Buy Nothing Day Action 4 Sacred Sites Protection: Reportback, Invite, & Challenge

Buy Nothing Day Action 4 Sacred Sites Protection: Reportback, Invite, &
Challenge!

The day after 'Unthanksgiving' and one of the busiest days in
the American retail calendar -- around 100 or so people gathered at
the Bay Street Mall in Emeryville for the 5th Annual Buy Nothing Day
Demonstration called by Indian People Organizing for Change (IPOC).

With colorful flags, song, heartfelt statements, prayer, and
literature, we demonstrated at the busy intersection of Shellmound
Drive and Ohlone Way. After a couple hours, we then marched together
in the hustle and bustle throughout the mall (against police orders
not to leave our designated protest area!) to expose the environmental
and ethical consequences of over-consumption and to bring attention to
the ongoing struggle for environmental justice and protection of
sacred shellmounds throughout the Bay Area -- and sacred sites
everywhere -- from further desecration.

The Bay Street Mall, which has been dubbed the "Dead Street Mall," was
recently built atop the Emeryville Shellmound, despite protests and
strong objections from IPOC and supporters. A sacred burial site, this
shellmound was once 60 feet high and up to 600 feet in diameter. It is
older than the pyramids in Egypt and held at least four historical
levels of burial sites.

Many do not know that there is a growing movement of people unified
around efforts to demand environmental justice and to raise awareness
about sacred sites -- of which there are many in the Bay Area and
throughout the continent.

Indigenous resistance campaigns to protect sacred sites across North
America and around the world are growing more powerful, more organized
and focused, and are quickly becoming more collaborative. Native
peoples have been and are joining with each other regionally and
globally, as well as with attuned non-native groups. The call is out!

Victory in reclaiming the earth will require a broad movement that can
help bridge cultures, issues, and nations. Indigenous peoples need
allies from the outside -- not leadership, but supporters and
collaborators, especially from the environmental, women's, and global
justice movements, human rights advocates, and many others.

Most of the strength at Friday's protest came from the Bay Area Native
American communities' efforts to protect sacred sites. As with the
Save the Peaks events in San Francisco this past September, I was
saddened not to see more non-native Bay Area activists out in a show
of support -- particularly members of groups whose mission is closely
aligned with the struggle to save sacred sites or having to do with
environmental justice, confronting environmental racism, and demanding
corporate responsibility, to name a few.

There are roughly 350 million indigenous people in 5,000 distinct
societies on the planet. A recent study found that the world's last
remaining resources and pristine areas are on indigenous lands. Now this
global corporate, eurocentric model is targeting these communities for
the last dregs of resorces. Indigenous people's are on the front
lines!

Whatever our movements can do to further the indigenous cause -- in
its many struggles and forms -- also furthers our own, and our
children's. Often, it is indigenous peoples who embody a vision which
is vastly different from the dominant dominant, corporate, eurocentric
worldview. The progress and success of these campaigns as defined by the
First Nations require active participation and support from allies. The
campaigns to protect sacred sites are being determined by indigenous
peoples, on their own terms. I challenge you to support
these important movements. It is more critical than ever to bring
environmental justice by protect sacred sites and defending human rights
and indigenous culture by attending events, visiting websites,
volunteering, responding to requests, and talking in your own groups about
how we can link our efforts.

Thank you.
In solidarity,
~dixie
dixieb [at] riseup.net

PS. Pictures of the Buy Nothing Day Everyday at Dead St. Mall Action will
be posted onto http://www.indybay.org soon!