and has been proven wrong every time, but he continues to do this. With the last peaceful direct action being met with armored vehicles, cops in armored riot gear and wielding assault rifles at people who were planting corn and willow, he once again shows his plain desire to rain down violence and destruction on peaceful people. He managed to restrain himself to arresting 21 people. I have mentioned our surprise at seeing a monstrous, shiny, new mobile command center hulking behind silos, last week on our way into camp. Kirchmeier has all the shiny, militarized goodies, and it’s apparent that he’s just aching to use them. Not once has he or his force bothered to protect the Standing Rock Protectors, he refused to stop the attack and assault by private goons, but instead chose to run to the media with stories of those poor, beset upon goons and their vicious animals. Indians? Oh, who cares about them?

Kirchmeier has been trying, every day, to amp things up, and it’s getting very worrying now, because all it will take is one moment, one loss of control, one bullet fired. Ndakota doesn’t offer much opportunity for “action”, the kind of action a strutting chicken like Kirchmeier would like to see. I get the feeling he sees this as one chance for some of that glorious cop action, a story to end his days on. This man is dangerous because he is weak, and too in love with those shiny, militarized toys.

Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier
Morton County Sheriff’s Department

28 September 2016

Dear Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier:

Following the protests that took place at a Dakota Access Pipeline construction site on 3 September, we are writing to ask you to investigate the use of force by private contractors, remove blockades and discontinue the use of riot gear by Morton County Sheriff’s deputies when policing protests in order to facilitate the right to peaceful protests in accordance with international law and standards.

[Read more…]

Stand with Standing Rock.

43

Winona LaDuke has an excellent column up at ICTMN, and an excellent article in Yes! too, What Would Sitting Bull Do? 

Excerpts here, please, click and read the full stories.

[…] There is more than just a $3.9 billion pipeline at stake here. This is about constitutional rights, and human rights. This time, instead of the Seventh Cavalry, or Indian police dispatched to assassinate Sitting Bull, Governor Dalrymple seeks to spend over $7.8 million militarizing the state to put down the Lakota and their allies. This is not going to happen. We are a strong and principled people. As of today, 69 people have been arrested, including Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault II and Councilmember Dana Yellowfat. The people have physically stopped construction for weeks. And the battle is just beginning. I am watching history repeat itself, and wondering how badly Dalrymple really wants that pipeline.

[…]

This is our plan: Three of Honor the Earth’s primary staff have essentially moved to Standing Rock to support the frontlines and ensure a multi-dimensional campaign. We continue to provide legal strategies and counsel, and campaign coordination. And we continue to work on the future. This tribe does not need a new pipeline, they need energy infrastructure that actually serves its people. After all, three years ago Debbie Dogskin, a Standing Rock resident, froze to death because she could not pay her propane bill. That is the reality here.

With an 85% drop in active oil rigs in the Bakken oil fields, there is no need for this pipeline. It is a pipeline from nowhere. Here’s what true energy independence would look like: With $3.9 billion equally divided, we could install 65,000 typical 5kw residential rooftop PV systems, each supplying about half of the home’s electricity needs; install 325 2MW utility scale wind towers that would generate over 3.5 billion kwh per year; and provide 160,000 homes with $8000 efficiency retrofit packages, saving $300/yr/home. That would produce jobs, most of them local.

We are supporting Standing Rock as they fight this pipeline, but we are also helping to create a new future. We plan to install 20 solar thermal panels on tribal houses at Standing Rock, beginning to address fuel poverty on the reservation.

Via ICTMN.

Black Lives Matter.

A Black Lives Matter demonstrator (Shuttershock)

A Black Lives Matter demonstrator (Shuttershock)

Have a wander over to http://blacklivesmatter1.com/ – you can keep up with the latest news, and help out a bit by becoming a member, donating, or just spreading the word. And don’t forget to sign up for the newsletter. Everyone who reads here should know the importance of signal boosting, can’t stop the signal!

White Saviors Need Not Apply.

Stop Mass Incarcerations Network sponsored a children's march on the anniversary of Tamir Rice's death at the hands of the Cleveland police (a katz / Shutterstock.com)

Stop Mass Incarcerations Network sponsored a children’s march on the anniversary of Tamir Rice’s death at the hands of the Cleveland police (a katz / Shutterstock.com)

In this post, I wrote about problematic white people at the Očeti Sakowiŋ camp. Certainly this does not apply to all white people, there are plenty of thoughtful, mindful white people who get it. As with most people who manage to do the right thing, they get to be unsung heroes, because it’s more important to talk about people who are serious problems, big ol’ roadblocks when it comes to any sort of social progress. I have no doubt there are plenty of times when white people feel as though they are constantly picked on, but it’s desperately important to understand that there are many good reasons for that.

Here in uStates, and in way too many other places in the world, people have been brought up and raised in a drowning pool of colonial kool-aid. Colonial thinking is extremely bad, it’s bad for everyone and everything. It’s destructive, dismissive, disrespectful, condescending, and unthinkingly arrogant. It’s short-term thinking, which is the very worst kind. There’s no looking to the past, through the present, into the future. Colonial thinking does not allow for a time bridge, or the importance of all generations, past, present, and yet to come. Look at the photo up there ^. Look at that child’s face. Every child’s face should reflect trust and happiness. That so many children, all over the world, know fear, distrust, and suspicion at such young ages is wrong on every possible level. That so many children, if they are not white, are viewed as sufficiently mature to be a threat, therefor, it’s okay for them to be gunned down by cops and citizens. Wrong. So wrong. That’s racism run amok, when you target children and think it’s okay to do that, for those children.

