I am taking a moment out of my creative activity to talk about something that is important right now. Standing Rock is our future. What happens in the next few days or weeks there could change everything about our country, for the better or for the worse. It was a rough weekend up at Standing Rock. Check out this news piece from the New York Times for a brief summary on last weekends events. New York Times Story on Last Weekends Events
I am a lecturer at two universities in the Departments of Anthropology and so in addition to my creative writing, I have worked a lot with Native Americans in my career thus far. If we want to understand what is happening at Standing Rock, then it is important to understand the history. Below are a list of resources for anyone interested in educating themselves.
First the Standing Rock Syllabus. This is an overview of the history of Standing Rock and other important historical events for Native Americans.
https://nycstandswithstandingrock.wordpress.com/standingrocksyllabus/
We have to understand the history of these systems in order to be truly effective in fighting the good fight. As such, this week I have decided to pause all lessons and have a discussion about Native American History and Standing Rock. We already do this a little in my courses, but I decided to expand it as I cannot sit by and ignore what is going on.
Here are some videos for those of you who want a quick introduction to some of the issues:
We Shall Remain: American Experience. This is a six part history of Native Americans in the United States written and directed by Native Americans. You can find several these episodes for free on YouTube and many at local libraries. If you are a student most colleges allow streaming of this program from the library website.
We Shall Remain: American Experience
You may also be interested in the following books:
Some important Supreme Court Cases and Acts to look up (if you really want to understand the history)
There are a lot of resources that are out there for understanding this situation. If you have any resources you feel I am missing and are vital please share in the comments. I will leave them open for people to add their own resources. Let’s educate people, because knowledge is powerful.
