Native Americans had their populations nearly wiped out and their culture anihilated. They are constantly belittled, dismissed, and disrespected. They are trying to hold on to as much of their culture and identity as they can.

I’ll first say I am not personally of a religious nature, I prefer that science and history inform my decisions and worldview. I also accept that there is much we don’t know about science and history, that we have yet to find out and/or may never know.

The problem is two-fold.

I work in Cultural Resource Management (public archaeology) in the US and part of the role of our industry is to act as a bridge between Native American tribal interests and federally-funded development interests. Usually there’s a lot of back and forth negotiation between the archies, the tribes and the developer…

Native Americans have different views on the subject, and different cultural values. And considering these burials represent our relatives, we would appreciate a little respect.

Forgive the following post, I'm moody and tired today:

This obviously has to do with the reasons why they’re called the invisible minority, but I wish I had a better understanding of why that’s a phenomenon that exists (I should just pick up a book or two about it).

I think you might be overshooting the mark and confusing corporate ambivalence with deliberately wanting to show disrespect.

It is not but Section 106 and NAGPRA still applies.

I don’t think that the Federal claim on the land was the point. I think that we can look at this as an example of giving them a bad deal in the first place. We obviously didn’t allow a full survey of the land before the boundaries were drawn.

I guess I don’t know the specifics of the laws, but when I was an archaeological field tech, I worked on pipelines and the like. We were required by law to come in before any construction took place to determine whether or not any significant cultural sites would be disturbed. If we found ANYTHING, construction would…

Sitting out the national anthem? TREASON!!

Nope. The Standing Rock Sioux have been protesting the pipeline for a while now, and have been joined by hundreds of other tribes in what is the largest protest gathering by Native American/First Nation peoples in over a century. This was a deliberate “fuck you” to all of them.

Even if they were to succeed in building the pipeline...oil pipelines are about as lootable and prone to sabotage as it gets when it comes to infrastructure. I’ve been following this from the beginning and am pretty appalled at how little media coverage there’s been (though not at all surprised).

Especially disgusting that they used “private security” to use attack dogs and pepper spray. We’re used to cops, but, apparently, corporate mercenaries are now allowed to assault and batter.

The tribe wasn’t even asking for they to do that, just yet. They were asking for a chance to conduct in-depth studies to determine what exactly is at the site (how many remains, artifacts, etc.) - THEN come up with options. And yes, there are options - preserving the site, re-interment elsewhere, etc. People believe…

Thank you for covering this story.

What’s especially upsetting about this is that these types of things are very preventable. People try to represent the Natives as being stubborn and not wanting to give up a piece of land. However, the primary concern of many tribes is not the land itself, but the remains and artifacts that are there. What they were…

For real! Have I had a drink in front of my kid before? No question. Have I let out an expletive or two because I stubbed my toe and didn’t think to yell “oh fudge!” beforehand? Absolutely. But abdicating your responsibility to do the best you can for your kids just doesn’t sit right with me. We’re all human, but some…

Lol, I have an acquaintance who loves this argument. “Who is anyone to tell me what I have to model for my kid? If I wanna smoke or do drugs in front of my kid, that’s my business! They’re going to learn about drugs eventually anyways!” “Why should I have to watch my language around my kid? People swear, why should I…