Eviction Notice.

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© C. Ford.

Everything was fine while we were at camp, the mood is somber, but determined. There’s a very large town made up of many villages now. People are close, and dependent on one another. There are also several communal sleep centers up now, with wood stoves, and yes, it’s that cold. This time also most likely saw the last peace at the camp, as the ACoE has delivered a December 5th eviction notice to everyone at the camp. The eviction has been set for December 5th, which happens to be the birthday of one George Custer. Nice, eh? If you want to read the filthy crap nDakota government is saying, you can go to Wapo. A whole lot of veterans will be arriving at the camp on December 3rd, and they aren’t overly impressed with this action, to say the least. ICTMN has also covered the eviction notice, full story here.

In spite of the line the governor and his henchpeople are taking, which is atrocious, to say the least, the actual reason for this is because the stand at Standing Rock has been, and is, successful. ETP has a deadline, January 1st, which they must meet before their shipper contracts expire. They have always played dirty, and continue to do so, emboldened by one of their investor’s recent jump in status to president-elect, and our current president’s reluctance to actually do anything concrete. Everyone they bought in nDakota is now lapping up vomited oil, and eager to put all those Indians and allies in their proper place. We’ll see how it goes, I guess, but no one at Standing Rock is willing to stand down, or give one inch.

Day of Mourning.

Today is a holiday for some. Not for me, not for most Natives, we don’t care to celebrate genocide. Today, we’re on the way back to the Oceti Sakowin camp (this post was set up last night, we have to do that whole crack o’ dawn thing), and we’ll be back when we’re back. I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to take the computer and all that crap with me. If you see posts in the next couple of days, then I did. If not, I didn’t. Marcus has most generously offered to be our back up if we are arrested, so don’t worry about that. If we are, we’ll make it back out eventually. We’ll have the van, because we’ll be hauling building wood and fire wood once more, and the need for firewood is severe. More, more, and more is needed, as it gets colder, and all the kitchens need it to keep feeding people. There are ways you can help on that score, and I’ll be including them. We’ll be staying at the Oglala camp, as usual.

I’ve already written my scorn for all those people who just can’t whine enough about how tough and awful stuffing their faces with family is going to be, because they’ll have to keep quiet about politics, or hear about politics. If you are one of them, maybe you could yank your nose out of your navel long enough to think about what other people are going through, and how to help them. Are there terrified refugees around you? How about freezing, starving homeless people? LGBTQI people who are living in fear? People of Colour who haven’t yet figured out if they need to be scared of you too? All the people at Standing Rock who are in desperate need of everything? There’s a whole lot more. If all you’re managing to do today is stuffing your face, rolling your eyes at Auntie Jean or Uncle John, and stifling sighs as you park your ass on the couch to watch television, at the very least, you could stop whinging about it. No one else needs to hear that. Everyone else, have a happy whateveritistoyou.

If you can make it out to the camp, please come. We need all the people we can get, there’s always plenty to do. This evening, Jane Fonda and Mark Ruffalo are going to be helping to serve supper. Have a nice something or other everyone.

Some reading: Forget Plymouth Rock. Stand with Standing Rock.

Your White, Liberal Thanksgiving Better Come with a Hearty Donation to the Dakota Access Pipeline Protesters.

#StandingRockSyllabus.

The Wounded Knee Oglala Kitchen needs help. * The other kitchens at camp need help too, and medical supplies.

ICTMN has a long list of legitimate ways to donate and help out Standing Rock. Check there, if you are unsure. Don’t give individuals money unless you know them personally.

Want to stay current? #nodapl.

The Continental Congress declared a Thanksgiving celebration in 1777 in the midst of the American Revolution. George Washington reprised the idea in 1789 – his first year as president.

Many states continued the tradition, but interest faded in the 1800s until novelist and poet Sarah Josepha Hale – of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” fame – began campaigning for the idea. Thirty states had joined her cause by the start of the Civil War. Even the Lincoln family is reported to have had a November Thanksgiving celebration in 1860, before “The Man from Illinois” took office.

