So, the question everyone’s asking me this week is: What now?
I don’t have a great answer—the Trump saga will play out over time, and we’ll be learning how to resist as we go along. But resist we will.
I do know that the election last Tuesday made this Tuesday’s demonstrations in support of Standing Rock even more important. We’ll be gathering in nearly 200 cities worldwide to demand that the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Obama Administration, do their jobs and reject the Dakota Access Pipeline‘s final permit.
We don’t know if we can make President Obama act—so far he’s been noncommittal and vague. And we don’t know if Trump would simply overturn his actions if he took them. But we do know that now more than ever we have to stand by our allies, and make our battles loud and public.
The ugly side of the American psyche that’s propelled Trump to the presidency is nothing new to Indigenous people. It’s nothing new to people of color, to immigrants, to the vulnerable and the marginalized. This is a time for drawing together the many threads of our resistance—to fossil fuels, yes, but also and just as importantly to widespread hatred.
Solidarity with Indigenous leadership—in Standing Rock and beyond—is more important today, not less. The original inhabitants of this continent have been pepper-sprayed and shot with rubber bullets, maced and attacked by guard dogs, all for peacefully standing up for their sovereign rights, and for the world around us. If we can’t rally in support of them—well, that would be shameful.
I wish I had some magic words to make the gobsmacked feeling go away. But I can tell you from experience that taking action, joining with others to protest, heals some of the sting.
And throughout history, movements like ours have been the ones to create lasting change—not a single individual or president. That’s the work we’ll get back to, together.
So, what’s next? Showing our solidarity with Standing Rock. Please join me and thousands of others across the world Nov. 15.
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