In my last post, I defined both white privilege and white supremacy and related them to themes of environmental racism. If you haven’t read that post yet, I would definitely recommend it just to get some context for this post and the future posts (I defined environmental racism in the final paragraph of the post, Church Rock).
I also talked about a town within the Navajo Native American Reservation in New Mexico that experienced environmental racism. Because we only have four posts, I wanted to move on to another example with another marginalized community, but I personally feel like Native American nationalist movements and systemic inequalities against them are hardly talked about in conversation and in the news, so I wanted to take a moment today to give you a couple more examples of resistance movements different Native American communities have started.
- Standing Rock Indian Reservation
Standing Rock is a Native American reservation located between North and South Dakota. It is home to the Yanktonai, Hunkpapa, and Blackfoot Sioux Native American tribes. In 2016, the Sioux people formed a massive protest that aimed to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, a pipeline that went right through North and South Dakota to get oil to the states around Texas. Not only was the pipeline charted to cut right through sacred burials, it also was planned to cut through the Missouri river, where it was almost certain to burst and leak harmful toxins into the environment.
In order to get the oil, the companies needed to frack, or inject pressurized fluids into bedrock to extract natural gas. Fracking causes minor tremors and produces a lot of toxic water waste, which is usually dumped carelessly into these reservations (it seeps into groundwater or flows into rivers).
The Native Americans living in Standing Rock were overall very unhappy with the fact that this pipeline would cause environmental hazards that affected both the natural and sacred environment and health of the people in the community. In 2016, a group of Standing Rock youth broke out protesting the approved gas line plan, calling themselves ReZpect our Water. This protest gained popularity among Native Americans all around the country and began a Native American nationalist movement that sought to reclaim their culture and their lands. In September of 2016, protesters trespassed into one of the work areas that was located right within sacred burial lands. The peaceful protesters were greeted by viscous attack dogs that injured many of the people protesting. The military then came in with riot equipment, machine guns, and horses to clear out the protesters, who had not a single weapon in their hands.
In late 2016, President Obama stopped the planning for building this pipeline for the sake of the Native American people. However, the next year when Trump was sworn in, one of the first things he did was reapprove the construction of the pipeline, which caused another uproar. The environmental impacts were re-assessed, and in 2020, the plans to build the pipeline were officially disregarded because it would cause too much environmental hazard.
The US’s response to these protests was disheartening; it really comes to show how disposable the Native American tribes are in the eyes of the state, and how institutionalized racism is a very prominent issue. One good thing that came out of the Native American nationalism also began to rise in popularity as a result, as this protest brought marginalized groups from all over together to stop institutionalized racism.
2. Wet’suwet’en Protest
The Wet’suwet’en Reservation is located in British Columbia, Canada, and it is home to the Wet’suwet’en Native Americans, or the People of the Wa Dzun Kwuh River. Similar to Standing Rock, the Canadian government approved the building of another pipeline, the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline, that would run right through the reservation, destroying native lands and polluting the water. The Wet’suwet’en people were unfortunately not as successful as the Standing Rock Native Americans were. This project is one of the biggest private sector investments the Canadian government has ever made, and the pipeline is unfortunately still being constructed across the native lands despite the protests. COVID didn’t help with the whole situation because many of the Wet’suwet’en got sick, so the leader’s priorities shifted to community health rather than protesting the pipeline.
Overall, Native Americans face a lot of challenges, and thanks to the growing popularity in Nationalist movements, there is more coverage of their unfair treatment and protesting. Let me know if you have any questions, and thanks for reading!
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Access_Pipeline_protest
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/coastal-gaslink-pipeline-bc-wet-suwet-en-pandemic-1.5898219
Hi Allie,
Thank you for this post as we continue to consider environmental racism. I think that the discussion surrounding Native American rights and homelands is an important one, especially considering it is often overlooked. I actually have a quite interesting story about the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAP), believe it or not. On my 16th birthday I went to the DMV to take my permit test, and sitting in front of me was a lady who shouted loudly and was acting quite inappropriately the entire time. One of the things she kept shouting about was the DAP and how unfair it was. While I do largely agree with most of her complaints, she was being quite unruly in the DMV as I was simply there to hopefully get my permit. I’m pretty sure they called an ambulance for her eventually to get her some help…but anyway that is my crazy story on how I was first introduced to the DAP.
Outside of that story, I’m grateful that you shared some of the more serious backstory to these projects. The Native Americans living around Standing Rock were clearly taken advantage of in the construction of the DAP, similar to what happened to the Wet’suwet’en tribe in Canada. I have to think that while it may have been more time consuming and expensive, the pipeline companies, Native American communities, and federal government could have come together to create a sustainable solution that could have supplied energy resources while protecting sacred lands. If nothing else, I am grateful that these events help to raise awareness of Native American tribal rights and lands across the country. Thank you for sharing this with us!
Allie, this is a very compelling and poignant expansion on your first post—”disposable” in reference to the US’s attitude toward Native Americans is such an affecting word which so heart-rendingly encompasses the situation. I think your examples have so far demonstrated just how ignorant the general public is of the plights of tribes against the government attempting to destroy their ways of life. That is, not only are people unaware of these struggles, but so many who do hear about them might think the Native Americans are fighting solely because their land is sacred and they don’t want it disrespected like that. While this may also be true, it’s clear from your posts that many of these protests are justified also by the fact that the government is attempting to poison its own people all for profit’s sake. That’s truly despicable, and that society has kept such notions out of the cultural zeitgeist is equally disappointing.
Allie, I’m appalled by these acts clearly taken against the Native Americans. The Native Americans living here seem to have their hands tied, as they have nobody to protest to, nobody to listen. Instead of building these pipelines through US communities which the government directly serves, they chose to plan it through the reservation at Standing Rock. They knew that the American media and communities would make a racket against them, and could bring national attention to the pipeline’s harm. They took advantage of these people, thinking that little attention from the rest of America could be drawn by them. When they did protest, the pipeline’s builders were prepared for the backlash, and using the military to scare away the Native Americans from their home is ridiculous. We should be protecting these peoples’ native lands, not still running them off it.