Join your Indigenous sisters in a collective direct action from your home to protect the San Francisco Bay! The Army Corps of Engineers has proposed dredging a deeper 13-mile channel in the Bay to enable more import and export of oil from four refineries, including the Phillips 66 refinery in Rodeo. (For more detailed information, see our post on the Army Corps dredging proposal and current Phillips 66 expansion plans.)
This action is organized by signatories on the Indigenous Women of the Americas Defending Mother Earth Treaty, who explain:
“There are several obligations to signing the Treaty. One of them is to conduct a nonviolent direct action on each solstice and equinox at a place where harms to the sacred system of life are occurring, or where the decisions are being to allow the harms. This will be the spring equinox action.”
The Treaty Action has been re-envisioned because of public health concerns. “We invite all of you who were planning to be part of our MARCH 19 EQUINOX ACTION to spend time this week making signs with your messages, based in love for all that we hold dear, to post on the 19th along with other from-home actions that we will be sharing in the days to come.
As Native people, we have experienced through our ancestors the impact of having illnesses arrive from Europe to the Americas that we had no immunity or resistance to. We carry intergenerational trauma from the effects of those devastating epidemics, which wiped out so many of our people and were also actively used as tools of policies of genocide.
We are living in a time in history when we are collectively facing a virus that no humans have any kind of acquired resistance to or immunity to. This virus is spreading rapidly across Mother Earth. The COVID 19 virus puts all of humanity at risk, especially our elders and those whose health is more vulnerable. The opportunity here is to notice that we are all in this together.
Climate scientists have been warning us for a long time that these pandemics would accompany climate chaos. We get to use our minds and hearts to respond in the best way possible.
TAKING POWER IN A GOOD WAY FOR THE WELL BEING OF EVERYONE CROSS MOTHER EARTH:
As Native people, we are living at a time when, instead of being powerless against a virus, we can come together with all people to take leadership to keep our our communities, our movements and our human community across Mother Earth as safe as possible. Unlike our ancestors, who had no warning or information, we have access to information. We get to model the behaviors that public health experts are sharing with us. We get to do everything possible to limit the spread of this virus and in particular it’s impact on the most vulnerable communities. This is a wonderful opportunity for all of us to get to practice having a “good mind” and do what is best for the whole of humanity rather than putting our individual needs or projects first.
Please wash your hands, get lots of sleep, and boost your immune systems with your traditional remedies, with zinc, elderberry and vitamins. We need everyone healthy and strong for the ongoing work of ensuring clean air, water, soil and a just society for all of the generation to come. You are all precious and important and we want all of us around for the long haul.
We plan still to bring attention to the harms of the proposed dredging of our beautiful San Francisco Bay and it’s connection to the struggles of the Unist’ot’en and Wet’suwet’en relatives in Canada who are working to stop the Trans Mountain and Coastal Link pipelines. More information to come.”
Hosted by Indigenous Women of the Americas Defending Mother Earth Treaty and Idle No More SF Bay
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WHEN
Thursday, March 19, 7:30 AM – 12 PM
WHERE
From wherever you are.