Mary Anne Campbell I just heard from a client who trains her horses in North Dakota. She has another side of this story from the other people who live in this community. While I absolutely stand with the principles being defended at Standing Rock, I think it’s very apparent this year that we need to listen to the WHOLE narrative. So, here is what we are not hearing in these stories.Ranchers and farmers there are having problems with the “Woodstock” nature of the encampment, fences cut, trucks bringing hay to animals blocked by protesters. Animals being killed or released. Their roads are blocked, their access to their livelihood in the middle of winter is even harder than usual because of folks taking their anger out on local ranchers.
Not all the protesters are country people who understand ranch life, not all of them have a recognition of the other people impacted by this situation.
So it may be that the Ace Hardware people are in support of the farmers and ranchers they share a community with.
I don’t mean to say all the ranchers are lovely human beings and we should ruin water and ignore treaties because of their dubious land rights, since they have all this white privilege….
I do mean to say we need to listen to ALL of the voices and not just assume it’s corporations doing ALL of the talking.
Not all the protesters are country people who understand ranch life, not all of them have a recognition of the other people impacted by this situation.
So it may be that the Ace Hardware people are in support of the farmers and ranchers they share a community with.
I don’t mean to say all the ranchers are lovely human beings and we should ruin water and ignore treaties because of their dubious land rights, since they have all this white privilege….
I do mean to say we need to listen to ALL of the voices and not just assume it’s corporations doing ALL of the talking.
Gail Param Osheroff It may be that ace is it may be not. And yes I hear you about the ranchers and farmers, but we do need to acknowledge who actually owned the land before them. And you would think that they would be concerned about the water that will be effecting their lives as well.
Mary Anne Campbell True, and yet, why are those particular farmers and ranchers any more penalized for being on land confiscated from the original people than you are? Or me? So that one, unless we’re all heading home to our DNA’s sources, for me doesn’t fly.Also… most of the folks violating the ranchers and farmers ability to feed their livestock are white people enjoying being part of this thing. Not Lakota folks who know farming and ranching.
Also, they may well be concerned about the water, likely more than you can imagine as they’re drawing from wells– but they’re also concerned about their livestock dying of starvation.
So again– we have to listen to ALL THE VOICES, not just the socially attractive ones.
Gail Param Osheroff I do not know the extent of the damage done to these farms and ranches, other than your first hand info from your clients. Maybe more can be written and posted somewhere. I also know people who have driven there from many places far away, I would not call it “enjoying to be part of this thing” they felt obligated to help out. Regarding the land, I was merely pointing out they where those farmers and ranchers live is in the middle of Lakota Territory, it may not be now, but is seems if it is that close it once was, as most indigenous land is much smaller than it originally was. Has nothing to do with my DNA I come from immigrants who lost their land to Nazis and during Pogroms in Poland and other horrible situations, not even a hundred years ago. However, the water situation is my big concern. Almost every pipeline put in and managed by Enbridge has had leaks not acknowledged or deliberately covered up. They move millions of oil per day, make shitloads of money while they contaminate and ruin lives with sickness and loss of resources. Maybe the farmers and ranchers should reach out to them to help pay for the damage indirectly created by their actions. It is a terrible situation, thanx for pointing out what you have been told.And unless we start listening to the community around us, we are inflicting our external sense of what’s right just as certainly as those who took the land from the first peoples did. Life is not simple or neat, but all people deserve to be recognized as worthy of respect.
These ranchers, again, most likely DO support blocking this pipeline, as it threatens their livestock.
The people organizing the protest themselves are expressing resistance to the white folks using so little cultural awareness and inserting themselves into the place. People who are using “go fund me” campaigns to raise the money to get there, instead of sending supplies to the folks already there. People who are arriving and treating it as a sort of Burning Man in the cold. The organizers themselves are saying these people are behaving inappropriately. So the fact that farmers and ranchers are being impacted likely has to do with that same element.
All of the country was indigenous land. And most of us who came here and took it fled from something dreadful back in Europe, Asia, the middle east, etcetera. .That’s been the history– one horror creates a wave of immigration which inflicts another horror.
I have no answers. But I’m doing my damndest to listen to the whole scope of the voices involved.
And by the way, there’s another pipeline going unnoticed that runs down this side of the country, bringing coal sands oil, which is even dirtier.
But no one is paying attention. There are so many voices unheard.
These ranchers, again, most likely DO support blocking this pipeline, as it threatens their livestock.
The people organizing the protest themselves are expressing resistance to the white folks using so little cultural awareness and inserting themselves into the place. People who are using “go fund me” campaigns to raise the money to get there, instead of sending supplies to the folks already there. People who are arriving and treating it as a sort of Burning Man in the cold. The organizers themselves are saying these people are behaving inappropriately. So the fact that farmers and ranchers are being impacted likely has to do with that same element.
All of the country was indigenous land. And most of us who came here and took it fled from something dreadful back in Europe, Asia, the middle east, etcetera. .That’s been the history– one horror creates a wave of immigration which inflicts another horror.
I have no answers. But I’m doing my damndest to listen to the whole scope of the voices involved.
And by the way, there’s another pipeline going unnoticed that runs down this side of the country, bringing coal sands oil, which is even dirtier.
But no one is paying attention. There are so many voices unheard.