The fate of the Dakota Access Pipeline still hangs in the balance, despite what was heralded Sunday as a huge victory for water protectors.
Tribe members say this all violates the terms of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, which established the boundaries of the reservation and encoded tribal sovereignty on the land. (The pipeline had previously been rerouted away from nearby Bismarck, North Dakota. Residents in the overwhelmingly white state capital didn’t have to put up nearly as much of a fight, as WNYC has reported.)
“We wanted to go into the space with the intention of giving more than what we took,” Crosby says. “We didn’t want to just occupy within the space,” she adds. That runs in contrast to some reports of white protesters treating Standing Rock like the Burning Man gathering, or coming for a “voluntourist” cultural experience that drains resources from a community in crisis.
With that awareness, they rolled up their sleeves. Virtually every working group, they said, grounded their activity in prayer and reflection, with a strong sense of spirit resonating among people of various beliefs. Some worked in the kitchen. Others worked with the medics, including Pasquale Mateus, who served on the mental-health support team housed in a cluster of teepees and yurts. There, she says she found symptoms of warlike trauma among some of the activists.
Group members say their time at Standing Rock will inform how they engage in activism and advocacy in the future. The emphasis on spiritual connection while pursuing justice and understanding one’s own relationship with the earth, they said, were hallmarks of the experience.
So much for American thanks and giving. v
