Dan Chu
Dan Chu, Navajo councilman and community leader Daniel Tso, Kendra Pinto local Navajo activist, and Sierra Club organizer Robert Tohe.
Like many of you, I am filled with shame and outrage as I watch the unwarranted brutality North Dakota state police and armed security guards are targeting at the peaceful Water Protectors opposing the Dakota Access oil pipeline. Spraying unarmed men and women in the face with pepper spray, beating them with batons and arresting over 140 people for trespassing are extreme measures taken with the impunity of those who put the profits of oil and gas over the fundamental rights of their fellow human beings.
This must stop, and the Water Protectors must be released from jail. Please take a few minutes and send a message to President Obama urging him to protect the rights and lives of Native Americans by denying the Dakota Access pipeline.
In stark contrast to such brutality against tribal people is the shocking jury decision acquitting the seven heavily armed anti-government militants who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon for over 40 days. In that instance, white men and women carrying loaded weapons were allowed to desecrate tribal burial grounds and artifacts, damage government property and threaten law enforcement officers. Yet they walk away emboldened to continue to use the threat of extreme violence to steal our public lands away from us.
In the face of such a stark inequity what can we all do to ensure that justice will prevail? We must support the hundreds of tribal leaders all across the country who are standing up and defending their rich cultural and spiritual heritage, as well as the very survival of their families.
This summer I traveled to the Arctic Circle, as well as to Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, to meet with tribal leaders and commit the Sierra Club’s unequivocal support for their efforts to protect their homelands from dirty fuel extraction.
This included meeting with the Gwich’in who are pushing to permanently protect the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, home of the largest herd of caribou in the world; the Havasupai who are urging the President to protect the watershed surrounding the Grand Canyon from radioactive uranium mining; joining a gathering of Hopi, Navajo, Ute and other tribal people pushing for a new Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah that would prevent the desecration of ancient burial grounds; and witnessing the pollution of water sources by oil wells encroaching on Navajo sacred lands by Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.
I will never forget the simple yet powerful question my daughter asked me, as a Navajo activist showed us a recent oil tank explosion disaster site only hundreds of feet away from a Navajo family’s home... “Dad, how can anyone treat fellow human beings with such lack of respect?” I told her that when people have an “Us versus Them” attitude, that often results in mistreating others as subhuman. This is why it is so important to our own humanity to stand up for rights of all people, regardless of race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. When we do this in solidarity with others, we will prevail in our shared struggle to protect clean water, fresh air and public places for all.