And, though not proven, it’s likely Hale’s September 1863 letter to Lincoln asking him to “appoint the last Thursday in November as the National Thanksgiving…” played a substantial role in the 16th President’s decision to start what’s now our standard Fall celebration.

Well, it’s a celebration for most of us. Many Native Americans actually don’t take part in the observance.

Not because of the day’s mythical misinformation. There was actually a 1621 gathering of the Pilgrims and members of the Wampanoag Nation who’d taught them how to plant crops and survive their first year in America. But according to Wampanoag tradition it came as the result of 90 warriors arriving at the colonists’ settlement after hearing the sounds of guns and cannon being fired.

Since both sides had entered into a treaty to support one another should either be attacked, the Wampanoag were expecting to encounter a military engagement.It turned out to be the equivalent of modern-day fireworks display marking the Pilgrims’ Fall harvest. A letter by colonist Edward Winslow states that a 3-day feast did then take place during which time the Wampanoag went out to hunt and gather food—deer, ducks, geese, and fish. But it wasn’t a matter of everyone sitting down at a long, white linen covered table to share a meal – or anything resembling that. And there’s no record of the Pilgrims giving thanks to God…or even to the Wampanoag.

It’s the second Pilgrim Thanksgiving, however, that irks many Native Americans to this day. That would be the 1637 feast held to “celebrate” the slaughter of 700 men, women and children of the Pequot Nation. The Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor then ordered an annual celebration for the next hundred years in remembrance of that mass slaying.

But the most striking Thanksgiving hypocrisy may be the fate of the Wampanoag. A breakdown in the peace established between the tribe and the colonists came as the result of continued land expansion by the Europeans. After losing a war to defend their territory, Wampanoag leader Metacom – “King Philip” – was arrested and killed. His severed hands were sent to the King of England and the governor of the colony had Metacom’s head placed in a public square for 20 years as a warning to other Native Americans who might question Western Europeans’ “right to rule” the land.

Of course, this is all ancient history and beyond the scope of understanding for most non-Natives when it comes to realizing and accepting the effects of historical trauma on a people.

From Jim Kent at Lakota Country Times.

We met Gilbert Kills early on at the camp, when he was planning his art piece. Our signatures are back there somewhere.

