Why Standing Rock is Fundamental for the Resistance.
On Tuesday, January 25th Donald Trump wasted no time in signing an executive order that will most likely result in the finalization of the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). That this was one of his very first acts as president of the United States is no coincidence. Donald Trump and his team recognize the symbolic significance at stake in Standing Rock. This photo essay is a call for us all to understand why the resistance to the pipeline in Standing Rock is more crucial than ever. It is bigger than one site or one community because its here where the ideologies being aggressively pushed by Republican leaders clearly converge.
Before we delve into the magnitude of what is at stake in the struggle against the DAPL, let’s summarize the events taking place at Standing Rock and our experience on the ground there in early December.
For several months, Native American tribes and their allies, led by the Standing Rock Sioux, have been protesting against the Dakota Access pipeline, a project that would extend 1,168 miles from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota and Montana across the Plains, where it will link with another pipeline to transport the oil to the Gulf of Mexico.
The tribe claims that the pipeline could threaten their sole water source — as it is designed to pass beneath the Missouri river — desecrate ancestral lands, destroy Native burial sites and sacred spaces, and unfairly burden the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which is unlikely to benefit from any economic development that accompanies the project. Energy Transfer Partners, the corporation behind the pipeline, suggests the project will lead to greater economic development and increased efficiency compared to the railroads that currently transport the crude oil.
Throughout the harsh winter, the protesters — water protectors — at Standing Rock quickly increased into the thousands including members of hundreds of tribes and activists from across the country. As the protests swelled, water protectors were attacked by heavily armed police from Morton County. One woman suffered a detached retina after being shot with a tear gas canister, praying elders were shot at point blank with rubber bullets, guard dogs were set upon protesters, and a young woman nearly lost her arm to a “non-lethal” grenade. Yet, as the repression grew, the people stood resilient and the symbolic power of the struggle continued to grow.
At this point we felt we had to go. We needed to support this movement and work to spread its message and report on what was happening on the ground. We were told by friends and fellow supporters to drive up through the south as opposed to the main road through Bismarck. The population of Bismarck — a predominantly white town — was not treating the supporters of NODAPL kindly, and the local police were stopping vehicles that they thought were carrying supplies into the camp. Instead, we went in through Aberdeen, a couple of miles south of the camp. Hundreds of flags representing nations and movements adorned the makeshift road that led us in. We arrived at the beautiful, bitterly cold reservation only days before the announced eviction date.
Once at Standing Rock we were amazed by the sheer size of the camp — an estimated ten thousand people were there by the time we arrived. Beyond the Sioux nation and numerous other tribes represented at the camp, supporters continued to pour in from every corner of the country, and the world. We immediately heard the helicopters circling the camp throughout the day, in attempts to intimidate the protestors. Judging by the numbers, it wasn’t working.
The Indigenous Environmental Network handled the film permits. In trying to assure that our time there was as productive as possible, we had been communicating with them about coming to produce a piece. Clearly, we were not the only ones. Everyone — including the big networks — had to take an orientation class on photographing and filming in the camp.
Our first day started at 6:30am at the sacred fire. The Sioux opened each day with prayer and while everyone in the camp was invited, absolutely no cameras were allowed. The kitchens served free meals to anyone who needed it. Folks were busy securing tents and windshields. Organizers kept track and registered newcomers. It felt as if everyone in the camp had a purpose — making even this large and ever-growing camp feel completely functional. We had read stories about non-natives coming in and treating the place like Burning Man, but what we saw — at least in the few days we were there — was a sense of real purpose.
We spent our days filming, helping out in whatever way we could, and trying to stay warm. The conditions were already harsh when we arrived and it only got colder. Yet, people kept arriving. At least one thousand veterans arrived the day after we did (we heard that in total there were well over two thousand veterans in Standing Rock), committed to supporting and shielding the water protectors.
It was hard not to be deeply touched by everybody’s resolve. As we reflected on what moved them to make the trip in the first place, it became clear that, like us, they were moved by a formidable sense of justice, an unshakable feeling that we were standing on the right side of history. As the days went by and December 5th, the date of the eviction, drew near, it became increasingly evident that this struggle had grown far beyond the DAPL, and Standing Rock was now the symbolic battleground of a much bigger struggle — one where race was a core factor.
An early proposal for the DAPL planned to cross the Missouri river north of Bismarck — a predominantly white city — instead of near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. However, the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers concluded that the route was too close to Bismarck’s well water supply and the homes in the community. They also argued this route required 11 miles more of piping, and would pass through a “high consequence area,” which is an area deemed to have significant negative consequences in the event of a pipeline spill.
The Missouri River is the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s primary source of drinking water and water pollution from any possible runoff due to the pipeline’s activity in carrying oil would prove disastrous. Since 1995, there’s been more than 2,000 “significant accidents” with oil pipelines in the United States, averaging about 100 accidents a year, according to the Chicago Tribune. In 2010, a single pipeline spill poured one million gallons of toxic bitumen crude oil into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. And in January of 2015, more than 50,000 gallons of Bakken crude oil spilled into the Yellowstone River in Montana. It was the second such spill in that area since 2011. So why was Standing Rock not deemed a “high consequence area”?
At the core of the decision to redirect the pipeline through Standing Rock lies the same premise that permitted the gradual contamination of Flint’s water unresolved today — 1000 days later. Profit in the name of development and progress justifies the means, with little consideration of the sacredness of all the people and places destroyed on the way — especially if these people are people of color with less political and economic power.
