Cherri Foytlin, a water protector of Din’e and Cherokee heritage from Louisiana, likes to tell a story about going to jail in Texas. In October 2018, Foytlin traveled to Dallas to protest an Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) shareholders meeting. ETP is the primary owner of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline (BBP), the final stretch of the infamous Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Outside the Hilton hotel where the meeting took place, activists from a variety of climate justice groups condemned the BBP via bullhorn. Others were inside chanting, singing and holding up a banner that read, “Caution: Oil Pipelines Leak.” Both groups made a point to call out Kelcy Warren, the CEO of ETP, by name. Foytlin placed herself in the actual meeting room. A jumpy livestream that eventually goes black shows protesters scattered among a group of mostly White male attendees who sit uncomfortably in their seats, some folding their arms protectively across their chests. After security removes an elderly woman protester from the room, Foytlin makes an impromptu speech about the dangers of oil pipelines. “They’re going to act like they’re the innocent ones, but they’re not,” she says of ETP executives. Eventually Foytlin is handcuffed and she shouts, “We are First Nation! We are First Nation! Not today, colonizer! Not today!” More quietly, she tells the people arresting her, “I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t have to.” This is how Foytlin, a divorced mother of six and a former journalist, landed in jail with an intake nurse who asked if she had any chronic health conditions. “Yeah, I suffer from long-term colonization,” she recalls telling the nurse.
Read More on the Story
Mary Annette Pember:
Inside the Long, Hard Fight to Stop the Bayou Bridge Oil Pipeline
(Colorlines January 9, 2019)
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