How Oregon Is Pushing Back Against 'Kidnap and False Arrest' by Trump's Agents
Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone
Dickinson writes: "The state of Oregon is suing the Trump administration in federal court to halt what it likens to the 'kidnap and false arrest' of protesters in downtown Portland, alleging that the administration's secret-police tactics are violating core constitutional rights."
he state of Oregon is suing the Trump administration in federal court to halt what it likens to the “kidnap and false arrest” of protesters in downtown Portland, alleging that the administration’s secret-police tactics are violating core constitutional rights.
Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone
Dickinson writes: "The state of Oregon is suing the Trump administration in federal court to halt what it likens to the 'kidnap and false arrest' of protesters in downtown Portland, alleging that the administration's secret-police tactics are violating core constitutional rights."
As state decries constitutional abuses by federal officers, Trump threatens to impose tactics nationally
he state of Oregon is suing the Trump administration in federal court to halt what it likens to the “kidnap and false arrest” of protesters in downtown Portland, alleging that the administration’s secret-police tactics are violating core constitutional rights.
In a harrowing new tactic, reminiscent of fascist regimes, armed federal officers without agency badges have begun grabbing protesters off the street, throwing them into unmarked cars and jailing them without formally arresting them, according to court records. The state of Oregon is seeking a permanent injunction to prevent what it alleges are violations of the Fourth Amendment’s protections against “unreasonable seizures” and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantees of due process.
Demonstrators in Portland have been protesting police brutality for seven weeks since the killing of George Floyd. The city’s cops have cracked down on these protests with even more brutality, turning a small area of downtown into a nightly battle space. Typically, minor provocations by individual agitators — throwing water bottles, removing fencing, or defacing buildings — have been met with overwhelming and indiscriminate police violence against the crowds, including the use of tear gas, pepper spray, flashbang grenades, less-lethal munitions, and baton beatings.
The Portland Police Bureau, whose officers have been allowed to cover the names on their badges, have beaten and arrested journalists attempting to document these clashes, charging some with felonies. Over the course of the protests, the PPB has been subject to two temporary federal restraining orders to protect the First Amendment rights of reporters and legal observers, and to constrain the indiscriminate use of tear gas during a pandemic.
This illiberal spectacle has emboldened the worst impulses of our authoritarian president. On orders from Trump to control “the anarchists and agitators” and quell “50 days of anarchy,” federal agents descended on Portland. As the feds have stepped in, the epicenter of the nightly protests has shifted from the Multnomah County Justice Center — a local booking, jail, and courthouse complex — to the neighboring federal courthouse, which has been tagged with graffiti like: “Send home Trump’s piglets” and “FEDS get the FUCK OUT!”
Picking up where the PPB has been constrained, federal agents have subjected demonstrators to chemical agents and physical violence. One nonviolent protester who tossed away a tear gas canister at his feet was shot in the head with an impact munition, hospitalizing him with a fractured skull. Oregon officials, from Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler to Gov. Kate Brown to Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley have called on the feds to withdraw from the city. Federal officials have insisted they’re not about to leave: “That’s just not going to happen on my watch,” tweeted acting Homeland Security chief Chad Wolf.
There is no clear indication of who is perpetrating these snatch-and-hold detainments — the patches on their fatigues simple read “police.” But the lawsuit names four federal agencies believed to be involved in the Trump administration’s Portland response: The Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Federal Protective Service, and the U.S. Marshals. It’s routine for federal agents to guard federal property, but the allegedly unlawful snatch-and-detain operations have gone well outside that purview.
The lawsuit, brought by Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, insists that the federal tactics make it impossible for detained citizens to know whether they are being lawfully arrested or are instead the victims of a crime. “Ordinarily, a person exercising his right to walk through the streets of Portland who is confronted by anonymous men in military-type fatigues and ordered into an unmarked van can reasonably assume that he is being kidnapped,” the lawsuit states.
Oregon is a state with active militias, many affiliated with white supremacy movements and hostile to the racial-justice aims of the protesters. The lawsuit highlights the inability of citizens to know whether they have a right to fight back. It argues that the feds are “taking away citizens’ ability to determine whether they are being kidnapped by… malfeasants dressed in paramilitary gear (such that they may engage in self-defense to the fullest extent permitted by law) or are being arrested (such that resisting might amount to a crime).”
