Lakota Youth in Des Moines: the newest “trading tools”


The following article is written by Brenda Brink, Bakken Pipeline Resistance Coalition Communications Action Team member. Brenda attended an event on March 3rd at Drake University in Des Moines, IA where Lakota youth discussed the Keystone XL Pipeline and the extractive oil industry.

 

Lakota Nation Organized to Stop the KXL “Black Snake”

Beads, blankets (often infected with small pox), guns, alcohol – what does this make you think of? Yes,

these were the trading tools of early colonizers.

On March 3, five Lakota youth, from the Pine Ridge and Rosebud homelands in South Dakota, updated

their audience at Drake University. Modern-day “trading tools” are Tempur-Pedic mattresses. Yes, a

video was shown of TransCanada (Keystone XL pipeline representatives) being shamed out of a meeting

with tribal leaders after having been discovered trying to bribe tribe members with Tempur-Pedic

mattresses.

A critical mass of tribal members on the reservations have started fighting back against the newest

extraction powers-that-be, saying, “We can’t drink oil!”, “Honor the Treaties” and “Respect Us or Expect

Us.”

This ability to stand firm is partly because of sovereignty treaties signed years ago and mostly

because of organizing skills learned through alliances with other Sacred Water groups.

Uranium mining has caused both three times the legal limit of radioactivity and five times the legal limit

of arsenic in many of the Pine Ridge Reservation water sources*, prompting even more determination

to protect their water, also called “first medicine” among Lakota, from further devastation. Even with

water piped in from Pierre, South Dakota, their buffalo, horses, antelope, gardens, and entire way of life

are in danger.

With this determination, the five Lakota youth who shared both cultural and environmental concerns

while at Drake, headed to Pennsylvania to support other anti-fracking, water protection efforts.

*Information about the toxic water on Pine Ridge Reservation: Owe Aku “Bring Back the Way” Sacred

Water Protection Teach-ins” YouTube, from 9/29/12, which features Debra White Plume, Oglala Lakota

Nation elder who exposed TransCanada bribes of tribal members.

More about the matriarchal Lakota on O.Y.A.T.E. Media Network on YouTube, ”OYATE Mednet”

 

Submitted by Brenda Brink