Watch Shailene Woodley’s Standing Rock Plea to President Obama
Actress Shailene Woodley talked to Gasland director Josh Fox last weekend at the Standing Rock camp in North Dakota. She had the following message for President Obama regarding the Dakota Access Pipeline.
“I want Obama to take a stand. Here’s the thing, Obama’s administration has said that they’re fearful that if they stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, President-elect Trump will come in and reinstall it. I ask and I pray, not out of a place of shaming, not out of a place of guilting, [that the administration stop the pipeline]. Obama did come to Standing Rock reservation a few years ago … and he met with the youth here. And then he flew those youth to Washington, D.C., and their stories affected him. Their stories changed his heart, because he has children himself. … And so, I ask that they look at this situation, not out of a place of fear – if you’re fearful that President-elect Trump will reinstall this pipeline, then you’re going to have to trust that the people on the ground aren’t going to let that happen. But if you want to … throw these words out like ‘negotiate with the tribe’ and ‘compromise with the tribe’ – I’m not speaking for the tribe, clearly; this is just from an objective outsider’s point of view – but they’ve negotiated for 500 years, and they’ve compromised for 500 years. And they didn’t have a choice not to, because of colonization.
“I think there’s a lot of fear surrounding Trump, and I’m the one weirdo who, the second … he was elected, I was like, ‘Alright, roll up your sleeves, let’s do this.’ Because for the first time in a long-ass time, white privilege, race privilege, culture, tradition, religion – nothing’s going to save you anymore, nothing’s going to keep you safe.”