From Dana Lone Hill:

~~~~THE NO WATER CHALLENGE~~~

There have been many challenges on Facebook and in social media that have gone viral. This one doesn’t involve water. Being that so many politicians, corporations, and the average caucasian North Dakotan thinks that water is not important, here is the challenge. You can not have anything to do with water for 24 hours. This means no flushing a toilet, no washing your face, no drinking anything with water. No eating any portion that needed water to sustain it, no eating any crop that had anything to do with water. No drinking anything that needed water to make, being that everything has water in it including soda, about the only thing on this list is oil. No brushing your teeth, showering, or even going fishing. No going on a boat, no going swimming, no washing your clothes, no water in your life for 24 hours. I realize this is impossible for mostly everyone. Mostly everyone does not know that water is given up for 4 days and nights in the summer time during ceremony by the very same people who are fighting to protect their water. Not everyone participates in that ceremony but even those who don’t are in the prayers of those that do make the sacrifice. If you think you are ok without sacred water, then take this challenge. I realize not even the strongest man or woman can do this or even the richest, however, should you decide to take it, post it. Let us know truthfully how many minutes or hours you lasted. It is impossible. Let’s hear it North Dakotans, you think water is nothing, do it.

#NOWATERCHALLENGE #NODAPL #WATERISLIFE

 

How Many Law Enforcement Agencies Does It Take to Subdue a Peaceful Protest?

45

Earlier this month, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department briefed the public via Facebook on the scope of law enforcement presence that was helping confront protesters of the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock.

The help was made possible by a bill signed into law by President Bill Clinton about 20 years ago, which created an interstate agreement for emergency management. The agreement helped bring law enforcement agents to North Dakota to the site of protests by the Standing Rock Sioux against the Dakota Access Pipeline. The protests at Standing Rock, and the Black Lives Matter protests in Baltimore after the death of Freddie Gray, represent some of the only times the compact has been invoked outside of a natural disaster.

The ACLU assembled the names of law enforcement agencies below from the Morton County Sheriff’s Department and from media accounts. The Morton County Sheriff’s Department confirmed the cities and counties in North Dakota that sent officers as well as the 10 states that contributed, and where there was a news story about a particular force, we included a hyperlink. Where there was mention of the number of officers deployed, we noted that as a minimum — though more may have been deployed later.

[Read more…]

Scenes from Standing Rock: Nov. 20th.

Full story here. Donate to Standing Rock. Help veterans get to Standing Rock. Sacred Stone Camp Supply List.

Donate to Standing Rock. Help veterans get to Standing Rock. Sacred Stone Camp Supply List.

PLEASE: Help Veterans Get to Standing Rock.

Police confront protesters with a rubber bullet gun during a protest against plans to pass the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, U.S. November 20, 2016. Stephanie Keith/REUTERS

Police confront protesters with a rubber bullet gun during a protest against plans to pass the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, U.S. November 20, 2016. Stephanie Keith/REUTERS.

The cops out at Standing Rock have now managed to blow apart most of a young woman’s arm. That’s just the grisliest of the very high list of injuries. Naturally, cops are denying responsibility, which won’t surprise anyone at all. They are doing what all cops do – lie.

Our veterans want to help, and to do that, they need some help from all of you. If you can help, please, do so. If you are unable to donate, please spread the word. What is happening here is damn wrong. It’s fucking wrong, and everyone knows that, and still, there’s nothing but silence. Please help. Lila wopila.

https://www.gofundme.com/veterans-for-standing-rock-nodapl

Native What Month 2.

thanksgiving-thankstealing-marty-two-bulls

© Marty Two Bulls.

And it continues. If you don’t know about the latest atrocities, learn. All that because fucking white people want their cake and to eat it, too. Yeah, yeah, I know, lotsa good white people out there. I know. Lots of them on the front lines, I know. And it really is appreciated, know that. It’s just that it’s not helping right now, because even all the white people who signed on, who woke up, who joined the fight, you’re in the minority with us, against all the racist, greedy white people who simply do not give a fuck. They’ll be busy with their holiday, and pretending to be thankful for fuck knows what, perhaps the fact that oppressing minorities just got a whole lot easier. I can see them thanking their idiotic, bloodthirsty god for that one.

Every year, the irony of November being named “National American Indian Heritage Month” kills me a bit more (First instituted in 1990, by Bush). This year more than most, with the criminal atrocities being committed at Standing Rock. There was a demented, malign genius to choosing November, what with most people being occupied with that grand holiday, “thanksgiving”, and preoccupied with Xmas. The majority of Americans don’t have the slightest idea of there even being an NDN heritage month, and if they do, there’s a bit of lip service perhaps, but not much more. As for learning, dive into the Standing Rock Syllabus.

