below is a collection of events and stories of racial, social, & ENVIRONMENTAL justice work from across the country
These stories are impacting all of us in one way or another, and we need to make sure we know what’s happening around us so we can better love and advocate for others and move forward together in healing and equality. May these stories inform, empower, challenge, and push you into action.
Line 3
Over the month of Oct I was commissioned to put together a video in partnership with Samantha Cooper a Singer/Song Writer and Activist. I created the music below to the song “Let the Wave” by Samantha to pay tribute to all Water Protectors and to raise awareness about about the pipeline.
Tar Sands oil is flowing…but the fight isn’t over
PIPELINE UPDATE FROM DEc 2021 AND OCT 2022
The pipeline is officially flowing oil yet the battle to stop Line 3 continues. Legal battles are ongoing and actions are taking place all over the state from outside banks, at politicians homes, at government buildings, & at drill/pump stations in northern Minnesota.
There continues to be frack-out spills and other chemicals poisoning the water where Enbridge construction of the line went through critical and sensative wetlands and Wild Rise lakes.
Around Oct 1Oth hundreds of activists, indigenous elders, and allies arrived in DC demanding climate justice and an end to Line 3. They arrived on Indigenous Peoples Day (2021) and over 500 people were arrested.
Things continue to unfold even now at the ned of 2022 and into 2023. Follow the accounts here to keep date with the fight HERE , HERE, STOP LINE 3 (INSTAGRAM),& indigenousrising. Through these accounts and the one links to the right you can also be informed with other movements for out planets around the country.
8 Reasons to stop Line 3
Pipeline construction work directly connects missing, and murdered Indigenous women #MMIWat least four Enbridge construction workers have been arrested for sex trafficking. This pipeline is literally killing Indigenous people.
Tar sand oil is the dirtiest sand in the world and emits over 90 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year, equivalent to the daily emissions of 16-18 million cars.
Along with the CO2 emitting into the atmosphere, it has a massive chance of spilling and leaking poison into the 200+ waterways this pipeline is going through. A spill could poison 80% of the US's fresh water. There have been 9+ frackouts in waterways and chemical spills in wetlands already.
This pipeline is being built through indigenous treaty land. Treaties have the supreme law of the land according to the US Constitution. Native nations have openly opposed this pipeline going through their land, yet their voices are not being listened to. And they are being arrested, harmed, and attacked for defending their land.
A foreign nation, Canada, has a corporation coming into the USA and taking over 5 billion gallons of water from the state of MN to build this pipeline, all while MN is in an extreme drought.
Wild rice is a critical crop for many indigenous communities and the economy of part of Minnesota. The pipeline construction is draining wild rice lakes and has a high chance of poisoning the water that the rice grows in. Line 3 along Enbridge's preferred route would/is impacting 389 acres of wild rice in 17 wild rice waterbodies.
Enbridge is also paying off US police forces to defend this pipeline, making them a hired private security force. This foreign nation has US Police attacking, brutalizing, arresting, tear gassing, rubber bulleting, and harassing its citizens.
Read about this HERE: The Guardian.com
This pipeline is going from Canada through MN to be exported to China. This oil isn't clean enough to be used for cars and has no benefits to the US economy. It's a dying form of energy that many companies and corporations are divesting from. This new pipeline is being built to line the corporation's pockets, squeezing a few pennies out of this oil before it's abandoned.
*** Please read in more detail the issues with this pipeline, HERE at Stopline3.org/issues ***
Testimonals from the Front Line
Jaike Spotted Wolf
Please donate to this amazing front line activist / water protector who is putting her body on the line and who gave up of her time and energy to share this with us:
Venmo: @Jaike-SpottedWolf
Cashapp: $JaikeSpottedWolf
"That the trafficking and exploitation of Indigenous people- mostly women, teen girls and boys, all along pipelines in this country wasn't the end of the discussion is baffling.
Wildfires are burning at faster rates in the U.S. then ever before. Flooding is happening in places that have never seen floods. Record high temps in the PNW, Siberia and throughout the globe. Record droughts in areas where rivers and lakes used to flourish.
The money that American citizens think will come to local economies is a fever dream at best. Enbridge is a foreign company. The oil from these pipelines will be shipped overseas. Pipeline workers are transient and send their money back to the communities they live in across state lines-- not in the states where locals voted the pipelines because they thought it would pump money into the economy for years to come.
So the land will be destroyed by rising temperatures caused by carbon emissions produced by the oil to come from these pipelines. Children and women will be tortured and murdered.
Local water supplies will be destroyed beyond repair for years to come." - Jaike Spotted Wolf
MORE VIDEOS
OTHER Environmental ISsues to know about
FairyCreek:Old Growth Forests being destroyed in BC. only 2.7% of the Ancient forests remain, and its currently being destroyed.
The Rainforest Flying Squad is a volunteer-driven, grassroots, non-violent direct action movement. We are committed to protecting the last stands of globally significant ancient temperate rainforests on Vancouver Island. LEARN MORE HERE
Karankawan People vs Enbridge: The Karankawan people, which some history books label as extinct, are fighting to protect the gulf in Corpus Christi, Texas. They are fighting to preserve the coastline where artifacts are buried, and the crucial seagrasses are all in the area the Enbridge corporation is trying to construct a drill sight.
The Karankwan people are not Federally recognized as a tribe, and the land Enbridge is constructing on is privately owned. This makes the fight a lot harder to combat, but they can fight it through the environmental lens, and that's precisely what they are doing. It could be a better-known issue, so please share about this!
