I have been working as a crew person behind the scenes of reality TV shows for over 20 years now. Am I proud of this? Yes and no. The time I have spent hiding microphones inside the clothing of cast members has afforded me a decent life and lots of travel. I’ve been close to thought leaders and global events that have shaped how I view what’s happening in the world. On the flip side my work has allowed millions of people to look around inside the lives of some people who behave badly. I have spent months at a time showing up everyday in the bedrooms and bathrooms of the rich and famous to shoot ‘reality’. My job is to work beside the camera operator to capture their voices clearly using different types of microphones. I amplify their voices. I make the boring daily habits of mostly white privileged people into something that we should all aspire to.
Even more badly behaved than the already famous are the regular folks, the non famous narcissists who make it onto TV to unleash the worst versions of themselves for ratings sake. The Housewives and Bachelors who have bought into this selfish world and normalized a mass psychosis that tells us that to get ahead in life you need to compete without mercy, that greed is good and that the planet is an endless conveyor belt of consumer goods. Basic human decency and care for the earth have been replaced by 15 seconds of fame even if it leads to killing our oceans and employing child slaves in far off lands. TV itself is really no more than bait for advertising consumerism and it can appear immoral from an ecological standpoint.
In contrast, Native Americans rely on the land for food and water and treat it as a sacred resource. Sharing and protecting the abundance of nature is a cultural imperative and a way of life for many in indigenous communities. Before the settler invasion, indigenous folks managed to live below the land’s “carrying capacity” also known as the maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely. The planet needs more humans to behave like this if we are to survive the worst parts of climate change and peak oil.
As of 2016 Energy Transfer Partners, a Dallas-based company, plans to transport North Dakota Bakken oil to Illinois through the Dakota Access Pipeline which crosses the Missouri River. The current route is just a mile upstream from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation and threatens the water health of their people and tens of millions of other non native folks downstream like myself. I live in Missouri and our state would suffer a lot from an inevitable spill in these waters. There were at least 3 large scale oil spills in the US from similar operations in the last 12 months alone.
Despite squeezing natives onto remotely located reservations and starving them of infrastructure, the US government is now allowing businesses to legally pollute and desecrate that land.
This week I take a stand in a way I never have against this bullshit. I’m going to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation peace encampment as a non-native ally. I’m nervous about it. I’m heading to an armed conflict with video gear and work gloves.. The police have the guns and the people only bring hope and prayer. I’m going because their voices need to be amplified and their way of life protected.
I’ll be interviewing folks and recording the daily happenings of the protest just like I would on a reality TV crew. So I’ve come full circle in my life and will use my odd TV super powers for something good finally. Non violent movements like this need allies. Their power to negotiate grows when more people know what’s happening and especially when it’s in the news. Creating a new type of reality on TV may be the best hope we have.
Aaron Murphy works, keeps bees and gardens at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage when he is not producing media for values aligned clients.
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Support the Indigenous led movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline:
http://nodaplsolidarity.org/support-the-camps/
Legal Defense Fund for Sacred Stone Spirit Camp
https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/d19fAf
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