Home > News & Public Affairs > “There will probably always be a struggle” -Speaking on Dakota Access and how to keep raising the issue of Indigenous Peoples’ rights
WFHB'S correspondent, Katrine Bruner discusses the recent news on the Dakota Access pipeline and talks with professor, Liza Black on the issue of Indigenous Peoples' rights.

“There will probably always be a struggle” -Speaking on Dakota Access and how to keep raising the issue of Indigenous Peoples’ rights

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On July 6th, U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg issued a ruling requesting that the 1,172 mile long Dakota Access pipeline shut down for further environmental review by the Army Corps of Engineers.

In 2016, both natives and non-natives set up camp to protest against the construction and finalization of the Dakota Access pipeline project. The pipeline caused concern in contaminating the Missouri River, which is the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s drinking water supply. But the main reason for such widespread protests and a rise in news coverage seemed to be more on the general topic of indigenous people’s rights to their land and preserving the tribe’s heritage.

The first protest camp was in April of 2016 at a spiritual camp called Sacred Stone. Members of the Standing Rock Lakota and other Native American nations stayed there.

The numerous Standing Rock camps were all located about an hour south of Bismarck, North Dakota with a mix of tribes, non-native supporters, environmental advocates, and reporters.

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I spoke with Liza Black, Assistant Professor of History and Native American Studies at IU, on the pressing topic of natives’ rights and why it is an issue that should be talked about. Black has a PhD in History and is the author of Picturing Indians: Native Americans in film 1941-1960 which will be out in October. Currently, Black is working on a new project focusing on the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women. She is also a proud citizen of the Cherokee Nation.

During the 2016 protests, Black was teaching Native American History at the University of California in Santa Barbara. She said that during that time she followed closely on what people were doing both in person and on social media. She also brought her own thoughts to the classroom through her lectures and assignments.

“I just really tried to create awareness about the issue on social media by being connected to people who were involved on social media and then I brought it into my teaching to both increase awareness and also test them -literally test them on their own understanding of the issues.”

After the heat that the protests had in the press died down, Black agreed that people paid less attention to the topic in the classroom because of how much it had receded in the media.

“It just really receded in terms of media attention and that’s when I started paying more attention to missing and murder of indigenous women and started bringing that into the classroom more as sort of a replacement for Dakota Access pipeline. So in terms of my involvement that’s really what happened is that I kind of shifted in my own mind and in my own teaching towards that issue.”

Following the court order, company Energy Transfer in charge of transporting oil in the pipeline made a statement expressing their clear opposition to stop work. Energy Transfer spokeswoman, Vicki Granado stated that the company would still be taking orders to continue moving oil in August despite the possibility of charges and consequences for ignoring these orders.

Black stated that she wasn’t surprised that Energy Transfer refused to comply with the law. She relates her reasoning to past examples in the history of struggles from native people against the United States.

“I’m not the least bit surprised that they’re willing to do something illegal. It’s completely wrong that they would break the law but that is sort of what America does, is it breaks its own laws. It creates laws about theft and crime and then it breaks them to take indigenous land and to desecrate indigenous land. So this country is founded on a fundamental disrespect for native people, for Native rights to land and for Native cultural beliefs about land and especially about the dead. There’s just no respect for that. So I’m not at all surprised in Energy Transfer’s decision to continue with what they intended to do because there’s such a long history of the United States being able to do whatever they want to Indian people and to Indian land and that’s why I believe they refuse to stop, they don’t have to because this country is founded on the dispossession of Native people.”

When asked if there is a clear foreseeable future for the success of ancient Native tribes over the industries Black stated, “As a historian I can see how there will probably always be a struggle between indigenous people and the United States.”

“I can see how this will always be a struggle, that Native people will always be struggling to have their voices heard, to be seen by the media and to be listened to by the media about the histories of their nation. So I see that as a constant, that Native people will always be having to fight for their rights to their land. On the other hand, there are many many nations which have prophecies about a future in which native people are restored so I have to sort of pay to that and I think that is part of what gives native people this ability to protest indefinitely and protest in spite of this horrible past of being completely and entirely dispossessed.”

Black expressed the issue of sovereignty seen in the Dakota Access pipeline and how there seemed to be a big difference between the environmental activists at the protests and natives. She also emphasized the importance of treaty rights.

“How I see the Dakota Access pipeline is i see it as an issue of sovereignty. So I see it not as an environmental issue, I see it as a question of the Lakota nation, all the Sioux nations having the right to determine what occurs on their land also having the right to have their treaties upheld by the American government which created them and signed them. So those are sovereignties, those aren’t environmental issues. This could have been some other exploitation on the reservation by outsiders that was happening but because it was an environmental issue it drew in all of these environmental activists.

So for the environmental activists I felt like there wasn’t as much interest on their part about the sovereignty issue. They weren’t interested in looking at maps, talking about the Treaty of Fortlander of 1851” For them it was about stopping the oil industry, for native people it was very very different. For the tribes directly impacted it was about the sovereignty about holding up those treaties. For those other tribal members who aren’t directly impacted its about sovereignty because if any tribe is able to advance their sovereignty it becomes legal precedent for other tribes to advance their sovereignty. So that’s why it’s such an important issue is that if these tribes who are involved are successful, other tribes can then go to court about land issues and treaty rights for their own people.”

Black concluded the interview by stating her hope for success in the future for indigenous peoples rights however she explained there is always a push and pull in this issue, bringing in the recent McGirt decision in Oklahoma for example.

“As a citizen of a tribal nation I really hope they are successful and I hope that whatever success they obtain is kept because honestly my first thought when they had this victory is that it will get reversed. Because so often there is a victory and its immediately followed by a reversal because the powers that be catch wind of it and they huddle and they push back and we can see this happening with the McGirt decision that the supreme court just ruled on that was a huge victory for the Muskogee nation with having their reservation validated but immediately the state of Oklahoma started calling in favors and pushing to make sure that this would not impact non native people in Oklahoma. It just goes back to what we were talking about earlier that there will probably always be a struggle. But I believe native people will never give up and I believe good people will assist them and support them in that struggle.”

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