I am humbled to be baring witness to how Native people are demonstrating leadership for change. (Their) land is being violated and sacred sites destroyed. Treaty crimes are being perpetrated against them. The great Sioux Nation is demanding that they be dealt with honorably, as the sovereign nation that they are. They are holding the United States accountable to its treaties.
Their front line resistance actions are prayer, ceremony, and song. Nearby they’ve set up camps with others who are devoted to protecting the water. They care for one another and provide school for the learners.
Meanwhile…
United States law enforcement are responding with violence, force, intimidation, harassment and erroneous charges.
There is a pattern to the ways that law enforcement are treating people who are standing up for human rights right now, people on the front lines in the United States. There are similar tactics of intimidation and violent force being used. Journalists covering these stories are being arrested, receiving severe legal charges, and their equipment and footage confiscated and destroyed. Legal observers are even being arrested. This is happening at Standing Rock, in Charlotte with the Charlotte Uprising, and we even saw versions of it here in Asheville in response to calls for accountability when a police officer killed Jai “Jerry” Williams.
These are important times that we are living in. The video below is an interview with a Madison, Wisconsin Alder Council member who was delivering the City of Madison’s solidarity resolution to Standing Rock in person. She shares her experience at the camp, of being arrested while serving as a legal observer, the treatment she and others received by law enforcement, and how she’s used her network of relationships to influence what she can.
Please keep watching. Please keep praying. Please do what you can.
From one of my warrior sisters who is at Standing Rock… “Please pray, gather, light a fire, stop and call forth good intentions for this front line. Tell all of your friends and relatives. Each day until you hear that the pipeline has been stopped. Let us all get behind the great Sioux Nation at this time. Our ancestors are with us. Gracias!”
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