#LaDonna Brave Bull Allard

[charring58]

#Waterprotectors are activists, organizers, and cultural workers focused on the defense of the world's water and water systems. The water protector name, analysis and style of activism arose from Indigenous communities in North America during the #DakotaAccessPipeline protests at the #StandingRockReservation, which began with an encampment on LaDonna Brave Bull Allard's land in April, 2016.[1

[nawhdigitalproject]

Documentary: "End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock"

"A group of Indigenous women risks their lives to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which jeopardizes their land, water and entire way of life." - IMDB

FEATURING: Environmental activists and water protectors including LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, Phyllis Young, Madonna Thunder Hawk, and Waste Win Young.

[leftist-unification-official]

We appreciate all the women who came before us and those in our lives now.

[hedgewitchgarden]

"We have been under oppression for so long. We’re not going to sleep again. We have awakened. And at this point, we are going to change the world."

— LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, Water Protector, activist, historian, educator, Lakota

[wocinsolidarity]

“I think it’s in all of our best interests to take on gender violence as a core resurgence project, a core decolonization project, a core of any Indigenous mobilization…This begins for me by looking at how gender is conceptualized and actualized within Indigenous thought because it is colonialism that has imposed an artificial gender binary in my nation.” —Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

Despite our profound contributions to our own communities and the nation as a whole, Native American stories and voices have been long ignored by mainstream social culture. Native Americans—and Native American women, trans, and nonbinary folks in particular—face a unique set of oppressions, including the ongoing impacts of settler colonialism. Settler colonialism works to erase Indigenous people, both literally and culturally: from physical war and violence, to removal from lands, to forced assimilation. These histories continue to render Native Americans and Native issues nearly invisible to the national eye. Even within intersectional feminist discussions and organizing, I find myself thinking, where are the radical Indigenous feminists? Why are our stories not valued and our voices not more amplified?

This erasure may lull us into believing that there simply aren’t Indigenous feminists who are as prolific as Audre Lorde or Gloria Anzaldúa. But this is far from the truth. From Sydney Freeland, a Navajo filmmaker who focuses on stories about trans communities, to Sarah Deer, a Muscogee (Creek) lawyer fighting violence against Native women, these activists, writers, creators, and scholars fight for justice for Indigenous people and for the voices of their communities.

[onceuponawildflower]

No matter what you believe in, please come together in prayer. Protect the people who came first. Their camps are currently being raided, live feeds have been disrupted. Independent news and media sources have been told that they are at just as much risk for being arrested (or attacked) as he water protectors. Unfortunately we know what the police and National Guard have done to protectors in sub below weather, and I am especially concerned about how they will treat the people left at the camps now. Please take a moment now to pray. Pray continuously throughout the day. Please, please, please pray and share any live feeds w can access. Do not let law enforcement brutalize people. Do not become apathetic. Stand up. Send your prayers up. Share. Make noise. Never give up. Mni Wiconi.

[voicesbook]

Wulfgang and a bunch of our loves are going to be at this 3 day skill share event on Coast Salish Territory.  Click the headers to get the full info.  Maybe see you there!! xo

Voices from the Sacred Fire: Indigenous Land Defenders Speak ~~~ With Freda Huson (Unist’ot’en) ~~~ Ladonna Brave Bull Allard (Standing Rock Sioux) ~~~ Richard Wright (Madii Lii)  ~~~ Brandon Gabriel (Kwantlen)~~~Kachina Bige (Lutsel'ke Dené) ~~~~ Sakej Ward (Mi’kmaw) ~~~ Kanahus Pelkey (Secwepemc)

Stoking the Sacred Fire: Mobilization for Indigenous Land Defense Saturday March 25 and Sunday March 26, 2017 From 9 am to 5 pm Location: The Hall at 1739 Venables Street (at Commercial Drive) Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

When LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, a citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, learned of what she called “the black snake” — a 1,170-mile-long underground pipeline that would stretch from the shale oil fields of northwest North Dakota to Illinois — she volunteered the use of her land to establish a resistance camp.

That camp became the base for a global protest movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline, which Ms. Allard said would veer too close to sacred burial grounds, including the grave of one of her sons; could contaminate the region’s water supplies if it ever leaked; and violated longstanding treaties between Native Americans and the federal government.

