“Why wont they just get over it?”, is what many people ask about the Native American culture. I have been doing some research on the Dakota Access Pipeline and continually seeing people “checking-in”, to Standing Rock on Facebook to honour and stand for solidarity, which I think is a great thing because it is raising awareness and bringing to light the fact that colonization is still very much alive. This circumstance is an excellent example as to why the Native American culture cannot just “get over it”. It’s hard to get over something that is still oppressing you.
I came across an article from HuffPost written by a woman named Rachel, and her experience visiting Standing Rock. Rachel states, “…by allowing this construction to happen on Indigenous land, the government is putting private interest before Native American treaty rights”. This situation brings to light once again, broken promises on behalf of the government in their relationship with Native Americans. I can imagine this stirs up anger in the spirits of many because not only does it not make sense, it defies the progress that the government has said it is making in its relationship with Native Americans.
In The Truth About Stories by Thomas King he discusses the oil industry and our oil-based economy, not just here in Canada, but globally and how it depends on two things in order to continue. He states one as being, “The ability of geologists to find new fields of oil”, and another is, “our willingness to ignore the obvious, that, at some point, we’re going to run out of oil”, and he continues by saying it would make a lot more sense if only more sustainable and reliable sources of energy were used, such as wind, solar, and geothermal, but instead we only hope that the exhaustion of oil will not occur in our lifetime. Reading this made me realize even more how love, community, and spirituality, are being sacrificed for comfort. For money.
It is evident that a blind eye continues to be turned to the negative effects we can have on the environment. The more we pollute Mother Earth, the more we pollute our own selves, not just physically but spiritually too. The peaceful protests that are going on and the resistance that is happening against the Dakota Access Pipeline is not a waste of time. People from all around the world are gathering together, as a community and using their voices, which could lead to public policy changes for the better. Rachel states, “It didn’t matter that I was a white person. It mattered that I went…”, Let’s not ignore what is happening on our watch.