Operate Out of Hope

   I love that we have spent the past week discussing our responsibly to help others without a voice. When I was younger, I had difficulty speaking up for myself and others. I have only recently started developing my voice for the issues I believe in. A quote from the Standing Rock documentary really stood out to me as something to follow not only in speaking out for other but also just in everyday life. An unnamed native man urges listeners not to “[,..] operate out of fear [but instead], operate out of hope”. We live in a country that was formed by immigrants. In taking over the American territory, Euro-Americans have forced the voice of non-westernized communities out of the society. The Standing Rock pipeline is present day example of this phenomena. In the documentary, another unnamed woman mentions that her son was buried on the hill where the government wants to put the oil pipeline. Although not every person may understand it, the Native Americans feel that the land in Standing Rock is sacred. I imagine that to the native people, building the pipeline in Standing Rock is equivalent to the government tearing down a church to build a casino.

I was interested to hear that after all the horrors that were done to the native people throughout history, they were more than happy to just be left alone to live. Was that good enough for the American government? No. I cannot understand how, in the 21st century, we are still refusing to listen to the native people and to their concerns about their land. The American government has already taken away the majority of their land. Why must they now destroy the little bit that they have left?

The very first reading of this English class “Interior and Exterior Landscapes” helps to show how important the land is to native people. The excerpt says that the Pueblo people believe we are all connected in that everything is dust in the end. Silko suggests that, “corn cobs and husks, the rinds and stalks and animal bones were not regarded by the ancient people as filth or garbage. The remains were merely resting at a midpoint in their journey back to dust” (Silko 26). The author also says that the Pueblo people thought similarly about human remains. That being said, if the land is made from dust and we all become dust, then destroying the land is assumingly similar to destroying the ancestors that rest there. Although this is not a belief that all people hold, it must be respected as a the truth for these native people. Personally, I love the thought that we are all connected through something as simple as dust. We tend to think of dust as dirty and something to get rid of and yet, it is this thing that we will all become in the end. It is a beautiful idea.

I have a difficult time seeing how some people can be so insensitive to other cultures but it happens regardless of whether or not I can believe it. The discussion about Standing Rock and about our human right to care for those without a voice has made me realize that I need to use my voice as loudly as I can to say that people are people regardless of their culture and they deserve respect. To quote Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who, “even though you can’t see or hear them at all, a person’s a person, no matter how small”. In other words, people of all shapes, sizes, colors, culture, etc. have the intrinsic right to respect.