Kelly Hayes

“The Standing Rock I knew was not a mystical place with a uniform perspective. It was a complex place—an experiment in love, hope, courage, and solidarity.”

United fronts aren’t about unity. They’re about survival. We have a lot of wounds to heal if we’re going to act in solidarity against what’s trying to kill us.

The president spoke in complete sentences and praised a fallen soldier, and now, for some people, the world is less chaotic. Trump is upping his game, and we as resisters aren’t ready.

We have survived this nation-state’s will for us because we are a fire that their water cannons cannot extinguish.

Our people will continue to resist in and beyond this moment, as this is but one front in the wars being waged against us.

Yes, everyone should be talking about climate change. But we deserve to survive because our lives are worth defending in their own right — not simply because “this affects us all.”

The illusion of victory is a dangerous thing. We could undo what we have built at Standing Rock, this unprecedented act of Native American collective resistance.