The movement stood not only for stopping the pipeline but also against excavating fossil fuels in general while embracing tribal sovereignty, environmental justice and the protection of water sources everywhere.

Ms. Allard died on April 10 at her home in Fort Yates, N.D. She was 64. Her family announced the death online; local media outlets said the cause was brain cancer.

She established Sacred Stone Camp at Standing Rock at the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers in March 2016. Neighbors starting bringing food, coffee and wood for a small core group. Indigenous youth spread the word across social media.

Within months, the resistance had turned into a cultural movement, with thousands of people — members of other tribes, environmental and civil rights activists, politicians — joining in, tucking into tents, tepees and trailers in similar camps across the prairie.

[betasunkern]

“We are fulfilling prophesy now. The prophesies our people told 500 years ago are coming to pass. I see them before my eyes. Nothing is going to go back. We can only change. My whole idea is to have the world change their worldview, that maybe we can live with the Earth instead of destroying the Earth.”

- Tamakawastewin aka LaDonna Brave Bull Allard

[disillusioned41]

Democracy Now! Jul 7, 2020 

“A Dream That Comes True”: Standing Rock Elder Hails Order to Shut Down DAPL After Years of Protest

Following years of resistance, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Indigenous organizers across the country scored a massive legal victory Monday when a federal judge ordered the Dakota Access Pipeline to be shut down and emptied of all oil, pending an environmental review. “You ever have a dream, a dream that comes true? That is what it is,” responds LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, an elder of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and founder of Sacred Stone Camp, where resistance in 2016 brought tens of thousands of people to oppose the pipeline’s construction on sacred lands. We also speak with Ojibwe lawyer Tara Houska, founder of the Giniw Collective.

[nawhdigitalproject]

In Honor and Remembrance of LaDonna Brave Bull Allard: Founder of Sacred Stones Camp at Standing Rock and Matriarch of the Water Protector Movement

"LaDonna is an inspiration to the world. She showed me what true solidarity meant in being a Water Protector. LaDonna showed up to most of the state and all of the federal defendants court cases! She gave so much of herself, selflessly. LaDonna will be missed. Please guide us to protect the world and the people. We honor you LaDonna." - Leoyla Cowboy, executive director of WPLC

"LaDonna had the vision to imagine the resistance, the courage to call for it ,the resilience to stand tall and be an inspiring leader throughout, the comradeship to stand with all who were there and who came to defend them, and now is with the stars where her light still shines so brightly radiating her grace and honor and love." - Jeffery Haas

"Ladonna gave us all permission to become our most dignified and greatest selves. The courage she developed; forged through the fires of her life as an Indigenous Dakota woman, and the barriers she overcame. She taught us all to be brave and healed our collective spirits. To release the fear and stand. She would say, 'We stand, not because we want to, but because we have to, we have no other choice.'" - Michelle Cook

[ritchiepage2001newaccount]

#HailCaesar #BirtherInChief #CorpMedia #Idiocracy #Oligarchs #MegaBanks vs #Union #Occupy #NoDAPL #BLM #SDF #DACA #MeToo #Humanity #DemExit

#WriteInBernie

We stand in solidarity with Rojava, an example to the world [W/BACKGROUND]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/01/we-stand-in-solidarity-with-rojava-an-example-to-the-world

Leaders from social movements, communities and First Nations from around the world, including LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, Eve Ensler and Stuart Basden on the Turkish invasion in north-east Syria...

RELATED: Rojava - A Syrian Kurdish Democracy

https://thekurdishproject.org/history-and-culture/kurdish-democracy/rojava-democracy/

RELATED: Introduction to the Political and Social Structures of Democratic Autonomy in Rojava

https://mesopotamia.coop/introduction-to-the-political-and-social-structures-of-democratic-autonomy-in-rojava/

RELATED: What the Syrian Kurds Have Wrought

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/10/kurds-rojava-syria-isis-iraq-assad/505037/

RELATED UPDATE: Can Syria's Kurds reel in Turkey with profits from American oil deal?