Chiara (Sunshine) is a Karankwan native who grew up reading that their people were gone, killed out. She has been on a journey of healing, learning their culture, language, and traditions, and doing her part to protect what little is left of the Karankwan people. Follow her HERE: karankawachicharra and follow and support the movement in the gulf here: Indigenous Peoples 360
Let us know of Environmental issues you are aware of so they can be added here! If possible I’ll try and go cover the issue but at the least will share here to bring awareness and support to land/water/ treaty right defenders all over the nation and beyond!
groups, individuals, ORGANIZATIONS to follow & support
DONATE
List of Downloadable Resources
STOPLINE3.org Fact sheets, interactive maps, and timelines. Go here: RESOURCES
Line 3 River Crossings
Come to the Front Line
Above is a map of some of the front line camps. GO HERE before you plan your trip there
daunte Wright
a cry for answers and Justice met with oppression and BRUTALIZATION
Life in limo
“Refugee camps lie less than a mile from the USA border yet we do nothing...”
ref·u·gee
”a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster." Did you know within .2 miles from our country there is a refugee camp? Yes, a refugee camp. I think it's super important to use this language when talking about our border situation. I've been very intentional in calling it that vs an immigrant camp or other similar wording.”
One, because this is exactly what it is. We have thousands of people fleeing for their lives and trying to escape death, sickness, physical abuse, climate change, persecution for their religious beliefs, their sexual orientation and or being a woman as well as death threats, kidnapping, and assault from the cartel, local police, and their own government.
Secondly, I intentionally speak about these people as refugees because for some reason that tugs at the hearts of people to a degree that doesn't happen when using the words asylum seeker or immigrant. The words asylum-seeking, asylum seeker, and immigrants have been villainized and dehumanized When people hear those words they are turned off and shut down. So we have to find ways of humanizing these people and one way I've found is by calling them refugees.
Let's all be intentional and proactive in finding ways to humanize the border and bringing light and love to them and vs separation, hate, stereotyping, racism and ignorance.
LIFE IN LIMBO (2020)
*the border crisi contunies in 2022-2023. The camps have shifted over to Reynosa, Mexico, as policies are constantly changing and shifting.
Many people's days inside the refugee camp in Matamoros are spent sleeping and lying around. Some tasks like washing dishes or clothes, collecting firewood or cooking, but there is a lot of doing nothing. This can profoundly affect people's emotional and mental stability, feeling hopeless and useless.
These families and individuals are already dealing with layers and layers of trauma from escaping death, fleeing their homes, traveling months on foot through jungles, rivers, deserts, rain, and freezing temperatures dealing with sickness, hungry, and cartels, to name a few.
Once refugees make it to the camp, they are not only dealing with everything mentioned above, they are now dealing with the mental torment of being so close to "freedom," but unable to do anything about it outside of just waiting, hoping, and pray that they might get approved for asylum. The odds are bleak, with less than 1% of cases being approved. People sometimes wait over a year inside the camp, having 3,4 and 5 court dates while simultaneously trying to prove for their families and protect themselves from the dangers of living in the camps, kidnapping, assault/rape, and sickness. We can't even begin to imagine what it's like to be in their shoes and comprehend the toll this has on them in every capacity.
Where is our compassion? Where is the justice? Where is the church? What will it take to move you into action for these people and stand in the gap for them?
Fear
Fear has put walls in our hearts and minds…
The Rio Grande is a river separating land masses, hearts, and minds. How has a geographical landmark caused so much division and pain? Our border has become "a wall," not a physical wall so much as an emotional and mental wall in the hearts and minds of so many people. We have put political ideas and affiliations in front of human beings. Where, when, and how has this become the reality? A lot of it can be connected to FEAR. Fear dramatically affects how we think, act, and perceive the world. Fear thrives in the unknown. We can easily fear something or someone we don't know. How can we systematically take steps to conquer our fears and break that hate that has defined so much of what's going on right now at our border?
As I've stated before, the border is a very complex place and an issue that only grows in complexity the longer you're there. But at the same time, there is something that isn't complex, and that is that human beings should be treated like human beings. There is extreme suffering at our border. There is a refugee crisis going on right now, and people and policies are only dehumanizing these desperate people further. What does it look like for you to step up for those who can't defend themselves, and how will you give space for their voices to be heard and valued? We can't live in fear anymore. It's literally killing people. Let's be better. Let's grow and learn together so that fear has no place in our lives, which will then help dismantle hate, ignorance, and racism. Fear has put walls up in our hearts and mind. We need to learn how to uproot the fear to start dismantling the hate that the fear breeds in our hearts and lives.
Indigenous Peoples Day
"Acknowledging the First Nations People of the Americas is the first step in bringing balance to a long era of genocide and injustice that began with the arrival of Columbus to Great Turtle Island, or "America," in 1492…
Portland & the 2020 Racial REckoning MOVEMENT
In Portland OR (since AUG) covering the Civil Rights Movement. It is a complex issue full of diverse events, controversy, beauty, pain, police brutality, community empowerment, and much more. What you see on the TV or your Aunts Facebook page doesn’t tell the full picture by any means. I can tell you the city isn’t and hasn’t been “burned down/destroyed” by rioters….
Moments, People, & Events of Standing Rock
I had no idea when I jumped in my car and drove 24 hours to North Dakota, back in NOVEMBER of 2016, that I my life would drastically change forever. These are some of the people, places, and moments of Oceti Sakowin camp and the standing rock movement. MNI WICONI, Water is Life.