When Michigan Governor Snyder took office in 2011, he rapidly pushed a multi-billion dollar tax break for corporations through the Republican legislature. Less tax revenues, translated into cutting costs in pensions, education, and infrastructure. He invoked executive privilege to take over cities by replacing the elected mayors and city councils with his own appointees. Their mission? Cut services to save money. As documented by Michael Moore, switching Flint’s water source from its original fresh water source to the water from the Flint River represented $15 million in savings.
Since the water wasn’t properly treated, lead from aging service lines to homes soon began leaching into the Flint water supply. Eventually, testing revealed that Flint’s water had between 400 and 13,000 parts per billion (ppb) of lead. The EPA’s limit for potable water is 15ppb and water contaminated with 5,000 ppb of lead is classified by the EPA as hazardous waste. A largely black and brown community now faces the disproportionate effects of systemic neglect. Flint’s water crisis fits into a historical trend of environmental racism in the U.S., which for decades has allowed polluters to prey on communities of color, in part because of weak environmental regulations. Few question that the crisis would have been handled differently if it happened in a white suburb outside of Detroit.
A few months after Governor Snyder switched Flint’s water source to the river, General Motors complained that the Flint River water was causing their car parts to corrode. The Governor quickly spent $440,000 to connect GM back to clean water from a nearby lake, while keeping the rest of Flint on the Flint River water. Flint residents remain without clean drinking water — with low-income families forced to buy bottled water while the state provides GM with a clean supply.
We were not the first to discern the clear parallels between what is happening at Standing Rock and Flint, Michigan. Veterans’ groups at Standing Rock announced they would now make their way to Flint to help with the fight for water in Michigan. The mobilization of thousands of veterans from the armed forces speaks volumes. Their declaration as protectors against enemies foreign and domestic reflects a clear indignation with a system many of them have risked their lives to protect, but which now seems to serve the interests of a select group. And as the day of the eviction approached it was these veterans who offered to serve as human shields for the protectors back in Standing Rock.
On the day before the eviction, everyone was getting ready mentally and physically — goggles, gas masks, bandanas at the ready. We felt the tension and unease. Then, unexpectedly, the Obama Administration intervened and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers legally blocked the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, denying it the required easement to drill beneath the Missouri River.
The Army Corps mandated an environmental-impact assessment, a two-year process that would assess the risks of building a pipeline so close to the Standing Rock Sioux’s water supply, and determine whether the pipeline should be moved or cancelled altogether.
It was a critical victory. There were tears of joy and sighs of relief, but the native leaders knew that this was only the beginning.
And, of course, they were right. Today, Donald Trump signed executive actions to advance approval of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines. The executive orders he signed on his fourth day in office are meant to ease the path for Energy Transfer Partners to build the final, uncompleted portion of the Dakota Access Pipeline — to “review and approve in an expedited manner” the pipeline project. Trump’s position was to be expected. But just as Standing Rock has come to symbolize a greater struggle, so has the Trump presidency come to symbolize something much greater.
On the one hand, a Trump presidency signifies an emboldened resurgence of the more outright champions of white supremacist ideology, which has given rise to an increase in racist attacks, and could result in virulent anti-immigrant, xenophobic legislation as well as a critical backtrack to the gains of the civil rights movement and the rights of Indigenous Nations. The insistence in building the DAPL without regard for the Sioux Nation’s rights is a clear statement.
On the other hand, the Trump presidency appears set to secure, cement and bulletproof the continued privilege and dominance of the super-wealthy minority. One look at his cabinet and this becomes painfully clear. Not only has he appointed a number of business executives, including three former Goldman Sachs executives and EXXON’s former CEO, but the 17 people comprising his current cabinet hold more wealth than that of the 43 million least wealthy American households combined — over one third of the households in the US.
As media makers, we’ve grappled with how to engage with what was to come, and how we could support ongoing struggles for rights and justice. Standing Rock stands out to us because it confronts the ideologies so clearly represented by Trump and his cronies: white supremacy and wealth domination. And although folks will cringe at hearing this, these two ideologies lie deep within the building blocks of this country. Sadly, it takes the Standing Rocks, the Flints, and Fergusons of the country to unveil them.
It is clear that the Trump administration will continue to support the DAPL while investors wait to see how long it takes him to reverse the decision. The Sioux hope that the battle over the environmental impact assessment will stall the pipeline long enough that investors will pull out of the deal. If not, they have made it clear they are ready to continue fighting to protect their rights, their land, and their water. We hope the rest of us are too. The final outcome at Standing Rock will set the precedent — concretely and symbolically — for what’s to come.
In massive numbers, people are putting their bodies on the line to declare and defend their rights. And in doing so, they challenge the premise that seems to lie at the core of “Make America Great Again”: the preferential positioning of whiteness and wealth. At Human Pictures we thus recognize and celebrate Standing Rock as not only a catalyst of a new environmental movement that is supportive of indigenous peoples, but as a symbol of numerous ongoing struggles across the world that reject profit as the driver of history and which present different models that allow us to move forward driven by principles of justice, dignity and harmony with our planet.
In our efforts, we will continue to highlight connections across these movements and shed light on the struggles where we can all gather strength in the years to come.
Written by Human Pictures, January 25 2017. somejuan@humanpictures.me
