Delivered by Audrey Keirstead on Minnesota State Capitol grounds during Earth Day 2021
Hello my relatives. I greet you with a good heart, my name is Audrey and this is the land of the Dakota people. We agree with the Iroquois philosophy that the decisions we make should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future. We are organizing for climate justice to save the planet from global warming and to end environmental racism.
As we gather today at the MN State Capitol on Earth Day 2021, we need to acknowledge that European Americans who came to colonize Minnesota used genocide, violence, displacement and lies to carve this state out of the indigenous nations already here. And unfortunately this genocidal violence continues today - 15 percent of Minnesota's female missing persons cases every month are American Indian women and girls, Native Americans are the most likely racial group to be killed by the police, Native American men are imprisoned at four times the rate of white men and Native American women at six times the rate of white women. We demand justice for every last one of our stolen sisters, for our murdered brothers, our incarcerated sons and daughters, and we demand reparations for the institutional racism driving our police and legal system.
Environmental racism and exploitation is a continuing piece of this same genocidal violence. Line 3 is being built through Anishinaabe lands in Northern Minnesota, threatening our land and water. U.S. military actions around the world threaten the lands and cultures of global indigenous peoples. We demand accountability for the companies pushing profits over climate and culture. We demand the U.S. government take immediate action to stop carbon emissions so we can halt climate change, and to stop the effects of the U.S. military both as a force of imperialism and as a massive polluter.
Indigenous people live with the unjust consequences of centuries of genocide and assimilation, yet still lead the climate justice movement today. The Dakota and Anishinaabe people are alive today, standing among us, active in their cultures and traditions, and actively working to steward the land and guide us in the environmental movement. The Climate Justice Committee recognizes we are a majority white organization which benefits from institutional racism and is committed to organizing for both environmental AND racial justice in the U.S. We honor our Native leaders as custodians of these lands, past and present, and stand in solidarity with the fight against Line 3, the building of all pipelines and all other state sanctioned oppressions. We commit to working together. We pledge to continue to support the defense of water protectors, to work to shut down Line 3 and to fight for Native lives. We are all related.
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