As I have noted on this blog before (here and here), America is not done with Native Americans yet. You might have imagined that banishment to impoverished reservations was the final insult to historical injury, but apparently much work, like the denial of clean drinking water–the provision of which in certain communities seems increasingly beyond the capacities of our great republic–remains to be accomplished.
Ever since the Standing Rock NODAPL protests began–inviting an impatient, intolerant response by local law-enforcement authorities–a superficial sense of unreality has pervaded proceedings: Are we really, seriously, in the process of yet again violating another treaty with Native Americans? Have we no shame? Matters have worsened, of course. In a delightfully old-fashioned move, one evoking nostalgia for days gone by, as air temperatures have dropped below freezing on the North Dakota plains, police have used water cannon on protesters at nighttime. Some German shepherd dogs and some tobacco-chewing cops speaking in Southern accents were all that were missing from those classic American mise-en-scènes; these provided a salutary contrast to images of policemen chatting with those brave pioneers who occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon earlier this year, and desecrated Native American lands in the process. Sooner or later, the strong arm of the law will descend on the Standing Rock protesters to evict them; their presence is an embarrassment to those who have routed the Dakota Access Pipeline through Native American lands, and to all those who let them do so.
The history of past interactions with the Native American in this land is so sorrowful and shameful, so redolent of betrayal, that the very idea of a paleface not speaking with forked tongue when it comes to land treaties strikes most dispassionate observers as risible. You’d imagine that under these sorts of historical circumstances, politicians would consider it easy to go out on a rhetorical limb, and utter protestations about the need to redress past wrongs, to correct injustice, to suggest there might have been an implicit national agreement–a moral one–to the effect of ‘Never Again.’ Apparently not. For instance, during the election season, Hillary Clinton could only offer a familiar, mealy-mouthed, triangulated response; that attempt at cultivating that mythical creature, the ‘moderate Republican’ failed, and needless to say, it did little to suggest the Standing Rock protests were distinctive in any way. Meanwhile, Barack Obama, perhaps trying not to disrupt his carefully cultivated image as a measured, unflappable, reconciler of extremes, has stayed well above the fray, not deigning to put his considerable presidential authority and prestige on the line in speaking up for the protesters. But time is running out; the Oval Office will soon be occupied by a Wall Street bootlicker; and further waves of exploitation of lands out West will soon commence. The president has nothing to lose, and much to gain. Speaking up on behalf of, and intervening by any means necessary, shouldn’t just be thought of as a political tactic; it should be a moral imperative.
Note: In saying the above, I do not mean to suggest that protests are reliant, dependent on, or cannot proceed without the White House speaking up on their behalf; it would be just, how you say, nice to see a display of moral backbone from those quarters.
