Merriam Webster tells us that by their definition, “Solidarity” means: a feeling of unity between people who have the same interests, goals, etc.
For the last year, it has been my joy and privilege to be in solidarity with the Lakota people in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. During this last year, I feel that I have grown in ways that I hadn’t known I could. I went there originally in August of 2012, to take part in a Women’s Peace March into White Clay, the neighboring town, where there are 14 residents and 4 liquor stores. The liquor stores provide large quantities of alcohol, most especially Budweiser/Anheuser Busch beer–a company that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from the suffering of some of the Lakota. We came to protest the liquor stores, and the fact that they prey on the Lakota causing “liquid genocide”. The Lakota do not metabolize alcohol in the same way that Europeans do, and this creates problems for the families, the community, and the tribe.
During the Training that led up to the march/protest, we all learned about the “Wasichu”, those who take and never give back. Those who take the very best of everything–the “fat takers” an English term for the same kind of person. I could easily be in solidarity with the Lakota, as they have battled racism, discrimination, police brutality, and genocide just as my people, African Americans have. This caused me to come to understand much more about the way that my own life had been touched by the Wasichu that I have painfully known in my own life–employers, former friends, landlords, and even random strangers. A deeper understanding of our interconnection happened at one point when I was lovingly surrounded by 3 sweet Lakota people, one of whom explained that she could understand my pain also, as “America was built on stolen lands, with stolen hands”.
Their land had been stolen from them, my ancestors had been stolen from their lands, and brought as slaves to a place where they had and still have no land base to call their/our own. These wrongs have never been righted in America. Indigenous people, African Americans, Latin/Mexican Americans, and Asian Americans are all descended from people who actually did the groundwork in creating the physical structure of what we call America. Yet all of these groups still endure ongoing racism, and have never really had much of a piece of the economic prosperity that the dominant culture has always had and enjoyed. We didn’t get invited into the house, much less be allowed a place to sit at the table.
This is why it’s so important that we find ways to work with our differences, so that we can begin to bring forth something of the sense of caring for each other. This isn’t about just saying I care about the plight of…but truly and deeply holding within your heart, mind, body spirit a place where solidarity can happen. A place where you hold a compassionate understanding of what others have been, or are going through. Then, once you have that, you can learn how you can best stand with them, beside them, arm in arm and heart in heart. This is true solidarity, and let me tell you, it’s one of the richest experiences you’ll ever know.