The lawsuit also also argues that the Trump administration’s tactics have a chilling effect on First Amendment rights to speech: “Citizens who are reasonably afraid of being picked up and shoved into unmarked vans — possibly by federal officers, possibly by individuals opposed to the protests — will feel compelled to stay away, for their own personal safety, and will therefore be unable to express themselves in the way that they have the right to do.”
In addition to defending the rights of its citizens, the Oregon suit also accuses the feds of usurping state and local authority “without serving any legitimate federal law enforcement purpose.” The state of Oregon, it insists, has “sovereign interests in enforcing its laws and in protecting people within its borders from kidnap and false arrest.”
Sen. Wyden praised the lawsuit as an urgent and necessary corrective, before the administration’s authoritarian tactics take hold elsewhere in the country: “If Donald Trump’s unconstitutional abuses can happen in Portland, they can happen anywhere,” he wrote. “This lawsuit is necessary to shed light on the truth and hold Trump accountable for his authoritarian tactics on American soil.”
President Trump, for his part, praised the actions of federal agents in Portland, saying “they’ve done a fantastic job… they grab em; lotta people in jail.” The president said he’s responding to “anarchists,” insisting: “These aren’t protesters. These are people who hate our country.”
Trump is now threatening to expand the deployment of federal agents to other cities. “We’re sending law enforcement,” he told reporters. “Because we’re not going to let New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Detroit and Baltimore and all of these — Oakland is a mess. We’re not going to let this happen in our country. All run by liberal Democrats.” Trump appears to be using his crackdown on dissent as a campaign strategy, claiming that Democrats are too “weak” and “scared” to stand up to demonstrators, and that if Joe Biden were to win the election in November, “the whole country would go to hell.”
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Federal officers walk through tear gas while dispersing a crowd during a July 21 protest in Portland, Oregon. A temporary restraining order on Thursday blocked federal agents from knowingly targeting journalists and legal observers. (photo: Nathan Howard/Getty)
ALSO SEE: DOJ Inspector General Investigating Federal Agents' Actions
in Portland and DC
in Portland and DC
Rachel Treisman, NPR
Treisman writes: "A federal judge has temporarily blocked federal law enforcement officers deployed to Portland, Oregon, from targeting journalists and legal observers at the protests against police violence and racial injustice that have intensified in recent days."
Former NSA contractor Reality Winner. (photo: Michael Holahan/AP)
After Pleading for Home Release During Coronavirus Pandemic, NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner Tests Positive
Taylor Barnes, The Intercept
Barnes writes: "National Security Agency whistleblower Reality Winner tested positive for coronavirus in the prison in Fort Worth, Texas, where she is serving a record sentence for sharing information about a national security risk with the media, according to her sister Brittany Winner."
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Taylor Barnes, The Intercept
Barnes writes: "National Security Agency whistleblower Reality Winner tested positive for coronavirus in the prison in Fort Worth, Texas, where she is serving a record sentence for sharing information about a national security risk with the media, according to her sister Brittany Winner."
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Protesters confront Minneapolis police officer. (photo: Richard Tsong Taatarii/Star Tribune)
How Police Unions Protect Racist Cops
Manisha Krishnan, VICE
Excerpt: "From making it harder to investigate cops who kill to ensuring their legal fees and salaries are covered, police unions are powerful advocates for the status quo."
Manisha Krishnan, VICE
Excerpt: "From making it harder to investigate cops who kill to ensuring their legal fees and salaries are covered, police unions are powerful advocates for the status quo."
hen Bill Closs was the chief of police for Kingston, Ontario, he introduced a pilot project requiring all officers to write down the race of everyone they stopped on the street (a practice known as carding or stop and frisk) and the rationale behind each stop.
Published in 2005, the study—the first of its kind in Canada—revealed that Black people in Kingston were nearly four times more likely to be carded than white people.
Closs, 74, who spent 30 years with Ontario Provincial Police and another 13 in Kingston before retiring in 2008, said no other police departments wanted to act on the results, nor did the Liberal government of the day. But there was one group Closs said fought very hard against the study: Kingston Police Association, the union that represents officers.
