“We decolonize our minds and hearts and re-enchant the world by reversing the process by which we were colonized and disenchanted in the first place: by reconnecting to the land and to each other. By challenging narratives that “other” people of color. By opposing policies that alienate us from our mother earth. By standing in solidarity with American Indians whose lands have been invaded by an oil company. By fighting all encroachments of Big Oil on our lands and our souls.”
Standing Rock
On the day of the 2016 presidential election, Energy Transfer Partners announced that it would begin the final phase of the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which involves drilling under the Missouri River. The pipeline is intended to carry a half million barrels a day of fracked oil over 1,000 miles from the Bakken oil field in North Dakata to Illinois.
The intended path of the pipeline runs through the Great Sioux Reservation. In addition to violating sacred burial lands of the Sioux people, it threatens the drinking water of 18 million people, including residents of the Standing Rock Reservation, located just a half mile to the south. The pipeline was previously planned to run north of Bismarck, but was relocated, in part, due to concerns about the safety of the drinking water of the (white) Bismarck residents.
Thousands of indigenous and non-indigenous people have now…
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Unsettling America 