How Standing Rock Changed Us All
Why you can trust us
This month we celebrate YES! Media’s 30th anniversary! Since its founding YES! Media has remained committed to seeking new pathways forward in the face of continued social problems and mounting crises. These last few years have only affirmed the urgency of YES!’s mission, and this is where we need your help. Please join us in building the more just world that we all want by becoming a monthly sustainer of YES! Your support will keep alive the dream that Sarah van Gelder and David Korten actualized in 1996, and plant the seeds for YES!’s next 30 years!
Ten years ago this spring, an Indigenous-led movement against an oil pipeline transformed the consciousness of the country. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe began protesting in April 2016 against the Dakota Access Pipeline, which threatened to poison the Missouri River. Protests turned into mass encampments of thousands of Indigenous activists and their supporters, drawing crucial connections between Indigenous sovereignty and climate change. They would eventually be cleared by federal agents in February 2017, as Donald Trump’s first presidency began.
The pipeline continues to run today. “But this Indigenous-led disruption, the awakening resolve that was cultivated at Standing Rock, did not dissolve after February,” wrote Jenni Monet for YES! in 2018. “Rather, it spread in so many different directions that we may never fully realize its reach”:
Americans saw the global struggle faced by the estimated 370 million Indigenous people — the violence, stolen resources, colluding corporations and governments that go hand in hand with protecting the Earth.
Sustaining this awakening is the next great task.
Climate change poses one of the most serious reminders of why the sacred fires ignited at Standing Rock must continue to burn: Indigenous peoples and their knowledge and value systems matter.
–Jenni Monet
Read the full article: What Standing Rock Gave the World
From the Archives: What We Can Do Now to Defend Voting
The Supreme Court and Republicans have waged a ferocious assault on the rights of Black voters in recent weeks. After SCOTUS ruled to defang the Voting Rights Act, Republicans in Florida, Alabama, and Tennessee proceeded to gerrymander their state voting maps at warp speed ahead of the November midterm elections. These changed maps target the power of Black voters in these states.
Racial justice requires that these changes be reversed. And even beyond that specific battle, there still may be space on the electoral terrain to fight for democracy, and we can learn from past strategies to protect voting rights. In 2019, Lornett Turnbull wrote for YES!, “Now, with the civil liberties of so many people and entire communities at stake, having your voice heard and your vote counted is more important than ever.”
Read the full article: Five Ways to Empower Voters Now
From the Archives: The Indubitable Power of Independent Media
In the latest wave of corporate media mergers, a $111 billion deal between Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery may soon bring CNN and CBS News under control by a single owner. The further narrowing of political perspectives on the dominant airwaves makes it ever more important to support independent media at this moment. But can small outlets that are often just trying to stay afloat make a meaningful impact on public discourse when they are up against extremely well-resourced behemoths?
Reporting for YES! in 2017, Jo Ellen Green Kaiser highlighted a study showing that newsrooms not controlled by billionaires can punch above their weight when it comes to changing the political conversation. “When independent news outlets work together to co-publish stories on the same topic in the same week, they can have a mighty effect,” wrote Kaiser.
Read the full article: Why Science Says You Should Be Reading Small Independent Media
New Work by YES! Contributors
- Sarah van Gelder, founding editor of YES!, encourages us to embrace solidarity as the key to developing the kind of collective resilience that can challenge authoritarianism.
- Sonali Kolhatkar, the host of Rising Up With Sonali, reports on the electoral success of progressive policies over centrism.
- Marianne Dhenin reports on the ongoing challenges faced by public educators in California who are defending pro-Palestine speech.
New Solutions Journalism From Independent Media
✊ The Unions We Need Will Be Built by Workers, Not Labor Officials – Truthout
🤱 Mothers Are the Most Underestimated Force for Change – Waging Nonviolence
🌞 Community Solar Puts People in Charge – The Progressive
🖼️ Another Way Out: We Need a Mosaic Movement, Not Fragmented ‘Leftism’ – Prism
📣 The Jewish Labor Organizers Who Challenged Zionism From the Start – Hammer & Hope
📚 Turning the Page on Corporate Bookselling – In These Times
Rising Up With Sonali
Rising Up With Sonali, formerly the broadcast arm of YES! Media, is lifting up solutions journalism through hard-hitting interviews.
When you subscribe to Rising Up With Sonali, you’ll receive 3-4 interviews a week in your inbox, with full access to video and transcripts of all conversations.
Unbreakable Bonds of Solidarity
Pipelines may flow, gerrymandering proceeds, and corporate media mergers continue apace, but the transformation of our consciousness forged in struggle against these injustices cannot be stopped. We see how the fight for Indigenous sovereignty advances the fight against fossil-fueled climate change. Efforts to increase access to voting support the struggle for racial justice. And the work of independent media counters the malignant influence of corporations in political discourse. When we recognize the interconnectedness of our movements, we can find hope for a better future in the solidarity we build together.
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Truthout
hosts a monthly newsletter with relevant content from the YES! digital archives and new solutions journalism from a variety of publications. These curated resources can help us imagine – and build – movements for transformation.
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