“The union fought tooth and nail against us. It was a bitter fight,” he said.
“They were using the press… They went very, very, very public in things they didn’t like. They were putting out misinformation.”
VICE News has reached out to Kingston Police Association for comment but has not received a response.
Closs said the union’s position was that it wasn’t necessary to track race-based data. In fact, when discussing the project, Closs avoided using the term “racism,” choosing “bias” instead, because he believed it would go over better.
“The job of the union isn’t to go out there and be nice to the citizens, it’s to look after their police officers. So of course they’re going to fight any time they’re called racist,” Closs said.
Despite the union’s gripes, Closs pushed through with his carding experiment. The problem, he said, is many police boards and politicians don’t have the determination.
“Police unions, they have become too powerful. I believe the politicians fear them,” he said.
The killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin has sparked a reckoning about police brutality towards Black and Indigenous peoples and people of colour.
It has also pushed discussions about defunding the police and the lack of police accountability into the mainstream. Many of the protections police officers in both the U.S. and Canada enjoy come from unions, including clauses that make it more challenging to investigate officers who beat or kill someone, or fire them if they’re found guilty of wrongdoing. And union heads are often the loudest defenders of police, and deniers of systemic racism.
Bargaining for the ability to discriminate
When University of Victoria assistant professor Rob Gillezeau began studying the impact of unions on police behaviour in the U.S, he expected to see an increase in civilian deaths coincide with the signing of collective agreements. His rationale was that the risk of being prosecuted for killing someone in the line of duty would be lower with collective bargaining rights.
But he soon discovered that the number of white civilians being killed didn’t go up after police forces started unionizing.
“Once you see access to collective bargaining rights, you see a substantial uptick in non-white Americans being killed by officers in the range of about 50 to 70 a year. That’s a really substantial increase,” Gillezeau said, noting that the numbers are likely an undercount.
“Our takeaway is that it looks like officers are actually bargaining in the United States for the ability to discriminate in their use of force,” he said.
Gillezeau said the unionization movement in policing coincided with the civil rights movement in the U.S., taking place state-by-state from the 1950s to the 1980s.
Parallel justice system
There are a number of clauses he’s seen in collective agreements that protect officers who commit violent acts. Some examples he listed include: an officer choosing the time and location of their questioning; delaying questioning for days; being entitled to breaks every 20 minutes; having a union representative present during questioning; being allowed to huddle with other officer witnesses before questioning; being given access to information about people who will be providing evidence before court;
“I kind of think about it as creating a parallel justice system for officers,” Gillezeau said.
Some collective agreements also have provisions saying an officer who commits a violent act would need to give consent before photos or footage from the incident are released, he added.
That’s why the media often ends up with photos of a Black victim of a police shooting “looking like they were up to no good and no pictures of the incident or the officers,” he said.
Legal fees and salary for officers charged with crimes
When it comes to Canadian police unions, it’s not so clear-cut.
In terms of collective agreements, Canadian police officers are entitled to indemnification, meaning the police department has to cover their legal fees if they must participate in an investigation or are charged with a crime, unless they are convicted.
Even for cops who are found guilty of some crimes but have other charges dropped, the police department has to pay for at least some of the fees, said Steven Tufts, an associate professor at York University who co-authored a recent paper “Blue Solidarity: Police Unions, Race and Authoritarian Populism in North America” published in the journal Work, Employment and Society. Plus the union itself can step in to cover legal fees.
While the legal proceedings are taking place, officers are suspended with pay. They can’t be disciplined or fired until after legal proceedings are completed. In one infamous case, a Toronto cop was paid over a million dollars while serving a 13-year suspension.
“You can actually be collecting pay if you kill somebody in bad faith wrongly for years,” Tufts said.
Lobbying politicians
But Tufts said a more insidious way police unions in Canada operate is by lobbying to change laws around how police are investigated.
Under Ontario’s Police Services Act, officers who kill or seriously injure someone are not required to submit to an interview with the Special Investigations Unit, a watchdog agency that investigates such incidents, nor are they required to turn in their notes from the incident.