High Cost of Human Rights Corrodes DAPL Financing:

Government scientists have just identified the largest deposit of oil in the United States. Newsflash: It is nowhere near the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). On November 15, the U.S. Geological Survey released the largest estimate of continuous (unconventional) oil that USGS has ever assessed in the United States. The site is the Wolfcamp Shale formation in the Permian Basin of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico. USGS estimates the Wolfcamp play at 20 billion barrels.

There are two bits of significance for the fight against DAPL, the Black Snake, rooted in two theories of what the DAPL might be able to move if and when it is finished. The investment banks funding the Black Snake bought into the project based the state of the oil market at the time and expert projections for production over the life of the pipeline.

The oil market has shifted in many ways since the first round of DAPL financing was anticipating rising demand and more expensive supplies.

Hey America, I’m Taking Back Thanksgiving.

Standing Rock: Native What Month?

https://www.facebook.com/john.bravebullbaker/posts/10211164522099066

I don’t have much to say. Too fucking sick at heart. What have we ever done to merit this ongoing treatment from colonial america? In John BraveBull’s account above, he mentions Charlie Plenty Wolf. It was Charlie who welcomed us to the camp our first time there. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. FUCK. It’s just a grand Native American Heritage Month, with all the people who just don’t give a shit, the continued efforts at genocide, and everyone else being all chucklefuck happy over thankstealing and good shopping deals!

Elder in Critical Condition after Going into Cardiac Arrest at Scene of DAPL Barricade Clash.

https://www.facebook.com/josuefoto/videos/1395596380452239/

I was privileged to meet Josué at the Oceti Sakowin camp, he gave me my first press pass.

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Water Cannons Fired at Water Protectors in Freezing Temperatures Injure Hundreds.

#nodapl, Simon-Moya Smith, Ruth Hopkins.

Yes, the cops are yelling “riot!” and claiming the protectors set fires. That is not true. It was another peaceful prayer circle, and some of the protectors went to move one of the burned out vehicles out of the way, when they were hit with gas grenades, batons, and water cannons.

Mainstream Media MIA as DAPL Action Is Met With Water Cannons and Mace.

“They want to kill people for clearing a road,” questioned Tara Houska, referencing police spraying people with water cannons in 26-degree weather. The national campaigns director of Honor the Earth reminded her friends and followers that November is Native American Heritage Month.

“When will our cries be heard?”

 

Native Appropriation Month and Indians Suck.

Just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Target is offering a gray and white “Southwestern Teepee” (as described on the Target website) for the low price of $89.99. Daniel Boyko.

Just in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Target is offering a gray and white “Southwestern Teepee” (as described on the Target website) for the low price of $89.99. Daniel Boyko.

November is supposedly Native American Heritage Month. As usual, the majority of Americans don’t have the slightest idea, nor do they care. This is shopping and turkey month! Indians? Are they still alive? Let’s have a look at what Target is doing for NDN Heritage month, shall we? Oh look, a “Southwestern Teepee”. Gosh, that’s so right on the money accurate, you betcha. (If you are sarcasm impaired, that was fair dripping with sarcastic venom.)

Just in time for Native appropriation for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Target is offering a gray and white “Southwestern Teepee” [sic] (as described on the Target website,) for the low price of $89.99.

Target’s website describes the pillowfort teepee [sic] as “perfect for little imaginations during pretend play. The southwestern pattern has a realistic look and the poles are sturdy enough to last through endless rounds of make-believe.”

It’s are part of the Sabrina Soto Explorer Kids Bedding collection at Target. Though not available online, there is also a decorative teepee [sic] pillow for $12.48 on clearance. Soto is a HGTV designer and refers to herself as Cubana and is the popular host of The High/Low Project.

I guess exploiting that Cubana heritage was out of the question. Thanks ever for being yet another thoughtless dipshit, Ms. Soto, and ensuring that more Americans will have incredibly fucked up ideas about Indians, because there just isn’t enough of that going around, no, not at all. As bad as this isht is, it pales in comparison to the never ending racism of NDSU. We move on to Indians suck, as in Indians suck dick:

WDAY.com News - Screen Capture. A North Dakota State University supporter was spotted at a football game Nov. 5 with an obscene T-shirt, modified with the University of North Dakota’s new Fighting Hawks logo altered with a single-feathered Native figure on its knees before a phallus extending from the Bison logo.

