On December 5, 2016 a group of community members in Anemki Wajiw (the City of Thunder Bay) gathered together to answer the call of a 12-year-old Anishinabekwe named Autumn Peltier who asked people to come together to support all the water protectors at Standing Rock. Her call led to a thoughtful and direct act of Indigenous presence in a place where erasure is something many Indigenous peoples struggle against every day. It involved Indigenous peoples standing together with many of their allies in prayer, song and story. This group stood in the middle of a busy intersection during the day. Some of my sisters were in attendance. Beautiful, strong, kind, and intelligent kwes, among them, lawyers, artists, social workers, educators, and mothers. The Chronicle Journal published a contemptuous editorial entitled, “Blocking roads muddies message” in response to their actions. You can find it on their website. Instead of responding to this galling editorial I decided to re-write it. My goal in rewriting this is to make visible the significant privilege that is packed between each line and that frames every word. As a researcher/writer, I draw on satire as a mode of inquiry into issues of colonial power and abuse and unchecked privilege in a place I call home.
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Blocking roads muddies message
Translation: Message was clear as clean water...the mud is in my eyes/ears/heart/mind folks.
“It would appear everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame, a better soap box to stand on or a highway to block.”
Translation: I really don’t know anything about who these people are, or what their story is, but I am going to write about them. Why? Well, because I have a platform to speak from by virtue of the fact that I live in in a society that both explicitly and implicitly tells me my voice matters the most.
“While we support a person’s right to protest, we have problems with protesters blocking highways and roads to further their cause whatever that might be.”
Translation: I am going to use the word “we” instead of “I” so that everyone knows how important I really am and how overly confident I am that so many other people think the same way as I do. So, while we really do support a person’s right to protest, we have a problem when they enact that right by actually protesting. Moreover, we really have a problem when their “cause” inconveniences us in any way.
“A day of action can take many forms. This 90-minute demonstration, which disrupted traffic…and drew a large police presence, was held to raise awareness of the environmental impacts on the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and the community’s water supply as the $3.8-billion pipeline would have to be built under Lake Oahe.”
Translation: A day of action can take many forms as long as it doesn’t inconvenience us in any way (in case we weren’t clear before). Now we are going to provide some ‘important’ details including the length of this demonstration, oops, we meant ‘protest’. We are also going to choose to include the details that distance ourselves and the citizens of Thunder Bay from this so-called ‘cause’ like how it was all about a pipeline and a group of native people waaaaayyyyy over there in the USA… That’s right, because we want to absolve you from feeling any responsibility or connection to the native people here or their causes. We are comfortable with people just believing that the State will always provide clean water for us. You know, everyone is just better off believing that an endless supply of man-made water will always flow from the taps! At the same time we will intentionally omit other important contextual information relevant to this protest that actually connects this cause to our community. Like how pipelines are actually something we should be concerned about as citizens of Thunder Bay. Ahem, Line 5 is a deteriorating pipeline running right under the Great Lakes.
“Walking along the sidewalk with signs, calling on people to protect the Earth’s water, would have garnered a more positive reaction from motorists who were probably headed to work, a meeting, Christmas shopping or numerous other reasons for moving across the City.”
Translation: We are comfortable with protestors disrupting pedestrian traffic and not road traffic because people who drive to get places lead more important lives than people who walk to where they need to get to. Oh, and of course we are going to mention all those poor people just trying to Christmas shop for their families because we want you to relate to and sympathize with us and distract you from engaging in any critical reflection of the message conveyed by these people.
“The incident is now being investigated and there is a possibility of charges by police who called it unlawful under city, provincial and federal law.”
Translation: Let’s bring the law and police into this and use words like ‘charges’ and ‘unlawful’ as yet another strategy to disconnect the reader from, and isolate, these native troublemakers/misfits.
“While road-protest closures are an increasingly popular method of making a point, everyone in this country is entitled to free, unencumbered, movement across their communities.”
Translation: Protests that disrupt traffic may be popular, but they definitely aren’t popular among those in Canada who are entitled… to move across this country freely. But let’s not talk about all the people living, for example, in First Nations across northern Ontario …people who actually can’t move freely at all due to lack of safe or reliable infrastructure.