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/08/syria-oil-deal-delta-kurds-sdf-kobane-backstory-turkey.html

RELATED UPDATE: Volatile and Vulnerable - Inside Rojava’s Conflict

https://nationsmedia.org/inside-rojavas-conflict/

RELATED UPDATE: Rojava sees record number of new coronavirus cases on eve of holiday

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/300720201

RELATED UPDATE: Rojava sees coronavirus spike as it struggles to impose preventative measures

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/07082020

RELATED UPDATE: Hasaka residents rely on wells amid water shortages

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/180820201

RELATED UPDATE: Rojava struggles to keep water flowing as coronavirus cases climb

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/21082020

RELATED UPDATE: Repair works at Rojava oilfields ‘impossible’ without US support: senior Kurdish politician

https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/22082020

RELATED UPDATE: https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/26082020

[hedgewitchgarden]

"We have been under oppression for so long. We’re not going to sleep again. We have awakened. And at this point, we are going to change the world."

— Ladonna Brave Bull Allard, Lakota historian and activist

[berniesrevolution]

What follows are excerpts from Working People, a podcast by Maximilian Alvarez in which ordinary people talk about their lives, jobs, struggles, and aspirations. These excerpts accompany Max’s essay “Can The Working Class Speak?”

JESUS ALVAREZ on losing everything, driving for Uber

Maximilian Alverez:

I’m curious to know, because we talked about it a lot over this conversation, and you’ve lived such an interesting life, and have come such a long way from that garage in Guadalajara, when your mom passed away, when you were six. And so, jumping closer to the present, you’ve said a number of times that the Great Recession that really kind of hit in 2008, and the after effects that we’re still dealing with in significant ways, that this was kind of the real — this was the big meteor type of event, for you, for our family, and for a lot of working families around the country, and around the world. I guess, how did that translate on the real estate side that you were on?

Jesus Alverez:

That’s been, I think, to me, the most frustrating portion, that I worked all these years in real estate to provide, and have always been able to. When the real estate market crashed, unfortunately, I tell people that never in a million years would I think that I’d be one of the casualties, because I handled property owned by the banks, the bank owned properties and stuff like that. So never in a million years did I think that our family would be one of the casualties. But as it turned out, when the market crashed, we lost some rental property, we lost the office building that I was a partner in. The business crashed, Mom’s business crashed, and as you know, we ended up losing our house. And that is super hard to get over, to think that we worked so hard to achieve whatever status we have. To have it all — it’s like water going down your arms, dripping at your elbows [laughs]. The only way I can describe it is “it’s all gone, it’s disappeared.” And it’s been tough to get back, really tough mentally. Because no one wants to talk about what happens personally, ourselves included. It’s depressing, it’s embarrassment, all that kind of stuff. And I was surprised that when we went through all of this, everybody was too busy with their lives. Nobody really reached out to see where we were at, or throw us a lifeboat or whatever. But I realized, every family’s got to survive. But having gone through all of this, having achieved what I thought was success, and then to have it all go away, and now kind of re-starting, I think it’s a big thing, swallowing my pride, to go back out there and start all over. But we still have our health, we’re still here. I always look at it as though I am a boxer — we’re still in the ring. I’m old and I’m fat, but I’m like George Foreman. I still got a good overhand right… I’m hoping to land a good right on a good deal, and get us started back up. Which I think it will. I’ve got to call my mom again.

But it’s interesting, now I’m driving a little bit for Uber. And when I went to apply or whatever, a lot of the people I saw were people my age, or older. And statistics show that a lot of people driving, or these kinds of things, are people who need secondary, or people who have lost a lot of stuff. I always thought it was just going to be the younger people, but no, it’s a lot of people my age or older, and it’s sad. As I talk to a lot of the passengers, interesting when I talk to a lot of them, because I’m pretty good at getting the conversation going now, and so I talked to several who have lost their house or whatever. And I’m thinking man, they’ve gone through the same thing, and I can relate to the emotions they went through, the depression. I think the main thing for me is that I realized is that we went through some depression. And so we’re finally, I think, over that curve, and we’re working our way back up. But I think unless you go through something like that, it’s really hard. And maybe we didn’t reach out for the help that we should have.

