week 15 reflection

This week's readings discussed the role of indigenous women in activism.  According to the LaDuke article, indigenous women understand that the struggle for autonomy is directly related to the need for total structural change in society.  She believes that these women can get through the "long struggle' because they take on the perspective of Earth Renewal rather than the end of the world.  The Strauss article discusses the way in which southwestern Lousiana coastline communities are treated as if they're "not there" as oil and gas companies continually use those locations as sites for pollution, violations of environmental regulation, and dangerous waste disposal.  These companies go as far as using unethical techniques of land grabbing to secure their goals at the expense of the health and livelihoods of locals.  The TallBear article highlights the way in which social media can be used to promote issues of indigenous rights like #NoDAPL, and how this movement links the protection of indigenous peoples to protection of the earth, environment, and land.

A common theme this week was the blatant disregard for the health or safety of certain groups and communities, particularly those who have been settled here longer than anyone else.  The U.S. is so desperate to whitewash its history that it denies the rights of indigenous people because the U.S. government and many racist or colonialist residents would rather give these people's land to wealthy white business owners rather than protect and acknowledge its origins.  Even the land that indigenous are able to remain on, they are still essentially being forced out through other routes as oil companies put dangerous pipelines and plants through their land, forcing them to either suffer the health and environmental consequences or relocate elsewhere.

Keywords:
ETP - company that built the Dakota Access Pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners
Bold Louisiana - A Native American-led group stemming from the group that originally organized to prevent the Keystone XL Pipeline project.
#NoDAPL - movement at Standing Rock to protect water and land from the Dakota Access Pipeline