“People need to consider what kind of soapbox they plan to use before protesting. Their message will be far better received if the vehicle used is not the one being blocked.”
Translation: People need to consider my comfort and needs… including my work schedule, shopping schedule, the holidays I practice, the specific route I take to work, my lunch plans, my chiropractor appointment, etc. when they plan to stand up for anything….because this is all about me! Their message will be far better received if I write it for them and put it in that big box in the very back of the closet marked ‘unchecked privilege’
***
Blocking roads muddies message
Translation: Message was clear as clean water...the mud is in my eyes/ears/heart/mind folks.
“It would appear everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame, a better soap box to stand on or a highway to block.”
Translation: I really don’t know anything about who these people are, or what their story is, but I am going to write about them. Why? Well, because I have a platform to speak from by virtue of the fact that I live in in a society that both explicitly and implicitly tells me my voice matters the most.
“While we support a person’s right to protest, we have problems with protesters blocking highways and roads to further their cause whatever that might be.”
Translation: I am going to use the word “we” instead of “I” so that everyone knows how important I really am and how overly confident I am that so many other people think the same way as I do. So, while we really do support a person’s right to protest, we have a problem when they enact that right by actually protesting. Moreover, we really have a problem when their “cause” inconveniences us in any way.
“A day of action can take many forms. This 90-minute demonstration, which disrupted traffic…and drew a large police presence, was held to raise awareness of the environmental impacts on the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and the community’s water supply as the $3.8-billion pipeline would have to be built under Lake Oahe.”
Translation: A day of action can take many forms as long as it doesn’t inconvenience us in any way (in case we weren’t clear before). Now we are going to provide some ‘important’ details including the length of this demonstration, oops, we meant ‘protest’. We are also going to choose to include the details that distance ourselves and the citizens of Thunder Bay from this so-called ‘cause’ like how it was all about a pipeline and a group of native people waaaaayyyyy over there in the USA… That’s right, because we want to absolve you from feeling any responsibility or connection to the native people here or their causes. We are comfortable with people just believing that the State will always provide clean water for us. You know, everyone is just better off believing that an endless supply of man-made water will always flow from the taps! At the same time we will intentionally omit other important contextual information relevant to this protest that actually connects this cause to our community. Like how pipelines are actually something we should be concerned about as citizens of Thunder Bay. Ahem, Line 5 is a deteriorating pipeline running right under the Great Lakes.
“Walking along the sidewalk with signs, calling on people to protect the Earth’s water, would have garnered a more positive reaction from motorists who were probably headed to work, a meeting, Christmas shopping or numerous other reasons for moving across the City.”
Translation: We are comfortable with protestors disrupting pedestrian traffic and not road traffic because people who drive to get places lead more important lives than people who walk to where they need to get to. Oh, and of course we are going to mention all those poor people just trying to Christmas shop for their families because we want you to relate to and sympathize with us and distract you from engaging in any critical reflection of the message conveyed by these people.
“The incident is now being investigated and there is a possibility of charges by police who called it unlawful under city, provincial and federal law.”
Translation: Let’s bring the law and police into this and use words like ‘charges’ and ‘unlawful’ as yet another strategy to disconnect the reader from, and isolate, these native troublemakers/misfits.
“While road-protest closures are an increasingly popular method of making a point, everyone in this country is entitled to free, unencumbered, movement across their communities.”
Translation: Protests that disrupt traffic may be popular, but they definitely aren’t popular among those in Canada who are entitled… to move across this country freely. But let’s not talk about all the people living, for example, in First Nations across northern Ontario …people who actually can’t move freely at all due to lack of safe or reliable infrastructure.
“People need to consider what kind of soapbox they plan to use before protesting. Their message will be far better received if the vehicle used is not the one being blocked.”
Translation: People need to consider my comfort and needs… including my work schedule, shopping schedule, the holidays I practice, the specific route I take to work, my lunch plans, my chiropractor appointment, etc. when they plan to stand up for anything….because this is all about me! Their message will be far better received if I write it for them and put it in that big box in the very back of the closet marked ‘unchecked privilege’
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