[…] Just two days ago, I picked up a lady at a restaurant. She was about my age, and we start talking. She’s from Mexico. And we started talking about how when she got married, her husband left the family to come to the United States, so he could try to find a job to provide. I think she said it was 1984 and he was making $3 an hour, sending the money back. And she was trying to raise I think three kids down there with the goal of eventually bringing them over. And then eventually, they were able to save enough and stuff for them to come over. But then one of the sons didn’t want to come to the United States, he wanted to stay in Mexico or whatever. It’s a little bit sad how our families get torn up. Torn up just trying for betterment, the Mexican culture or whatever. That’s what people don’t realize. We don’t want to just come over to come over and take jobs. It’s for survival. Any family would do the same thing just to provide for their family, which is hard. Nobody wants to leave their family behind. But if it was turned around to the other cultures, they would do the same thing. They would do whatever they have to do to provide for their family. And that’s the part they don’t talk about. We’re not trying to do anything that nobody else would do. We’re just trying to provide for your families, even at the tough part of ripping the families apart. Because there’s unfortunately there’s not enough economics in Mexico or other countries to provide. People don’t want to split their families up just to do it. And it’s sad when I talk to some of these people, and this lady. She’s gone through a lot. Her family had been split. Her husband is over here, she’s over there in Mexico trying to raise the kids and stuff like that, and it’s like, man. We all got our stories, and a lot of those like that.

LADONNA BRAVE BULL ALLARD on survival

LBBA: 

I am the first in my family to ever attend college, and that was through the love and grace of my grandma. I am the first in my family to graduate college. My sister was second. And all that I learned going to school was “America needs to be educated.” We need to know the truth of what is really happening here. We need to start looking at our economics, because right now, my reality: I am a widow. I live on a widow’s benefit. It’s barely enough to make my monthly payments. I have to figure out how to, at 63 years old, how to make a little extra money to get all my bills paid. I plant my own garden. I gather roots and berries, and prepare for winter. I have a wood stove, so we gather wood. But at 63 years old, there are other people who are sitting back, in their retirement, having a very comfortable life. That is not our reality. It is not how we live. When we have people here on the reservation living without electricity, without running water — people are hauling their water — we live in a different world than the rest of America, our own home, our own homeland, where the roots grow out of our feet. Where we can tell the history of this land for thousands and thousands of years. To be pushed until America makes us invisible. And so I am pushing back. I am saying, “I am alive. We are still here.” We have our hands out saying, “let us teach you how to live on this land. Let us teach you how to respect the water. Let us teach you how to respect the land. We can do this for the betterment of the world, we do this so your grandchildren’s grandchildren can drink clear, clean water.” We are standing here offering our help.

We have never ever been an aggressor, we have only been defenders of this land. And we will continue to defend the land and the water. So growing up, that is how I grew up. I grew up a very difficult Indian childhood. Foster homes. Boarding schools. My two younger brothers were farmed out to a farm, and they were able to return home. Does America really know their own history, their own background?

Maximilian Alverez: 

I really don’t think that many do. I’m so gripped by everything that you’re saying. Not only your work as a historian, but as you’re saying, the very kind of way of life, sustainable, communal way of life, these forms of knowledge that, you said, you have to teach the rest of America, even though the rest of America not only doesn’t know, but often doesn’t even see that these forms of living, that these communities are even there. So it seemed that for a moment, over the past few years, that with the No DAPL movement, that more Americans were starting to learn. Do you feel that — and you started by saying what a lot of people around the country who are protesting the separation of families at the border, is that this has been going on in Native communities for centuries.

LBBA: 

Since 1492.

(Continue Reading)

[journeydb]

November 1 2020 Boulder

It’s National Native American Heritage month!  I am grateful for the First Peoples who inhabited and continue to live in the United States and other countries of the world.  They represent a myriad of beautiful, strong, resilient cultures which survived the onslaught of colonialism and “Manifest Destiny” and continue to thrive today, despite the attempts by many European empires to eradicate  and exterminate them.

The government of the United States has broken almost every treaty it entered into with the First Nations and continues to try to take land away from First Nations whenever any kind of natural resources are found on tribal lands.  I applaud the work of Native American tribes on behalf of Mother Earth and for their steadfastness in protecting our water, air, and public lands.

