[News] Remember This When You Talk About Standing Rock

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.yesmagazine.org/how-to-talk-about-standing-rock-20161028


  Remember This When You Talk About Standing Rock by Kelly Hayes

Kelly Hayes posted Oct 28, 2016

This piece is very personal because, as an Indigenous woman, my analysis 
is very personal, as is the analysis that my friends on the frontlines 
have shared with me. We obviously can’t speak for everyone involved, as 
Native beliefs and perspectives are as diverse as the convictions of any 
people. But as my friends hold strong on the frontlines of Standing 
Rock, and I watch transfixed with both pride and worry, we feel the need 
to say a few things.

I’ve been in and out of communication with my friends at Standing Rock 
all day. As you might imagine, as much as they don’t want me to worry, 
it’s pretty hard for them to stay in touch. I asked if there was 
anything they wanted me to convey on social media, as most of them are 
maintaining a very limited presence on such platforms. The following is 
my best effort to summarize what they had to say, and to chime in with a 
few corresponding thoughts of my own.

It is crucial that people recognize that Standing Rock is part of an 
ongoing struggle against colonial violence. #NoDAPL is a front of 
struggle in a long-erased war against Native peoples — a war that has 
been active since first contact, and waged without interruption. Our 
efforts to survive the conditions of this anti-Native society have gone 
largely unnoticed because white supremacy is the law of the land, and 
because we, as Native people, have been pushed beyond the limits of 
public consciousness.

The fact that we are more likely to be killed by law enforcement than 
any other group speaks to the fact that Native erasure is ubiquitous, 
both culturally and literally, but pushed from public view. Our 
struggles intersect with numerous others, but are perpetrated with 
different motives and intentions. Anti-Blackness, for example, is a 
performative enforcement of structural power, whereas the violence 
against us is a matter of pragmatism. The struggle at Standing Rock is 
an effort to prevent the construction of a deadly, destructive 
mechanism, created by greed-driven people with no regard for our lives. 
It has always been this way. We die, and have died, for the sake of 
expansion and white wealth, and for the maintenance of both.

The harms committed against us have long been relegated to the history 
books. This erasure has occurred for the sake of both white supremacy 
and US mythology, such as American exceptionalism. It has also been 
perpetuated to sustain the comfort of those who benefit from harms 
committed against us. Our struggles have been kept both out of sight and 
out of mind — easily forgotten by those who aren’t directly impacted.

It should be clear to everyone that we are not simply here in those rare 
moments when others bear witness.

To reiterate (what should be obvious): We are not simply here when you 
see us.

We have always been here, fighting for our lives, surviving 
colonization, and that reality is rarely acknowledged. Even people who 
believe in freedom frequently overlook our issues, as well as the 
intersections of their issues with our own. It matters that more of the 
world is bearing witness in this historic moment, but we feel the need 
to point out that the dialogue around #NoDAPL has become extremely 
climate oriented. Yes, there is an undeniable connectivity between this 
front of struggle and the larger fight to combat climate change. We 
fully recognize that all of humanity is at risk of extinction, whether 
they realize it or not. But intersectionality does not mean focusing 
exclusively on the intersections of our respective work.

It sometimes means taking a journey well outside the bounds of those 
intersections.

In discussing #NoDAPL, too few people have started from a place of 
naming that we have a right to defend our water and our lives, simply 
because we have a natural right to defend ourselves and our communities. 
When “climate justice”, in a very broad sense, becomes the center of 
conversation, our fronts of struggle are often reduced to a staging 
ground for the messaging of NGOs.

This is happening far too frequently in public discussion of #NoDAPL.

Yes, everyone should be talking about climate change, but you should 
also be talking about the fact that Native communities deserve to 
survive, because our lives are worth defending in their own right — not 
simply because “this affects us all.”

So when you talk about Standing Rock, please begin by acknowledging that 
this pipeline was redirected from an area where it was most likely to 
impact white people. And please remind people that our people are 
struggling to survive the violence of colonization on many fronts, and 
that people shouldn’t simply engage with or retweet such stories when 
they see a concrete connection to their own issues — or a jumping off 
point to discuss their own issues. Our friends, allies and accomplices 
should be fighting alongside us because they value our humanity and 
right to live, in addition to whatever else they believe in.

Every Native at Standing Rock — every Native on this continent — has 
survived the genocide of a hundred million of our people. That means 
that every Indigenous child born is a victory against colonialism, but 
we are all born into a fight for our very existence. We need that to be 
named and centered, which is a courtesy we are rarely afforded.

This message is not a condemnation. It’s an ask.

We are asking that you help ensure that dialogue around this issue 
begins with and centers a discussion of anti-Native violence and 
policies, no matter what other connections you might ultimately make, 
because those discussions simply don’t happen in this country. There 
obviously aren’t enough people talking about climate change, but there 
are even fewer people — and let’s be real, far fewer people — discussing 
the various forms of violence we are up against, and acting in 
solidarity with us. And while such discussions have always been 
deserved, we are living in a moment when Native water protectors and 
water warriors have more than earned both acknowledgement and solidarity.

So if you have been with us in this fight, we appreciate you. But we are 
reaching out, right now, in these brave days for our people, and asking 
that you keep the aforementioned truths front and center as you 
discuss this effort. This moment is, first and foremost, about Native 
liberation, self determination and Native survival. That needs to be 
centered and celebrated.

Thanks,

K and friends

-- 
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