After Doug Ford became Ontario’s premier, he scrapped the previous Liberal government’s plan for police oversight reform, replacing it with the Comprehensive Ontario Police Services (COPS) Act. The act reduced the scope of the Special Investigations Unit and lowered fines for officers who refuse to comply with SIU investigations.
“Conservative politicians require endorsements by police unions and firefighters. It’s a ritual,” Tufts said.
“How do they lobby and what’s the relationship with Conservative politicians to get legislative change? How do they pressure local politicians… who consistently pass increases in budgets?”
Unions push narrative that cops are victims
Another function of police unions is to perpetuate the idea that police are victims, Tufts said.
“They say ‘we need to stick together and form this blue solidarity’ because we are constantly under attack,’” he said.
The idea is to instill a sense of identity that “transcends other parts of their identity” including gender, background, and race.
For racialized cops, that means being caught between lived experiences of systemic racism and solidarity with the police.
At the end of June, a group of Black Montreal police officers wrote an open letter asking its union president to stop denying the existence of systemic racism within the department.
The officers were responding to comments from Montreal Police Brotherhood President Yves Francoeur, who told media outlets he doesn’t believe Montreal police racially profile.
"We cannot blame you for not knowing our reality, if the culture of silence is for us the most common of the options in several situations," the letter said, according to CBC Montreal.
Black cops excluded
Calvin Lawrence, 71, retired from the RCMP in 2006, before members unionized in 2019. Instead of a union, he said there were representatives elected to represent members in different divisions.
He recalled receiving a newsletter from his division representatives in Calgary; it included a newspaper op-ed about how the RCMP hire non-white officers to fill a quota.
“It was a very damning article about non-white police officers as if they were getting them and they were not qualified,” said Lawrence, who wrote the book Black Cop: My 36 Years in Police Work, and My Career Ending Experiences with Official Racism. The implication, he said, was that the division representatives supported that point of view.
Afterwards, he wondered how comfortable a Black RCMP member would feel going to those same representatives to discuss issues they were facing. When he raised it with a representative in Ottawa, he said he was told “if i make it a racial issue, it won't go anywhere.”
Mike McCormack, outgoing president of Toronto Police Association, the union that represents Toronto cops, said in his 11 years on the job he’s never had a Black officer complain to him about racism.
“Have I had Black officers come up and say, ‘Hey Mike, we’re being picked on,’ or ‘I’m working with a bunch of racists’? I’ve never had an incident where they’ve approached me and said there’s an issue,” McCormack said.
He said the problem with describing policing as a systemically racist institution is that it’s interpreted in an “unfair” way.
“It doesn’t mean that our officers are out there and they are racist and they are applying racist practices,” he said. “What’s troubling is we seem to be the ones that are always scapegoated.”
In April 2016, Black Lives Matter staged a demonstration outside Toronto police headquarters and several other protests after the police officer who shot and killed Andrew Loku was cleared of wrongdoing. Loku, a father of five who moved to Canada from South Sudan as a refugee, had a history of mental illness.
Then-premier Kathleen Wynne finally addressed protesters and acknowledged the existence of systemic racism in the province.
McCormack responded defensively, telling the Toronto Sun, “what I want to ask the premier is for her to show us the data that she is referring to when she says we still have systemic racism in our society."
VICE News asked McCormack about the Ontario Human Rights Commission finding that a Black person was nearly 20 times more likely than a white person to be shot dead by a Toronto cop between 2013-2017. He said it doesn’t provide the “total context.”
“How many interactions did we have with people in those exact same circumstances who were white and Black?” he asked.
McCormack said he would support the release of race-based data released on “everything.” However, when asked if he would support a project like Closs’ carding study in Kingston, or a federal inquiry into police brutality, he said he would not.
Should cops be part of the labour movement?
Within the labour movement, there is conflict over whether or not police should be allowed to unionize.
In June, Minnesota AFL-CIO, the state federation of labour representing more than 1,000 unions, wrote an open letter demanding the resignation of Bob Kroll, president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis.
The letter slammed Kroll’s “history of bigoted remarks and complaints of violence.”
“Bob Kroll must resign, and the Minneapolis Police Union must be overhauled. Unions must never be a tool to shield perpetrators from justice,” the letter said.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” said Gillezeau, who believes the solution isn’t to strip officers of bargaining rights, but to reform police unions.