Native Americans also have served in the U.S. military.  They often gave their lives to fight for a country which betrayed them, murdered their ancestors, and stole their land. Their hope has always been that by fighting fascism, nationalism, and autocracy abroad and at home they could help build  a better world for us all.  Many of us are in this fight with them.  As allies, we learn much about ourselves and our complicity in continuing to perpetuate systems of oppression, and we work to dismantle those systems and create new, better systems which offer justice, equity, diversity, and inclusivity to us all. 

If you have never been to a Native American gathering, often called pow-wows, and have the opportunity to do so, I highly recommend that you make the effort, because they are awesome.  The music, singing, and dancing are enthralling and their clothing is amazing!

Native Americans work in every sector of the economy and many are business owners.  Their clothing, jewelry, pottery, and art are unique and much of it has been made for thousands of years by tribes which lived in the U.S. long before Europeans arrived.

Native Americans are leading the movement to save our public lands, water, air, and natural resources from being exploited for profit by the big fossil fuel companies, paper companies, and other corporations.  One example recently of a stand they took, which became well known around the world, was at Standing Rock near the reservation of the Lakota and Dakota Sioux.

The story, according to Wikipedia is:

���The Dakota Access Pipeline Protests, also called by the hashtag #NoDAPL, began in early 2016 as a grassroots opposition to the construction of Energy Transfer Partners' Dakota Access Pipeline in the northern United States. The pipeline runs from the Bakken oil fields in Western North Dakota to Southern Illinois, crossing beneath the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, as well as under part of Lake Oahe near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. Many members of the Standing Rock tribe and surrounding communities consider the pipeline to be a serious threat to the region's water. The construction also directly threats ancient burial grounds and cultural sites of historic importance.

In April 2016, youth from Standing Rock and surrounding Native American communities organized a campaign to stop the pipeline, calling themselves, "ReZpect Our Water".  Inspired by the youth, several adults, including Joye Braun of the Indigenous Environmental Network and tribal historian LaDonna Brave Bull Allard established a water protectors' camp as a center for direct action, demonstrating spiritual resistance to the pipeline in both a defense of Indigenous sovereignty and cultural preservation. The #NoDAPL hashtag began to trend on social media and the camps at Standing Rock gradually grew to thousands of people.

Conflict between water protectors and law enforcement escalated through the summer and fall. In September 2016, construction workers bulldozed a section of privately owned land which the tribe had claimed as sacred ground. When protesters trespassed into the area, security workers used attack dogs which bit at least six of the demonstrators and one horse.  In October 2016, militarized police cleared an encampment which was situated on the proposed path of the pipeline.  In November 2016, police used water cannons on protesters in freezing weather, consequently drawing significant media attention.

Continued conflicts and resulting attention on social media led to increasing national and global support for the protests. High profile activists, celebrities, and politicians spoke out in support of the tribe, including President Barack Obama, senator Bernie Sanders, and presidential candidate Jill Stein. Standing Rock Chairman David Archambault II addressed the tribe's positions at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. In December 2016, under President Barack Obama's administration, the Corps of Engineers denied an easement for construction of the pipeline under the Missouri River, though this decision was reversed the following month by the incoming administration of President Donald Trump.The pipeline was completed by April 2017, and its first oil was delivered on May 14.

In March 2020, a United States District Judge ruled that the government had not adequately studied the pipeline's "effects on the quality of the human environment", and ordered the United States Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a new environmental impact review.  In July 2020, a District Court judge issued a ruling for the pipeline to be shut down and emptied of oil pending a new environmental review. The temporary shutdown order was overturned by a U.S. appeals court on August 5, though the environmental review was ordered to continue.  The pipeline continues to operate.”

And people continue to protest.  Many have no choice.  This travesty and many like it affect their lives on a daily basis. 

The least we as allies can do is to stand in solidarity with Native American and other indigenous communities and to continue to support their efforts in any way we can.  What is happening at Standing Rock is repeating itself all over the world and we are in the midst of a global movement to save our Earth and Her water, air, land, people, animals and plants from the onslaught of the military-industrial complex and the damage wrought by these forces.  The Standing Rock protests opened many people’s eyes and more are joining this movement all the time.  The election this month will be an example of that enlightenment and we can only hope that the forces of Good win out, for the benefit of us all.