Vic Mensa Protests At Standing Rock, Calls For Fans To Join
By Stephen Gossett in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 30, 2016 4:22PM
One of Chicago hip-hop’s most prominent social consciences, Vic Mena spent Thanksgiving weekend in Standing Rock, joining protesters against the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline.
Mensa urged fans and supporters on social media to stand against the pipeline, which could threaten the water supply of North Dakota’s Standing Rock Sioux. Last week protesters at the site were blasted by authorities with water in below-freezing temperatures, and one demonstrator may lose an arm due to injuries from a police concussion grenade. The 1,1700-mile pipeline will run from North Dakota to Marion County, Illinois, if completed.
As Mensa points out in a Facebook Live video posted on Sunday, indigenous people never actually ceded the sacred land which now stands threatened. “It’s been a blessing to be out here," he added. As he mentions in the video, Mensa previously visited families in Flint, Michigan, when that city’s (still ongoing) water crisis began making headlines. (Mensa’s track “Shades of Blue” explicitly addresses the Flint controversy.)
Mensa described his impressions in on Instagram:
I've been at #StandingRock for the last 3 days, and the experience has been amazing. If you're not in tune with what's going on here, Standing Rock is an Indian reservation where a major oil company is trying to drill a pipeline underneath the river that supplies drinking water for millions of people on and off of the reservation. Drilling that oil pipeline could contaminate the livelihood of so many people, primarily indigenous people of this land that have been systematically destroyed since Europeans arrived in America. Thousands of people have come from all over the world to Standing Rock to stop that pipeline from being drilled and protect the water.
He also called on fans to go to join the protest, calling out the Dec. 5 deadline, at which point the Army Corp of Engineers are scheduled to evacuate the protest site:
if you believe in the inalienable rights of people; the right to clean drinking water, the right to food & shelter and the right to freedom then you have to support standing rock. Get on a plane, drive, take a bus do whatever you have to do. December 5th the Army Corps has set an ultimatum for the people camped at standing rock, saying that they will forcibly remove the water protectors. When one of our freedom is on the line all of our freedom is on the line. Fight for freedom.