WDAY.com News – Screen Capture.
A North Dakota State University supporter was spotted at a football game Nov. 5 with an obscene T-shirt, modified with the University of North Dakota’s new Fighting Hawks logo altered with a single-feathered Native figure on its knees before a phallus extending from the Bison logo.

A North Dakota State University supporter was spotted at a football game Nov. 5 with an obscene T-shirt, modified with the University of North Dakota’s new Fighting Hawks logo altered with a single-feathered Native figure on its knees before a phallus extending from the Bison logo. It was meant to represent the “Sioux suck” chant NDSU students developed when arch rival UND’s name was “Fighting Sioux,” a moniker it was forced to abandon by the NCAA. The Fighting Hawk logo debuted this year.

The confounding aspect of the recently spotted T-shirt that caused the minor uproar is that NDSU was not even playing against UND. The opposing team was Ohio’s Youngstown State Penguins.

[…]

The obnoxious shirt, reported on by the Grand Forks Herald, is an unfortunate way to kick of Native American Heritage Month at NDSU, but it did not surprise two of the 188 Native students attending the university, which has a total enrollment of more than 14,400.

James Henry, Turtle Mountain Chippewa, and Tyrel Iron Eyes, Standing Rock Lakota Sioux, knew of the overt slurs. Iron Eyes is a member of NDSU’s Native American Student Association, and Henry is its former president.

Henry, a mechanical engineering student, encountered the chant four years ago during his first year at the university when he joined his non-Native roommates at a football game. The people beside him started doing the “Sioux suck” chant.

“They kind of looked at me, and they wondered why I wasn’t chanting with them,” he said. Henry bluntly told them why. They were taken aback that he found it racist; to them, “Sioux” was just another sports team and the chant has a long campus history. After he confronted them he says, “They felt ashamed, in a sense.”

An offensive t-shirt labeled 'Buck the Bison Under' - Screen capture.

An offensive t-shirt labeled ‘Buck the Bison Under’ – Screen capture.

Henry stopped attending NDSU sporting events. Iron Eyes, who plans to study anthropology, also declines to attend.

It was during his freshman year while walking on campus that he first overheard a conversation with one NDSU fan explaining that his favorite part of the games was the “Sioux suck” chant.

“I get that it’s their mascot, but at the same time, it upset me. I used to call people out on it,” Iron Eyes said. Often his fellow non-Native students would stammer through an explanation of why they liked the chant.

“They don’t understand. A lot of people don’t realize that Native Americans still exist today. All they know is the Battle of Little Big Horn. They think we all died on the reservations, or that we never leave the reservations now.”

Both Henry and Iron Eyes agree that leaving their reservations to attend the university in Fargo, a city of about 114,000, has been a stressful transition.

“I am very much in the minority,” Iron Eyes said. “For the first, probably two or three months … I was unaware of other Natives on campus.”

In addition, he says, he went from a high school with a graduating class of 25 and classrooms of 35 students maximum to university classes with 300-plus attending.

“There’s a lot of helpful people on campus, but it’s still very much predominately white. It’s very nerve-wracking,” Henry agreed. “It’s one of the things I struggle with. … I’ve been asked multiple times if I live in a tipi.”

A 'Blow Us' T-Shirt from the fan site Bisonville.com - Screen Capture.

A ‘Blow Us’ T-Shirt from the fan site Bisonville.com – Screen Capture.

A student, Erik Jonasson II, penned an Oct. 6 opinion piece, “The Herd’s Chant: Racism Inside the Dome” for the NDSU Spectrum, the semi-weekly student newspaper, writing “As we sit in the stands cheering on our truly dominant football team, it is hard to not be sickened by this chant.”

The above is pointed to as a hopeful sign, and perhaps it is a bit of one. If you really want to see just how hopeful though, click over and read the comments. “Sioux Sucks Shit” retains its popularity.

Full story here.

Oh yes, lest I forget, the mighty Google did a doodle, and it speaks volumes, just how grateful so many Natives are for such a tiny notice. ASK N NDN: Was a Native Google Doodle Enough? Indian Country Responds.

Standing Rock Syllabus: Learn, Teach.

Credit: C. Ford.

Credit: C. Ford.

