Like most Bernie Sanders fans my age, I
got all excited when I saw those Facebook posts about “checking in” with the
Standing Rock pipeline protest in North Dakota.
The chants from participating in the
School of the Americas protests years ago came back to me. “North and South the
people say Close the SOA.”
I’m 55 and the heart of my religious
convictions revolve around social justice. It’s the part of my faith that speaks
to me the loudest. That and Mary. And Jesus.
Anywho, not to go on a religious rant here
(because I really want to go on a humanity rant), but I spent a good part of my
morning today reading a bunch of Google search articles about the Standing Rock
pipeline protests. I read stories about how Native Americans from across the
country are coming to protest, about how young people are involved, about how
police are marking those they arrest with numbers (sort of like days of old). I
read a couple of stories about how other North Dakotans think the protesters
are a nuisance, even Native American North Dakotans.
I don’t know a lot about Native American
culture. I’ve spent about 43 minutes of my life considering what it must feel
like to be part of a native culture where your ancestors once roamed an entire
good-sized continent and now you are all relegated to tiny “reservations” in
places where no one else really flocks to settle, where life at best appears to
be pretty damn difficult.
I’m not even going to pretend to
understand what it feels like to live in North Dakota, when I complain if the
picture I’m trying to take with my cell phone on Martha’s Vineyard gets
obscured by an errant sea gull.
I fell for all those Facebook posts
because I was so glad to read that my friends had made the decision to stand in
solidarity with the protesters there. Part of me felt guilty for not being
there with them. I thought about looking up how much available credit I had on
my various cards to see if I could manage a plane ticket to join them.
Then I found out they weren’t actually
there but had joined a social media event to express their support. And then I
thought, “Man, why didn’t I know about this?” That led to me admonishing myself
for not being connected, for not noticing what was happening in North Dakota
all those months ago. Along with social justice, my faith brings a hefty dose
of guilt, which I might add, isn’t always a bad thing. Not if it moves you to
action. I’m going to keep reading about North Dakota. Both sides because that’s
the newspaper in me. But I care and if standing there at the gates of the SOA
taught me anything, it’s the beauty of thousands of people gathered together to
say something just isn’t right.
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