“There’s nothing inherent in police bargaining rights that says the end goal here needs to be discriminatory. That’s just been the outcome that we’ve landed with.”
Sandy Hudson, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto, feels differently.
The goal of a union is to protect the working class from the capitalist class, she said.
“That’s not the operation of a police union, it’s not what the police are. Police are an increasingly militarized wing of state power, not the working class.”
Hudson said police unions function as public relations for a “really terrible institution.”
“What we need to do is take as much money as we need from the police to properly fund housing, transit, a mental health emergency service, a gender-based violence emergency service that will actually keep us safe.”
A still from the first episode of 'Immigration Nation' shows people who were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New York, including someone who was not the intended target. (photo: Netflix)
Trump's DHS Tried to Block Netflix From Airing "Immigration Nation" Until After the Election
Caitlin Dickerson, The New York Times
Dickerson writes: "In early 2017, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement prepared to carry out the hard-line agenda on which President Trump had campaigned, agency leaders jumped at the chance to let two filmmakers give a behind-the-scenes look at the process."
Caitlin Dickerson, The New York Times
Dickerson writes: "In early 2017, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement prepared to carry out the hard-line agenda on which President Trump had campaigned, agency leaders jumped at the chance to let two filmmakers give a behind-the-scenes look at the process."
A new documentary peers inside the secretive world of immigration enforcement. The filmmakers faced demands to delete scenes and delay broadcast until after the election.
But as the documentary neared completion in recent months, the administration fought mightily to keep it from being released until after the 2020 election. After granting rare access to parts of the country’s powerful immigration enforcement machinery that are usually invisible to the public, administration officials threatened legal action and sought to block parts of it from seeing the light of day.
Some of the contentious scenes include ICE officers lying to immigrants to gain access to their homes and mocking them after taking them into custody. One shows an officer illegally picking the lock to an apartment building during a raid.
Israelis hold signs as they protest against Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem, Israel. (photo: Getty)
Thousands of Israelis Mass Outside Netanyahu's Residence Calling for His Resignation Over Corruption
The Times of Israel
Excerpt: "Thousands of demonstrators massed on Thursday night near the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem to protest against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu."
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The Times of Israel
Excerpt: "Thousands of demonstrators massed on Thursday night near the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem to protest against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu."
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Arctic drilling rig. (photo: Getty)
Fossil Fuel Advocates' New Tactic: Calling Opposition to Arctic Drilling 'Racist'
Ilana Cohen, InsideClimate News
Cohen writes: "When Alaska's all-white Congressional delegation branded opposition to oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge as a form of discrimination last month, they may have hoped to play into a national dialogue about systemic racism - not necessarily to spark it."
Ilana Cohen, InsideClimate News
Cohen writes: "When Alaska's all-white Congressional delegation branded opposition to oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge as a form of discrimination last month, they may have hoped to play into a national dialogue about systemic racism - not necessarily to spark it."
Some say oil and gas exploration is essential as a source of jobs and revenue for Alaska Native communities, but activists argue it is simply exploitation.
In a letter to the Federal Reserve on June 16, Senators Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowsi and Rep. Don Young, all Alaska Republicans, called on federal regulators to investigate whether the refusal of several banks to fund Arctic oil and gas projects discriminated against Alaska Natives, depriving them of social and economic benefits. The politicians had previously called the banks' refusal a discriminatory tactic "against America's energy sector."
But controversy followed quickly. In the weeks following the letter, Native organizers penned op-eds and climate activists posted on social media, blasting the three members of Congress for what they viewed as a hypocritical and misleading narrative.
Oil and gas advocates have for years maintained that opposition to fossil fuel companies equals "green racism," and have portrayed the industry as providing economic aid to marginalized communities by supporting economic development, sponsoring local programs and promising reliable and affordable electricity.
Some in Indigenous communities also argue in favor of fossil fuel development, given the opportunities it promises. But in Alaska and elsewhere, Indigenous activists concerned about the the future of their communities and the planet are opposing drilling and spearheading a movement to end investment in fossil fuels.
