Lakota activists and allies from Deep Green Resistance and Occupy organizations blockaded Whiteclay, Nebraska on June 9. They are following up that action with a Women's March on Sunday, August 26, to further protest beer sellers' exploitation of the neighboring Pine Ridge Reservation.
From the organizers' press release:
"For over 100 years the women of the Oglala Lakota nation have been dealing with an attack on the mind body and spirit of their relatives", says Olowan Martinez who is a main organizer of the event and resident of Pine Ridge. "The Oglala have been silenced through chemical warfare waged by the corporations who are out to exploit and make a profit off of the suffering and misery of our people. The time has come to end this suffering by any means necessary."
The organizers of this women's march have point people throughout the region, in the Southwest, and on the West Coast. They plan to gather at Wounded Knee on Friday, August 24, spend the 25th conducting social meetings, women's and men's circles and training, then assemble at noon on the 26th at the Billy Mills Hall in Pine Ridge, whence they will march two miles south down 407 across the reservation and state border to Whiteclay.
Now before you pack your headbands in the Kia and drive out to Indian Country to do right by your Lakota neighbors, Deep Green Resistance offers some "Indigenous Solidarity Guidelines" that warrant your consideration:
- First and foremost we must recognize that non-indigenous people are occupying stolen land in an ongoing genocide that has lasted for centuries. We must affirm our responsibility to stand with indigenous communities who want support and give everything we can to protect their land and culture from further devastation; they have been on the frontlines of biocide and genocide for centuries, and as allies, we need to step up and join them.
- You are doing Indigenous solidarity work not out of guilt, but out of a fierce desire to confront oppressive colonial systems of power.
- You are not helping Indigenous people, you are there to: join with, struggle with, and fight with indigenous peoples against these systems of power. You must be willing to put your body on the line.
- Recognize your privilege as a member of settler culture.
- You are not here to engage in any type of cultural, spiritual or religious needs you think you might have, you are here to engage in political action. Also, remember your political message is secondary to the cause at hand.
- Never use drugs or alcohol when engaging in Indigenous solidarity work. Never.
- Do more listening than talking, you will be surprised what you can learn.
- Recognize that there will be Indigenous people that will not want you to participate in ceremonies. Humbly refrain from participating in ceremonies.
- Recognize that you and your Indigenous allies may be in the minority on a cause that is worth fighting for.
- Work with integrity and respect, be trustworthy and do what you say you are going to do.
I read those rules and wonder if "do right by" could be read as negatively and imperialistically as "help." And of course, I'm saying those words as I myself occupy stolen land at the foothills of the Paha Sapa.
As we discuss language, good intentions, and white man's guilt, you can learn more about joining the Life Givers of the Nation in their call for no more alcohol in Whiteclay at BattleForWhiteclay.org.
Why didn't they mention this:
The authors are quite clear in stating their goal, and the methodology by which they intend to achieve it. "The goal of DGR [Deep Green Resistance] is to deprive the rich of their ability to steal from the poor, and the powerful of their ability to destroy the planet." Simply put, "Industrial civilization [including corporate agriculture] must be stopped," and direct actions against strategic infrastructure (even blowing up dams and destroying electricity grids) represent just one set of tactics in their arsenal.
http://www.cfact.org/a/2076/Deep-Green-Resistance-Occupy-and-more-till-civilization-falls
--They are following up that action with a Women’s March on Sunday, August 26, to further protest beer sellers’ exploitation of the neighboring Pine Ridge Reservation.
Please join my Womens Keep Your Green March just south of the Rose Casino on August 26th as we protest the pie-in-the-sky fantasy promoted by the Rosebud Tribe that exploints our Nebraska neighbors' hollow desire to get rich quick. We may even march up and down to block the access driveway to the casino--I'm sure tribal police will respect our Constitutional right to protest.
Then we'll fly to NY State where we'll blockade the cancer peddling NA tribes there who sell cheap/tax free cigarettes to smoke addicted (and mostly poor) whites, al of which kills them young.
Gosh, this exploitation goes both ways.
--And of course, I’m saying those words as I myself occupy stolen land at the foothills of the Paha Sapa.
Stolen from whom? The Sioux who stole it from the Mandan and the Ojibwe?
Stolen? When the gov't pays for land, how is that "stealing" it?
--1.First and foremost we must recognize that non-indigenous people are occupying stolen land in an ongoing genocide that has lasted for centuries.
First & foremost, the history is who stole what from whom is not on the Sioux's side.
--2.You are doing Indigenous solidarity work not out of guilt, but out of a fierce desire to confront oppressive colonial systems of power.
When will the SIoux confront their sad history of raping, pillaging, enslaving, and taking the land of their enemies--the Ojibwe, Ponca, Pawnee, Otoe, and Blackfeet may want BILLIONS in reparations from the Sioux.
It's ONLY a coincidence of history that the last of the conquering "indigenous" peoples were the Sioux. Why? Because the Sioux excelled at pillaging, raping, enslaving and taking other tribes' land like no other. And now they're crying uncle because whitey did to them what they did to others. Unlike the Sioux, whitey let them live and gave them some mostly crappy land.
Sorry, I don't buy into the victimhood of a group of true warriors.
Reconciliation is a roundabout, not a one-way steet.
Had the Europeans not brought the horse to North America in the first place, the tribes would have been extirpated much more quickly by syphilis and malaria brought by christians.
Rewild the West.
en garde, bitch
In the long run, what's happening at Whiteclay is disgusting.
We tried prohibition and it did not work.
Maybe it's time to try something else since shame is sorely lacking in modern [white & NA] society anyway? The sellers of beer at WC need to buy into that social contract just like the folks on the PR need to.
Until then, "solidarity" is a wasted pile of bunk.
--the tribes would have been extirpated much more quickly by syphilis
I think it's generally agreed upon that the NAs gave syphilis to the whites.
agreed by christians, maybe, as they raped at will: smallpox was far more effective anyway.
you know where to find the solution, pat: just go and look under manifesto.
truth is, pat: you have no solutions, just problems.
Smallpox was effective at killing people, PERIOD. The virus did not and does not and cannot distingusih among "races".
Another interesting excerpt from teh link I left on the first comment:
The "Occupiers" themselves have now found common ground with what is emerging as the “Arab Spring†leadership, who appear to be increasingly devoted to Shariah law and quite happy to ensure that their people never embrace the comforts (or equal rights) of Western civilization.
Mitchell should build a Muslim center right next to the Corn Palace.
http://turtletalk.wordpress.com/2012/08/26/frank-pommersheim-on-the-crazy-horse-malt-liquor-case/
Women, children met with pepper spray: Norrell.
State of South Dakota hacked from a bloody genocide 100 years ago today.