The New York City Stands with Standing Rock Collective then met again and we talked at length about the syllabus and how to curate emergent sections. We want our readers and future teachers to understand that we take Sioux notions of history seriously but came to impasses with certain materials that we wanted to include, but felt inadequate to interpret. So we direct educators and students to the crucial archives of Lakota Winter Counts. One of the founders of the resistance camps at Standing Rock, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, has devoted her life to the interpretation of these counts and any responsible curriculum will point to them and invite students to think about and with them. Recognizing then, our limitations, we volunteered to work with our strengths and to curate specific sections of the syllabus, to take charge of, so to speak, the content and the form. Matthew Chrisler managed the group and ordered the text with Jaskiran Dhillon, New School Assistant Professor of Global Studies and Anthropology who stepped in at certain points to read over entries. Along with Matthew Chrisler, Sheehan Moore, a doctoral student in anthropology at CUNY, organized all of the PDFs to attach to our website for syllabus readers to view and download. In this way, there were multiple eyes on each section as it took shape. We also asked curators to narrow their selections to book chapters and specific articles to further focus the syllabus and keep it accessible for people who would read and download it in short amounts of time. We wanted people to read the syllabus and teach the material, but also to have access to the readings for themselves and their students and/or community members.

Although a “work in progress,” the current #StandingRockSyllabus places what is happening now in a broader historical, political, economic, and social context going back over 500 years to the first expeditions of Columbus, the founding of the United States on institutionalized slavery, private property, and dispossession, and the rise of global carbon supply and demand. Indigenous peoples around the world have been on the frontlines of conflicts like Standing Rock for centuries. The syllabus foregrounds the work of Indigenous and allied activists and scholars: anthropologists, historians, environmental scientists, and legal scholars, all of whom contribute important insights into the conflicts between Indigenous sovereignty and resource extraction. It can be taught in its entirety, or in sections depending on the pedagogic needs. We hope that it will be used in K-12 school settings, community centers, social justice agencies training organizers, university classrooms, legal defense campaigns, social movement and political education workshops, and in the resistance camps at Standing Rock and other similar standoffs across the globe. As we move forward, we anticipate posting lesson plans on our website that will be derived from individuals and communities using the syllabus in their respective locales.

While our primary goal is to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, we recognize that Standing Rock is one frontline of many around the world. This syllabus can be a tool to access research usually kept behind paywalls, or a resource package for those unfamiliar with Indigenous histories and politics. Please share, add, and discuss using the hashtag #StandingRockSyllabus on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media. Like those on the frontlines, we are here for as long as it takes.

The #StandingRockSyllabus and accompanying PDFs can be found here.

The full story on the syllabus is here.  #StandingRockSyllabus. As Peter D’Errico says:

True to the purpose of digging to the roots of events, “#StandingRockSyllabus places what is happening now in a broader historical, political, economic, and social context going back over 500 years to the first expeditions of Columbus, the founding of the United States on institutionalized slavery, private property, and dispossession, and the rise of global carbon supply and demand. Indigenous peoples around the world have been on the frontlines of conflicts like Standing Rock for centuries.”

Importantly, #StandingRockSyllabus aims for audiences beyond the standard academic world: The authors built it for use “in K-12 school settings, community centers, social justice agencies training organizers, university classrooms, legal defense campaigns, social movement and political education workshops, and in the resistance camps at Standing Rock and other similar standoffs across the globe.”

This is an invaluable opportunity for teachers, please take advantage of it. This is also an invaluable resource and opportunity for those who wish to understand. As this is supposedly Native American Heritage Month (more on that later), spreading this everywhere would be be a great gesture. Lila wopila to all who do. (Many Thanks).

Mni Wiconi: The Stand at Standing Rock.

Courtesy Standing Rock In the midst of federal government deliberations over the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe has released a short film titled “Mni Wiconi: The Stand at Standing Rock.”

Courtesy Standing Rock
In the midst of federal government deliberations over the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe has released a short film titled “Mni Wiconi: The Stand at Standing Rock.”

In the midst of federal government deliberations over the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe has released a short film titled “Mni Wiconi: The Stand at Standing Rock,” a new, eight-minute film exploring the nearly eight-month battle to stop construction of the pipeline on sacred tribal lands.

The short documentary can be viewed on Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s Facebook page or website.

[…]

The Standing Rock’s Facebook page states the following requests:

We are asking dozens of individuals and groups to share a new short film, found here:Facebook or website.

Please share with all your followers – Facebook or website – so people around the world understand the gross injustice taking place against the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota.

We need to keep the pressure on President Obama. He might be our last hope.