The situation is complicated. Many Black and Indigenous communities in the United States, including Alaska Natives, lack opportunities for more environmentally sustainable development because of long histories of social, economic and political marginalization. Those histories are central to the current debate, raising the question of whether an embrace of fossil fuels by some members of these communities reflects a free choice, or one made out of necessity, given the circumstances left by centuries of systemic racism.
Among Alaska Natives, one of the organizers of the opposition to fossil fuels is Siqiñiq Maupin, who over a year ago broke from a corporate career in the oil and gas sector and became a vocal opponent of fossil fuel companies' activity, hoping to combat the claim that such opposition equals racism.
Maupin, who is Iñupiaq, wanted to show that, contrary to stereotypes of Alaska Natives as "oil-hungry" and money-seeking, "not all Iñupiat people want drilling." In 2019, Maupin co-founded Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic, a movement of Iñupiat people which aims to create spiritually, mentally and physically healthy communities in the Arctic.
The split over oil and gas drilling between elected and corporate leaders and Native organizers like Maupin reflects a broader division between prominent officials and the community members they claim to represent.
In a recent example, Rev. Jesse Jackson and National Urban League President Marc Morial backed calls for more racial diversity in the oil and gas workforce, while grassroots Black organizers bucked these calls as a false substitute for divestment from fossil fuels.
Industry advocates are aware that few, if any, comparable economic options are available to Indigenous communities in Alaska's North Slope, as are numerous officials and corporate leaders who have come out in favor of Arctic drilling. Oil and gas projects offer local jobs and generate revenue that funds new schools and infrastructure upgrades, even if they do so at a cost to the environment and public health.
Charges of 'Green Racism'
Right-wing organizations like the Heartland Institute, which advocate for the petroleum industry, have helped to promote claims of "green racism" through posts on their website. At the same time, they have worked to demonize environmental activists who seek to shut down the fossil fuel industry, in effect pitting them against the best interests of low-income communities of color, which are disproportionately located in areas near fossil fuel operations.
Just last month, the public affairs firm CRC Advisors, which has fossil fuel companies as clients, sent out an email to journalists attacking "radical environmentalists" for "claiming solidarity" with Black racial justice organizers, while "pushing policies which hurt minority communities."
A similar message has been promoted by the Life:Powered project, launched by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, an Austin-based conservative think tank that has ties to the conservative Koch brothers. In 2018, Life:Powered released a video featuring Navajo Nation members endorsing a local coal-fired power plant, which the video portrayed as under attack by "out-of-state billionaires and environmental extremists."
Jason Isaac, a senior manager and distinguished fellow of Life:Powered, said the video sought to illustrate that "economic prosperity and environmental leadership go hand in hand." Isaac suggested that anti-fossil fuel activists may be missing how people's increased wealth can lead to increased concern for the environment. When surviving and providing for their family are people's top priorities, he said, the environment is "the last worry on their mind."
Isaac warned that shutting down fossil fuel projects risked depriving communities of color of employment and more reliable and affordable electricity, creating "a lose-lose scenario."
Rival Definitions of Racism
Fossil fuel companies and their proponents are not the only ones who argue that opposing drilling is discriminatory. Some Native Alaskan officials view Arctic drilling as not just a matter of economic opportunity but an expression of sovereignty: Native Alaskans should be free to pursue such development and to accept its potential consequences, they maintain.
Harry K. Brower Jr., Iñupiaq mayor of Alaska's North Slope Borough, for example, has lambasted the idea of faraway climate activists and banks controlling Arctic development. Last January, he wrote that Goldman Sachs' refusal to fund Arctic oil and gas reflected a "subtly racist attitude that too often has been the hallmark of the way Westerners deal with Indigenous people."
Kara Moriarty, president of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association (AOGA), said she believes that Mayor Brower's viewpoint "represents the true majority of people who live on the North Slope." She said that banks divesting from Arctic oil and gas projects in Alaska continue to invest in similar projects elsewhere, potentially with less stringent environmental requirements.
Moriarty said she can't see how "racial justice has anything to do with whether responsibly drilling in the Arctic is a good decision or not," adding that at AOGA, "we don't discriminate in our hiring practices" and calling the economic opportunity offered by the industry unparalleled.
Many climate and Indigenous activists, however, see this as hypocritical, and point out that the same development that proponents claim supports Native communities also degrades the communities' land and health.
