Violence. It’s everywhere around us. Saturday’s shooting at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania and nightclub shooting in Alabama should be jolting reminders that, in the U.S., murder is just par for the course. (And if a golf metaphor seems wrong at this time, please forgive me — but as Donald Trump went golfing just a day after a loving father was shot and killed right next to him at his rally, I might argue it’s all too appropriate.)
All of this followed two other incidents — garnering almost no reporting at all — of violence against a Lakota youth and our elders. I’d like to lament about what we’ve become as a “society,” but the cold truth is that our national history has always been written in blood — and, largely, the blood of people of color at the hands of white men who apparently feel they deserve more or better.
What happened at Standing Rock in 2016 and 2017 — that's political violence.
All the violence we see across Turtle Island — and the world — is senseless (unless, perhaps, it is in defense of one’s homelands or way of life). And these days, far too much of it is politically motivated. Right now, there’s a lot of discourse about the unacceptability of “political violence.” I agree, and I’d also like to highlight that political violence takes many forms. It obviously includes the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, Lincoln, and the Kennedys; it also includes America’s original sins of slavery and the genocide of Indigenous nations. And it includes the bombing of civilians in Gaza, the rocket attack at the Re'im music festival which reinvigorated that war, and every form of oppression or racism.
Political violence includes less visible, systemic pressures put in place to keep power concentrated in the hands of the greedy few, while the masses live on the edge of collapse. Not having access to clean drinking water is political violence. Being killed by cops with impunity, perpetual servitude to wage slavery, overdraft charges, and 30 percent APR on your credit card, all of these things are forms of political violence. Not having access to dental or vision coverage — or basic women’s health care — is political violence.
Gender inequality, anti-trans legislation, voter suppression — and all forms of systemic racism or othering — these are all forms of political violence, which far too many people live with each and every day.
The American corporate government turning Indigenous sacred sites into tourist destinations while denying our ownership and access is political and violent. So is using incendiary rhetoric while failing to pass common sense gun laws, or capturing and separating Indigenous families seeking freedom and asylum at what is now the U.S.-Mexico border — something that didn’t even exist before the colonists came. Refusing to imprison corporate heads or shareholders for poisoning rivers and taking record profits while paying workers minimum wage is political violence. And don’t get me started on the 45-year imprisonment of Leonard Peltier — and the denial of needed medical care while he’s incarcerated.
Let’s talk for a second about how Native People comprise around nine percent of the entire population of South Dakota while filling more than half of the inmate population in and around Rapid City. Prisons throughout the state are stuffed with Native people. More than 30 percent of male inmates and more than 50 percent of female inmates in South Dakota are Indigenous. And let’s give our thoughts and prayers to the Native children — nearly 74 percent of the total! — in the custody of the South Dakota's child welfare system.
The larger cultural mythology tells us the colonization of our homelands on Turtle Island was driven by a desire for freedom and tolerance. The cost, however, was our freedom — and our continued presence is rarely even acknowledged, much less tolerated. Rather, an ongoing pattern of corporate extractive encroachment has forced our dependency and a culture of poverty, which feeds the private prison pipeline.
The American constitution was not a perfect document in its original form. Ever hear of the Three-Fifths Compromise? And we have newer issues that must also be addressed, like the proliferation of misinformation and disinformation to people who — in some cases, willingly — can't tell the difference. This is why our union was designed to progress and evolve. This is why we have amendments. (“Originalist” judges on the U.S. Supreme Court, then, have got it all wrong. When they make new rules like taking away a woman’s right to choose or granting unheard-of executive authority to the president, they’re exacerbating inequality, concentrating power in the hands of the traditional ruling class, and extending the reach of political violence.)
That’s not to say that the basic freedoms granted by our constitution shouldn’t be respected. These days, for instance, we see far too many violations of constitutionally-protected First Amendment rights to peaceable assembly and free speech, and the Fourth Amendment rights to be free from surveillance and illegal searches and seizures.
800 military bases all over the world impose American corporate interests — with the implicit threat of violence. Back home, the “less fortunate” feel compelled to enlist in the U.S. military to fund college, to receive basic income, or, ironically, to “escape the trenches.” Regular people suffer at the hands of Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Pharma, and war profiteers. The entire system is set up to be politically violent, and unless we are fortunate enough to live in the one percent, we are in a daily fight for our very souls and existence. That’s why Lakota Law is here: to educate, to bring our perspectives and spiritual understanding, and to win justice. Native people know freedom. We yearn for it, and we are willing to defend it — non-violently — on behalf of all Americans.