Answering the Call to Action: A California Native Social Worker at Standing Rock

Written by Carly Kohler, MSW

Submitted by Shelly Kalmer, MSW, ACSW

 All photos courtesy of Carly Kohler, MSW

December 3, 2016

What follows is a firsthand account of the ongoing Standing Rock Pipeline protest. The protest is a result of a proposed oil pipeline that will run below Lake Oahe and bordering Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in south North Dakota. The risk of contamination of nearby Missouri River — a water source for 18 million people — is exceedingly high along with the threat to sacred sites, some said to contain burial grounds and cultural artifacts.

The protest is expected to continue through the freezing winter conditions. Carly Kohler, MSW, founding member of the NASW-CA Chapter Native American Council, along with her sister Koli traveled to Standing Rock on November 19 when temperatures were just beginning to dip below freezing. If you were following the news of that week, you would’ve heard about the Water Protectors being trapped on a bridge and sprayed with water cannons on the night of November 20. Carly and Koli were there.

Click on this link or visit this site to support the Water Protectors: http://standwithstandingrock.net.

In Carly’s words:

It was a new place with old values; ones we’d always grown up with, values that were the backbone of our Hupa/Yurok/Karuk culture and our family. But we were visitors of this land and the people of this land, Oceti Sakowin, on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Koleyna (Koli) and I were bundled up holding our hands to the fire when a young man, Native by the looks of him, with tan skin and a long black braid, rode by us on a scooter yelling that there was a call to action. The sacred fire announcer (who reminded Koli and me of a Powwow announcer) cried into his speaker amplifier, “Isn’t this why you came? My brothers and sisters? To protect the water? Your family needs you. Go protect the water. Water is life!” My sister looked at me and in unison we pulled on our goggles and wrapped our scarves tightly around our faces and then jogged to the protest.

I’ve never been on a battlefield. I don’t count rugby matches or basketball games, however physical those were. So when my sister and I stumbled upon a pile of sweaters, people handing out water bottles, goggles and masks and hand warmers, we took them blindly and wandered into the crowd. Then the hosing began and the crowd made a collective gasp as ice cold streams of water sprayed everywhere. We were already freezing. I jumped as a strange crack rang out into the air followed by a bang. A fellow protector explained passively that those were concussion grenades. I began coughing before I saw the thick smoke from the tear gas cans creep over the shoulders of the people in front of us and envelop us in white walls. My sister grabbed my shoulder and dragged me back. “We need to document this,” I coughed out.

“Exactly,” she agreed. Thus began our night of creeping up behind the front lines with our cameras in front of us, rushing backward to avoid being sprayed with water and ruining our cameras and dodging tear gas canisters flying above us in the air. At one point I was in front of Koli, and I screamed, “Koli, look up!” She tilted her camera up and took two steps backward as the tear gas landed a foot in front of her, right where her head had been.

At some point, after five hours of rushing back and forth, my skin was ice cold but I felt heat from deep inside me: I was angry. It wasn’t right that water protectors were being treated like criminals. We had a right to assemble peacefully according to the Bill of Rights. But that wasn’t the only thing. This is Native land that the government is on.

Of course the government was claiming that it was private land; whatever explanation they can get away with that will allow them to take advantage of the land. So how could police or state troopers be present on sovereign land that only FBI agents and Homeland Security have jurisdiction to walk on? And why is the government supporting a special interest big corporation over their citizens? The historical trauma of the event hit me like a punch to the gut. Whether in the 1800s or 2016, the story was always the same when it came to Native people: the government was breaking its treaties with the Native people, breaking laws without regard and trampling traditional burial sites in the process.

Whether WWI, WWII or 2016, building a pipeline under clean river water on a reservation and thus endangering the Native peoples’ lives would always be the optimal choice because endangering a predominantly white city 50 miles away was out of the question. Not to mention the ramifications of an oil spill into a water source that serves 18 million people, let alone the wildlife and livestock.

A shout rose up from the crowd. “Clear the road,” could be heard from the front lines to the blanket bearers. Whispers passed around proclaimed that a girl’s arm had been blown off, another woman was knocked out from being shot in the head with a rubber bullet and people were kneeling everywhere to have their eyes washed out with water and milk of magnesium. “Shame!” cried the voice of a mother and then echoes of shame could be heard everywhere. We were all angry but we knew that we weren’t going to act on that anger — that would make us just as disreputable as the state troopers. People everywhere remained peaceful and prayerful. I saw young men standing with their arms open and eyes closed as the police sprayed water directly on the young men for more than several minutes. I heard the steady beat of the drum, songs from Lakota elders raised above the pops and bangs of concussion grenades and the splattering of rubber bullets hitting people’s legs and ribs. I heard the calming Powwow announcer’s voice over the amplifier microphone, saying, “Walk, don’t run, my people. We don’t want to trample our brothers and sisters,” as tear-gassed individuals retreated to receive medical help.

I watched as people helped each other, shared blankets, washed out each other’s eyes, caught and steadied each other. I saw people carry logs all the way from camp to set up controlled and camp fires to warm injured water protectors awaiting the ambulances. The red and white flashing lights of ambulances zipped back and forth from the camp to the hospital and back.

The greatest moment of triumph was after it became clear that the state troopers had adopted another tactic: they began shooting tear gas cans into the grassy hills on either side of the bridge in front of the pipeline. The cans would set the grass on fire upon impact. This resulted in water protectors rushing to stomp out the fires. Some young men and perhaps women— it was too far away to know for sure— began anticipating where the tear gas cans were flying and would run to catch them and fling them back into the river in front of the pipeline where the state troopers were before the dry grasses caught fire. Whoops and cheers started up. I yelled and hollered in joy. It reminded me of a skewed game of football or la crosse.

Despite everything, we were demonstrating one of Native people’s strongest traits: resilience in the face of opposition and oppression. We’ve been here, we are here and we’ll be here because we are the original protectors of the land and with the help of around 7,000-plus allies we will continue to protect the water as one people united in harmony and love for all living things and the world. Mni Wiconi! Water is life!