At bottom, the different views seem to reflect two competing definitions of racial discrimination, one that focuses on who receives the immediate economic benefits of fossil fuels, and another that focuses on who bears the long-term brunt of the greenhouse gas emissions they produce.
Under either definition, Bernadette Demientieff said, she doesn't think the economic benefits of fossil fuels outweigh their costs. Demientieff, a woman of mixed Alaska Native and Black ancestry, is the executive director of the Gwich'in Steering Committee, a tribal non-profit group, formed by elders and chiefs of the Gwich'in Nation in 1988, which fights to protect the porcupine caribou herd, the Arctic Refuge and the Gwich'in way of life. She called the economic benefits touted by oil advocates "short-term," and said she would "rather have a healthy environment" in the long run.
"Our way of life is not for sale," said Demientieff.
Defining a Free and Fair Choice
Both industry advocates and climate activists cite the historical disempowerment of Native Alaskan communities to back up their arguments.
Terry Anderson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a pioneer of the term "free market environmentalism," has long advocated for "unlocking the wealth of Indian Nations" by increasing their autonomy over their land and its development.
Many Native American communities "are at the mercy of politics in Washington" because they are restricted by federal Indian law, which inhibits them from exercising the sovereignty needed to develop their "natural wealth," Anderson said, adding that, for that reason, he considers this body of law "the worst [form of] discrimination against Native Americans."
Such discrimination has led to a conception of dirty energy development as the only real path to prosperity for Indiginous communities.
Kyle Whyte, a philosophy and community sustainability professor at Michigan State University and an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, criticized what he called "surface level accusations" that restrictions on tribal corporations' ability to develop extractive industries were racist. From his point of view, he said, such accusations fall short, "without addressing all the other racism that's happening that makes it harder for tribes to make free choices about what types of economies they choose."
Whyte said such racism includes a long history of U.S. policies meant to create more opportunities for fossil fuel extraction, which may have led some Native communities to feel limited in achieving the more diverse energy portfolios that many of these communities desire.
People who assume that tribes would necessarily extract and develop fossil fuel resources if they faced fewer legal and policy restrictions, Whyte said, often fail to ask, "If tribes could freely pursue any economic options that they wanted, would they necessarily choose that?"
Given a lack of energy alternatives, Whyte questioned whether the embrace by some Indigenous leaders of extractive industries reflected a meaningful expression of Alaska Natives' free will. "To suggest that tribal self-determination only comes down to extract or not extract," he said, "is really to misunderstand what it means to genuinely have freedom" and to erase history.
In Maupin's experience, Alaska Natives who express a desire for clean energy alternatives may also face resistance. Maupin, who uses they/them pronouns, compared raising the issue of renewable energy development on Alaska's North Slope to "talking about communism in the '50s." They were told that renewables like wind and solar were "a waste of time and money" which risked sending Alaska Natives "back to Third World conditions."
Raising Global Stakes
With Native American lands holding "$1.5 trillion in untapped coal, oil and other energy resources," their development may have global implications. In the Arctic, which is warming at roughly twice the average rate of the rest of the planet, emissions from oil and gas drilling contribute to climate change, which has a disproportionate impact on poor people of color worldwide.
Maupin doesn't believe Native Alaskans have the right to prioritize local economic development over other people's "basic right to a livable earth." To do so, Maupin said, would betray Iñupiat values.
With a national spotlight on racial justice, Maupin said, they see a greater opportunity to push for a "just transition" from fossil fuels to a clean energy economy, offering hope for a future where Alaska Native communities remain intact.
Otherwise, Maupin said, they fear that continued fossil fuel development will deprive their two young children of developing a "relationship with the land [their] ancestors have been on for thousands of years"—land where they could "practice their traditions"—and for which "there is no replacement."
Moriarity agreed with Maupin on the importance of making "Alaska sustainable for the long term for future generations to come." But she stressed the need to balance "protecting the land that we all live on" with the need for economic opportunity.
Anderson, of the Hoover Institute, said the question of natural resource development in Native communities should arise only if those communities wanted it. But if they did want it, as some do in Alaska, he said, people must ask, "Is it worth putting Alaska Natives in this case in a situation where they aren't able to develop their wealth?"
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