Mni Wiconi: On Allies, Activism, & Why You (& Your Privilege) Should be at Standing Rock

Update: I’ve just returned from Standing Rock Reservation in Cannon Ball, North Dakota. I was able to spend 5 days out there and I return fully committed to the message in this article. Your privilege is required. I implore you, go to #StandingRock but do it with the right heart, for the right reasons, and go ready to work, not party. Disclosure: I traveled to Standing Rock with the publisher of Yellow Scene.

Unless you’ve been under a rock, you’ve heard of Standing Rock: the the most recent Indian war. Over 20,000 Natives and allies from around the world and throughout the Americas have descended on the Standing Rock reservation in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, to protect the water currently threatened with oily black snake devastation by the Dakota Access Pipe Line (DAPL). #NoDAPL has been a call to solidarity for natives, environmentalists, and allies everywhere.

Faced with the horrific winter currently descending on the Dakota plains, threatening to wreak havoc on both DAPL workers and #NoDAPL obstruction, the water protectors and ally community are standing strong. Native solidarity and action stay at the fore, even while police attack peaceful protesters, over and again, as hundreds are arrested, while women are specifically chemically attacked, while snipers shoot children, in the face of widespread solidarity actions and protests, despite the recent White liberal ally “Burning Man-ification©” of the space, and even though the #NoDAPL water protectors have been proven right in their opposition to the black snake.

The long, violent history of US imperial occupying relations with the Natives of this land remains constant. Corporate and state profit are more valuable than Native life and, obviously, all life. No matter the generous elocution of our outgoing president, the hypocrisy of his actual neoliberal policies and silence on DAPL and Native sovereignty are disgusting. The audacity of hope fails for those of us hoping for actual action in line with his designation of November as Native American Heritage Month and the hollow words enshrined therein:

Native Americans have helped make America what it is today. As we reflect on our history, we must acknowledge the unfortunate chapters of violence, discrimination, and deprivation that went on for far too long, as well as the effects of injustices that continue to be felt. While we cannot undo the pain and tragedy of the past, we can set out together to forge a brighter future of progress and hope across Indian Country and the entire American landscape.

#ThanksObama

As an ally, I can’t help but be horrified by the violence of the irony in this discrepancy. Where words and actions fail to meet only lies and rotted out hypocrisy are found. As an ally – to my LGBT family, to women’s communities, and to my Chicano/Latino/Undocumented family – I stand here now as a disabled Native American man, distraught over the farce and failure of ally work in America.

To show you what we’re dealing with on a national level, apart from Standing Rock, within 24 hours of Trump’s election at least 8 *Trans youth committed suicide. The Southern Poverty Law Center has a running list of well over 400 hate crimes against Muslims, Africans/African Americans, Chican@/Latin@s, the LGBT, and, yes, Trump still has stock in the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Liberal White America’s Solution to the madness: Safety Pins. Vogue came out with diamond encrusted safety pins so you can flaunt both your privilege and your ally status.

Never mind that someone fleeing a racist, homophobic, or anti-religious attack would struggle to find a safety pin on your body while trying to find safety. Never mind that I was told by a woman that she didn’t need to donate to the Human Rights Campaign as we fight for equality…because she was an ally. And then she opened her coat to show me her safety pin. Under her coat.
*three cheers for MethAnne

Let’s talk about what ally work is and is not:

Ally work is more than just ideologically, metaphorically, or philosophically supporting a group or position. In a world where legal, physical, financial, and police state/military opposition to certain groups and positions are activated to maintain the systematic oppression & status quo, your lack of actual active presence is a welcomed joke.
It was Mario Savio, the Berkeley anti-war activist who said it most powerfully and with surprising prescience given our struggle to stop the machines at Standing Rock:

There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part! You can’t even passively take part! And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels…upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!

Let me be clear: your privilege is required.
There are children being attacked. Your adulthood is required. There are women being attacked. Your male body is required. There are disabled folks being attacked. Your able body is required. There are elders being attacked. Your youth is required. There are poor people being attacked. Your wealth is required. There are PoC being attacked. Your Whiteness is required. Standing Rock is being attacked. Your presence is required.
That is, unless you’re comfortable with wearing a safety pin and hoping it all works out for the children, women, elderly, disabled, and poor PoC out at Standing Rock fighting for the health of the earth and the water for millions of Americans. If you are, that’s you. Don’t prick yourself with that safety pin when you put it on.
In conclusion, I leave you with the words of Lexine Salazar, of the Western Tsalagi people Anikwi Clan (Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma deer clan) and the WeRNative Youth ambassador. I asked her why folks should go to Standing Rock and what ally work meant to her. She responded in depth:

I think it has to do with finding our way back to the old ways, to our traditions. As indigenous peoples we knew we had a responsibility to fight for our relatives, to sacrifice and give to them, no matter the distance or tribe. Standing Rock didn’t just put out a call for bodies, they put out a call for us to remember our old and sacred spirits. We need to remember how to put focus on bettering the lives of our people rather than of ourselves, as allies and family alike.
Allies, also, are not saviours. We aren’t going there to save The Great Sioux Nation; they are a collective of some of the strongest warriors on Earth. We are going there to uplift, to support, to be the ground on which the Lakota, Nakota, and Dakota people can feel confident knowing that While they’re out there fighting for our water, we will stay behind and take care of their camps. We will learn ceremonial protocol and follow it strictly, letting them feel that we want to create a network with The Great Sioux Nation that will have an impact on domestic relations for generations to come.
Even though I am not a member of their nation, we are apart of the same four directions and we share Grandmother Earth (Unci Maka) together, so we have a duty to protect each other’s livelihoods no matter what. Ancestors and Great Spirit compelled us to help our relatives, so the highest honour we can uphold is to follow that call as seriously as we possibly can. In the old ways we sacrificed to support our sisters and brothers, aunties and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, without question.
If we can relearn that strength and tradition in ourselves,
we can overcome this black snake together.

Aho. #StandWithStandingRock
Want to donate to a group trip to Standing Rock? Donate directly to the Standing Rock Sioux PayPal account. Want to debate the history of Native genocide and why your lazy ally work is problematic? Get at me on Twitter.