Here are a series of potential social media posts the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is suggesting readers share:

#StandwithStandingRock – Watch and share this new short film – Facebook or website– about the tribe’s fight against energy development and injustice. #NoDAPL

Ask President @BarackObama to deny the easement! Call Obama at 202-456-1111. #StandwithStandingRock #NoDAPL

Mni Wiconi, Water is life. Tell Obama DENY the easement by calling 202-456-1111. #StandwithStandingRock

Watch this story about why it’s critical we #StandwithStandingRock. Obama MUST deny the easement now. #NoDAPL

We all #StandWithStandingRock. The time is NOW to say #NoDAPL. Call Obama at 202-456-1111.

No more delays, no more excuses. Get on the right side of history and say #NoDAPL. Deny the easement! #WaterIsLife

Here are links to share:

https://www.facebook.com/Standing-Rock-Sioux-Tribe-402298239798452/?fref=nf

http://standwithstandingrock.net/mni-wiconi/

Learn more about the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe at standwithstandingrock.net. For ongoing updates, please follow our Facebook page at Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Full story at ICTMN.

Highly recommended reading: To Brave White People: Be Braver. * A Few Thoughts on The Election and What President Trump Means for Indian Country.

Standing Rock Update.

gun

The image, above, is a real image.  It is not photoshopped.  A photographer by the name of Colin McCarthy captured this moment on his Instagram account (@Colinnnnn) and said the following:

Friends at #standingrock please be safe, this man just plowed through a peaceful prayer ceremony waving a gun, injuring 2 people and then proceeded to fire 7 shots into the air. Women, children and elders all running to get out of the way…

So there’s that.

Gyasi Ross’s full article here.

[Read more…]

Empathy for White Conservatives? No.

merge

Kali Holloway has an excellent article up at Raw Story: Stop asking me to empathize with the white working class. Here’s just a bit of it:

[…] Trump stoked racial hatred, but he didn’t invent it, so stop acting like he did because it makes you feel good. The irony of this whole thing is that Trump knew better than a lot of “good” white folks—even recognized as well as folks of color did—how much white power and supremacy means to white people. From day one, he bet that it would be enough to get him elected. He ran a brilliant campaign, in a country where a brilliant campaign can almost solely consist of telling white people they might not be on top forever. He called it. Credit where it’s due.

The only surprise to come out of this election is how many, and how quickly, white people want us to empathize with the people who voted against our humanity, our right to exist in this place. Even before the election, the Washington Post actually had the audacity to berate us for not crying for the white working class. In the days since Trump won, the number of articles urging everybody to be cool to Trump’s America, to understand what they are facing, to hear their grievances, has added insult to injury. Bernie Sanders issued a statement saying Trump “tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media.” I read it at least three times and couldn’t find the words “white supremacy” anywhere in it.

Please miss me with all this nonsense. I’m not even going to get into how this is based on an easily refutable economic lie, especially since others have already spent precious time they’ll never get back breaking this down. But even if it was true—and I am well aware of what’s plaguing the white working class, from substance abuse to suicide to a loss of manufacturing jobs—I refuse to take part in the endless privileging of white pain above all others. (Martin Gilens, who has studied this stuff going way back, notes that when the media face of poverty is white, this country suddenly gets a lot more compassionate.) Latinos and African Americans remain worse off than the white working class—which is still the “largest demographic bloc in the workforce”—by pretty much every measurable outcome, from home ownership to life expectancy. Where are these appeals for us when we protest or riot against the systemic inequality we live with? Where are all the calls to recognize and understand our anger?

For hundreds of years, white people have controlled everything in this country: the executive office, Congress, the Supreme Court, the criminal justice system, Wall Street, the lending institutions, the history textbook industry, the false narrative that America cares about liberty and justice for all. But I need to understand white feelings of marginalization because a black man was in the White House for eight years? Because political correctness—a general plea for white people not to be as awful as they have been in the past— asked that white people put more effort into being decent than they felt up to? Because white folks didn’t like that feeling when politicians aren’t singularly focused on the hard times and struggles of their communities? Audre Lorde said (I wonder if that woman ever got sick of being right), “oppressors always expect the oppressed to extend to them the understanding so lacking in themselves.” For a people who have shamed black folks for supposedly always wanting a hand out, for being a problem of the entitlement state, I have never seen people who so firmly believe they are owed something.

