“Support the Blue”

(Yoon Seok-Hee)

Last night I went to a prayer vigil at the Morton County Jail for the Native Americans and the clergy who were arrested for crossing the police line. The vigil was met by a dozen protesters who help up signs that said: “Support the Blue.” I went and spoke to them.

Their arguments were simple. “They are vandalizing North Dakota,” “they are violent instigators from other states,” and “their tribal leaders are lying to them.” Their perceptions were very different from the stories shared around the sacred fire where community elders speak every night at an open mic.

“The road is made of oil, our clothes are made of oil, your clothes are made of oil, cars run on oil,” the man said. “You want to get rid of oil? You want to go back to being the stone age?” “Of course not,” I said. “But how do you feel about climate change?” “The weather has always been changing, and we can’t change our way of life because the weather ‘might’ be changing.”

On Friday, the camp reached ten thousand people. Many of them are here for the weekend, but more will stay longer and more will keep coming. Between the Water Protectors and the side of “law and order,” there exists an irreconcilable difference.

If and when the federal court decides that the Dakota Access Pipeline is legal and should be completed, the Protectors will not leave. When the side of law and order say that we need to continue extracting, bottling, moving, marketing, selling, and disposing of natural resources for income and progress, the Protectors will disagree. I cannot see a middle ground.

On November 18th, North Dakota will be the first state in the United States to fly militarized police drones over its citizens. The empire, as it always does, comes home to roost.