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Update: Standing Rock Sioux Progress Towards Justice

9/24/2016

2 Comments

 
What a difference 3 weeks makes!  Since I first blogged about the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Native American protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, the situation looked bleak.  I mean really horrifying with protesters bitten by security dogs drawing blood and attacked by pepper spray awful.  But since then the movement has netted real results.  And I hope this march towards justice achieves its aim.

Most recent, 1,200 archaeologists wrote a letter to President Obama condemning the damage to our cultural heritage of one of the most significant sites in North Dakota that the Pipeline LLC company did by bulldozing Tribal burial grounds.  This is the incident that led to the above atrocities...and the fact that the Dakota Pipeline company did it without permission from the Army Corps of Engineers and ONE DAY AFTER the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed the location of these sacred sites makes them as I've opined before: corporate psychopaths.  So huzzah  for the experts agreeing.

Most importantly, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has received an even greater step/win with an official halt on pipeline construction order from a Federal Appeals court, which is significant because the Obama Administration letter was only a request in support of a stoppage.  Not to mention the protest at the White House over this issue (raised profile is a good thing for justice!) or the consultations with the administration.

Having read a lot of Brene Brown lately, I am beginning to understand the power of shame to prevent conversations that desperately need to happen.  As a white person, I believe it's important to recognize the impediment fear of shame brings to this conversation and acknowledge this history so we can start to do right.  This video handles the subject with humor (which I always appreciate).  Worth a watch...what did you think?  
2 Comments
Mike
9/26/2016 08:24:43 am

Shame is powerful. I was shamed alot as a child to remove my accent, to think in more American ways, to dress in a certain manner to fit it corporate culture and to move ahead -- "norms" that my family at the time couldn't afford or didn't understand as immigrants in America.


Also as powerful is the issuance of direction / command from positions of power. "You should dress this way," "You should think this way," "You should vote this way." It's probably a driver that will one day force me to migrate away from California, as the society becomes less tolerant of non-majority beliefs.

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Megan link
9/28/2016 07:10:20 am

I've become increasingly less tolerant of shaming behaviors...and one of the shame resilience techniques I learned from Brene Brown has helped...primarily to identify them when they happen particularly for others. I met with one of my best friends last Friday and her 9-week old newborn and I made sure to mention even though I get "shoulds", it's nowhere near the frequency of what she has....she was saying a lot of people are saying she "should' join a mommy group, but the current health situation for her baby makes it hard to plan to be anywhere at a certain time...anyways. I think resiliency in the face of "should" is one of the most important educations I've learned. I learned it the hard way and hope it's not as hard for me as it was for others :)

On the California thing though...California is already a majority minority state since it's less than 50% white now. Do you think it's getting less tolerant of diversity as it's shifting? That's an interesting trend and counter to what I would've guessed.....and having lived in DC where diverse populations live really separate from one another...I always admired California for being relatively better than elsewhere in the US for integration (e.g. my high school group of friends had a lot of hispanic, asian peeps...and a gal who's egyptian and muslim which I consider as awesome and core to my formation in valuing diversity and being a relatively inclusive person). Never lived on the Southside of Chicago though...so I'm probably wrong :)

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