I know I’m not alone in being very tired of the fact that in spite of everywhere, in every way, every. single. thing. is made better, easier, softer, kinder for white people, yet they still manage to complain if the sugar-coating on a bitter pill isn’t thick enough.

I have mentioned, so many times, that I’m half white, and it’s that half which shows on the outside. When I’ve been at the camps, frinst., and someone is speaking about wašiču, and not in a nice way, I don’t take offense, I don’t get upset in any way. I listen, because generally speaking, I know I’m going to hear something valuable. Sure, I often hear things which hurt, but that happens when you’re trying to always learn throughout your journey on this earth. When you do hear things that hurt, it’s important that your hearing isn’t overwhelmed to the point that you miss bitterness, generational trauma, and/or the pain of deep wounds from the speaker. When you miss things like that, you miss the opportunity to understand. When you miss the opportunity to understand, you lose the opportunity of forgiveness and healing. When you lose the opportunity of forgiveness and healing, you lose the ability to be an ally. When you lose the ability to be an ally, you lose the possibility of peace.

When you’re white, at least here in uStates, it’s so very easy to be dismissive of the deep wounds of generational trauma; to handwave horrible acts because that was X amount of years ago. Ask yourself, if you have been hurt, does it help if someone tells you to get over it already? It’s not possible to “get over something” when that something has never been addressed in any meaningful way. It’s not possible to “get over something” when a majority of people refuse to even consider said harmful acts, and the repercussions echoing down the generations. Would white people consider it helpful if I simply posted: “White people, get over yourselves!”?

Then there’s the problem of white people trying to help when they have no understanding and little respect. Then you get people who are determined to be white saviors. No one is looking for white saviors. People of colour have already had long histories with white people who considered themselves saviors to the “lesser” races. Being an ally, that’s good. A wannabe savior? Bad. Lorraine Berry has a very good article up about the selective doubt of white people, and the savior problem. It’s in-depth, so just a bit here, click on over for the full read, and it’s a good one.

White people spend a lot of time telling black folks what their stories mean. If it’s not white writers insisting that they can tell a person of color’s story better than a black writer can, or Trump running mate Mike Pence telling black people that they talk about systemic racism too much, or Iowa Congressman Steve King telling Colin Kaepernick what his protest against police brutality “really means,” or folks who insist that “slavery wasn’t that bad,” there’s no shortage of white folks who insist that they know better than black folks when it comes to interpreting what happens to black bodies. It would be tempting to dismiss it all as the ravings of a minority of kooks if it weren’t for the ubiquity of the phenomenon. Everywhere, it seems, white people just can’t help themselves.

[Read more…]

Solidarity from the South.

Left to Right: Eriberto Gualinga (Sarayaku), Franco Viteri (Sarayaku), Kandi Mossett (IEN), David Archambault II (Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman), Nina Gualinga (Sarayaku), and Leo Cerda (Kichwa, on Amazon Watch staff). Courtesy Josue Rivas/Indigenous Rising.

Left to Right: Eriberto Gualinga (Sarayaku), Franco Viteri (Sarayaku), Kandi Mossett (IEN), David Archambault II (Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman), Nina Gualinga (Sarayaku), and Leo Cerda (Kichwa, on Amazon Watch staff). Courtesy Josue Rivas/Indigenous Rising.

Indigenous leaders from Ecuador joined the protectors at Standing Rock recently to show solidarity and share information, as their community has had some victories against oil companies and politicians in the past few years.

[…]

In an interview on September 14, Viteri explained the reasons for the visit and outlined the connections between indigenous communities in the north and south. News of the struggle at Standing Rock had reached them, and Viteri and his group had been selected by the Sarayaku communities to “stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters,” the veteran activist and leader said.

“We came from the Amazon jungle with a message of strength and solidarity for the Sioux,” Viteri said. “My people are very conscious, because of our history and our tradition, just like the tribes here, of our connection with nature, with Mother Earth; we know that this is what gives balance to life here on Earth. The transnational corporations, like those trying to build this oil pipeline, are blind because they don’t understand the language of nature.”

Viteri noted that his Kichwa community had been in contact with other tribes in the U.S. before, but not with the Standing Rock Sioux. He also pointed out that he had seen other indigenous people from Latin America at the camp, and recalled that he had spoken with a few from Honduras, Peru and El Salvador. Another Amazonian indigenous community from Ecuador will be coming, Viteri said. He closed the interview with a message for the protectors at Standing Rock and others throughout North America.

“In the name of all the children, elders, women, the birds, the large and small animals that depend on water to survive, the Kichwa people extend a greeting,” he said, “a sacred greeting of respect for nature and for the life of all the peoples of the North, because we know that if water is destroyed, life on Earth will end.”

Rick Kearns at ICTMN has the full story.