I wasn't there. I was busy in the kitchen keeping food prepared and helping to coordinate supplies for the front line, but the images of the police brutality at the Back Water Bridge will be burnt into my psyche forever.
It was a frosty and cold night in North Dakota, the oil companies had hundreds of soldiers, and police on the bridge. They had water cannons and rubber bullets, we had prayers.
The mercenaries fired round after round of tear gas, one canister blowing a woman's arm mostly off. Less than lethal rounds intentionally fired at head level caused many to lose vision and eyes that night.
The people of the USA would shudder to think of the images which came through the livestreams that night. It's still fresh three years later. And again, I was back in camp. Not on the front lines.
Many of those who stood on this day cope with ptsd caused by being fired on by your own national guard. They, like me, are doing what they can to bounce back from living an Orwellian nightmare.
Now the oil companies want to more than double the flow of oil through the pipeline. The pipeline which has already leaked a dozen times. The level of greed and disregard shown by our government is a declaration of hate. Forcing poisonous water onto marginalized communities is a part of everyday life in the USA. All the while forgiving environmental racism.
I will always fight back. There is no surrender in this fight for the survival of indigenous peoples. We are steadily abandoned by policy and government. We have to fight for every human right which are simply granted to colonizers.
Still, we stand.
