Not all the Standing Rock Sioux are protesting the pipeline

[1bigbeatlesfan]

Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, North Dakota (CNN)
Ask around and you'll hear stories of pipeline protesters who've traveled great distances. They've come from Japan, Russia and Germany. Australia, Israel and Serbia. And, of course, there are the allies, not exclusively Native American or indigenous, who've flocked here from all corners of the US.

Comments

[amw]

This is also unsurprising to me. Let's be honest, protestors are a fucking pain in the ass to people who just want to live their lives. Of course, that's kind of the point. Protest is designed to disrupt regular people's lives just enough so that it will focus their attention on issues that they might otherwise ignore. Many people will find it annoying, and may even lose compassion for the cause as a result, but the gamble that activists take is that more people will discover and get behind the message than will be turned against it.

In this sense, I think the #NoDAPL campaign has succeeded in an epic way. It is highly unlikely that the protests will stop the pipeline. Arguably this one pipeline is no worse than any of the countless existing pipelines in North America. But the huge success of this protest has been raising awareness all over the world of America's a) mistreatment of indigenous people, b) police militarization and brutality, and c) domestic fossil fuel extraction. It is a progressive's wet dream - you get three messages for the price of one. I think that's why it has become such a rallying point for the left. I myself have shared more articles on this issue and donated more of my own money to this than any other progressive cause in a very long time.

All that said... on the point of out-of-towners co-opting the movement - I kinda get that too. I was recently in South Dakota and talked with a local about all the drama in the 70s on the Pine Ridge rez with AIM et al. There are definitely some folks in the area with a long-standing resentment of out-of-towners - both native and not - stirring shit up in their front yard. Personally it is hard for me to take a side here because I am not native, nor an American citizen, nor do I even feel a close attachment to any place in particular because I have traveled most of my life. But I think it's important for the people who are actively protesting DAPL to remain mindful not to erase the experiences of actual neighborhood residents.