White Men Behaving Badly

This is just one example of threats, harassment and violence that Indians in North Dakota have faced for many a long year. It's nothing new. But this incident was posted yesterday, and it reflects the attitude of some -- maybe most -- white residents of the area near Standing Rock toward the Water Protectors and their campaign against the Black Snake, as the pipeline has been called.



The precipitating cause is easy enough to figure out. It's not so much the actions of the Water Protectors against the pipeline.

It is that the Indians refuse to yield to White Supremacy on demand.

This is what is so threatening to white men, and this is what is at the root of the violence by "law enforcement" against the Water Protectors. The refusal to yield on demand to White Supremacy and to obey the orders of (mostly) white men in and out of "law enforcement" is seen as an existential threat by these same men. They call it "aggression." Any challenge to the authority of white men is considered a threat to "civilization."

This is what goes on in Indian Country almost all the fucking time. This is what too many Indian people live with day by day.

And this Caucasian Id, as I call it, has been unleashed by deliberate incitement from a presidential candidate who is expecting to swan into the White House come January, and it is being used by white folk against phantom enemies who "threaten" them.

Like "law enforcement" in North Dakota, though, they are not under threat, nobody is threatening them, nobody is harming them, nobody wants to harm them. But we've seen how violent and insane "law enforcement" becomes when they believe there is a threat from the Indians and allies in the struggle over the pipeline. Water Protectors may be doing nothing but standing there, existing in space, and "law enforcement" will interpret that as a threat to be neutralized. And they do, as brutally  and violently as they choose. All because "law enforcement" is afraid.

That extends to white men and some women in the general population as well. They believe they have the intrinsic authority to order and compel the Other -- be it an Indian or any other Other -- to do as they demand, and to punish disobedience or refusal -- because they are deemed by their God "superior."

That's what White Supremacy is.

The example here presented has probably been repeated hundreds of times during the actions in North Dakota against the pipeline, repeated by random white folks as well as "law enforcement" whose ultimate purpose is to enforce White Supremacy, not the law.