Let me pass along some advice black folks have been given for a long time: stop being so angry and seeing yourself as a victim, and try pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. That’s really all I have for you right now, this re-gifting of wisdom. […]

I’ll stand with Ms. Holloway here, and I stand by Iris, too. Over at Death to Squirrels, I said that my days of empathizing with cons of any stripe are over, and they are. White people have gone full court whiny now, wanting everyone to pat them on the head and say, yes, yes, you have it so bad, darling. No. Even liberal white people are getting in on the Whine Wagon. “But you have to be nice to them! They’re just misunderstood!” My response to that? The fuck I do, and the fuck they are.

Before I go on, the standard disclaimer: no, all white people aren’t awful. No, all white people aren’t unrepentant bigots. No, all white people are not willfully ignorant assholes. Yes, lots of white people get it.

This nonsense of “you must have empathy for them, you must!” needs to stop, right now. The people who voted Trump into the position of president-elect did so for specific reasons, but the primary one is exactly what Ms. Holloway said: power. White people are all about power, and they love their privilege. Of course they listened to a fucking gold-plated idiot who told them their power as Mighty Whitey was slipping. They’ve already felt that, and yep, they’ve been very upset about it, and grabbed onto Trump with a death grip in order to get firmly ensconced on top of the people pile once more. I have no idea why white liberals have latched onto the tone argument; Trumpoids have no interest in anyone being nice and understanding, they want obeisance and submission. They want to be what they always have been in this country – lords of the manor. They want to be able to spit, sneer, and be in a position of authoritative judgment of all others. White cons have no use whatsoever for white liberals, either, so that makes the tone argument even more inexplicable.

I’ll be 59 in a matter of days. I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s. Tumultuous times, rife with change, change for the better. There was such hope in the ’70s, people had such faith in the future. This is not what we were dreaming about. The 80s saw the serious rise of conservatism once again, especially Christian conservatism. I’ve been around for the whole thing, and decade by decade, cons have gotten worse, more extreme, more hateful, more spiteful, more poisonous. It’s not a surprise the white wall of conservative xianity took their one chance to power, nor is it surprising that white supremacists have wrapped themselves around Trump like a cloak. All that, I understand. I don’t like it at all, but I understand it.

What I don’t understand is this hand-wringing call for sympathy, tea and cookies. No. No, no, no. When have Christian Cons every had empathy for anyone except themselves? When have white supremacists ever had empathy for anyone except themselves? Christian Cons and white supremacists are evil people, perfectly willing commit themselves to evil to gain their goals. We’re dealing with one of those acts of evil right now. They did the proverbial deal with the devil in order to get closer to all the things they want, and what they want, more than anything, is to stomp people into submission, one way or another. They want to stomp all those feminist sluts into the ground, removing any sort of bodily autonomy, unless it happens to be their bodily autonomy on the line, natch. “No More Uppity” might as well be their battle cry, along with the requisite god, guns, and bible business.

I haven’t recovered quite yet, but to anyone who thinks that “you gotta be nice to them” is some sort of strategy or argument, I have one response: Fuck No.

Kali Holloway’s full article is here, highly recommended. Also recommended: https://twitter.com/drskyskull/status/796916965956874241

DAPL Ignores Army Corp. Again.

Courtesy Dr0ne2bewild Shiyé Bidziil/Vimeo. Energy Transfer Partners has gone so far as to build its drilling pad for tunneling under the Missouri River at Lake Oahe, even though it still awaits the necessary easements.

Courtesy Dr0ne2bewild Shiyé Bidziil/Vimeo.
Energy Transfer Partners has gone so far as to build its drilling pad for tunneling under the Missouri River at Lake Oahe, even though it still awaits the necessary easements.

The U.S. Department of Justice is about to announce next steps on de-escalating the standoff regarding construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, according to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

“Today, the Department of Justice announced in federal court that it will be announcing the next steps on a ‘path forward’ for the Dakota Access Pipeline crossing at Lake Oahe,” said Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II in a statement on November 10.

Energy Transfer Partners is refusing to stand down on its construction plans despite two requests from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that it do so.

The company, builders of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), said on Tuesday November 8 that it planned to begin drilling in two weeks—even though at the moment it does not have the easements necessary for it to tunnel under the river legally.

Full story at ICTMN.