Resisting Climate Patriarchy
(infuriating,disgusting, absolutely unsurprising)
Resisting Climate Patriarchy
11/16/2023 by Carolyn Elerding
“What this story shows is that the criminal system isn’t broken. It was designed this way. It was intended to be a tool of oppression.”
line-3-enbridge-protest-court-indigenous-native-womenIndigenous leaders and Water Protector allies protest the Canadian oil-and-gas-transport company Enbridge, during the expansion of the controversial Line 3 pipeline, in St. Paul, Minn., on Aug. 25, 2021. (Michael Nigro / Pacific Press / LightRocket via Getty Images)
Construction is complete on the Enbridge corporation’s Line 3 pipeline, which was dug under the Mississippi River to carry expensive, dirty tar sand oil from Alberta, Canada, to be refined in Wisconsin. Resistance, led by Indigenous women and Two-Spirit people, continues. Due to Enbridge funding the outsized crackdown on Water Protectors, the front lines of resistance have expanded to include courtrooms, where Indigenous legal expertise has often proven decisive. In Aitkin County, Minn., the trial of Mylene Vialard (aka Ocean) reveals a pipeline of injustice—the structural violence of white settler-colonial capitalist patriarchy.
The Arresting Officer: Slow-Walking Justice
According to the well-known Water Protector Big Wind Carpenter, a Two-Spirit member of the Northern Arapaho tribe, the context for the absurdity of Vialard’s arrest and trial is straightforward. Aitkin County borders the reservation of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, and most people in the area are either white or Native.“The majority of the cops are white men,” Big Wind said, and “they target Indigenous people, people of color.” In the summer of 2019, as Enbridge began transporting pipes, Big Wind gathered with other Water Protectors at Healing Souls, an off-reservation camp on Ojibwe-owned land. They quickly noticed a pattern of sheriffs harassing non-tribal allies, forcing them temporarily off the property where they were guests. Later that summer, Sheriff Dan Guida, a white man, attempted to arrest Indigenous people for camping at a powwow.
. . .
Big Wind summarized how Guida’s tactics figure into a larger escalation strategy: “He was trying to cause friction.”
. . .
To date, there have been four aquifer breaches on the new Line 3, including one where Vialard was arrested. While Vialard faces trumped-up felony charges for her nonviolent direct action in Aitkin County, Enbridge’s misdemeanor charge for the breach in Clearwater County has been dropped. Vialard’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Monday, Nov. 20.
The oppression of climate patriarchy exemplifies what feminist philosopher Marilyn Frye explained as a double bind: If we protect the earth, we are persecuted, and if we don’t, the results are catastrophic. Glenn sees the current repression of climate activism as an intensification of business as usual: “I’ve heard people say things like ‘the criminal system should be going after the real criminal.’ But I think what this story shows is that the criminal system isn’t broken. It was designed this way. It was intended to be a tool of oppression. It originated in the South from slave patrols. It originated in the North from state-sanctioned union-busting violence. “We are all stronger when we recognize that activists are not special. The criminal system is violent to everybody. It is how the system is designed to function.”
https://msmagazine.com/2023/11/16/line-3-enbridge-protest-court-indigenous-native-women/