Dakota Access Pipeline [DAPL] Protests

[raptors661]

Why?

.....

I honestly have no idea. I think they're hearing something their friend heard from their uncle who heard it from their coworker's friends boss about 1 bad egg and they assume they're all bad. I don't know. People in this town are kind of dumb.

[Mantra]

I honestly have no idea. I think they're hearing something their friend heard from their uncle who heard it from their coworker's friends boss about 1 bad egg and they assume they're all bad. I don't know. People in this town are kind of dumb.

Because people in North Dakota are racist as fuck. The Native Americans are largely segregated from the rest of the state outside their reservations and said segregation is made possible since it's largely rural wherein most towns keep to themselves. It was the one state that wasn't affected during the Great Depression and is so isolated that it has mostly gotten away with not following the rest of the country as it becomes more socially liberal. I'd go as far as to say that even the civil rights movement of the 60's hasn't had any effect on the state -- they literally might as well have been on an entirely different planet.

Interesting. Out of curiosity, do you guys feel like the oil boom may play a part in people's feelings about all this?

I've read a lot about how much has changed in North Dakota in the aftermath of the boom, how some towns had their whole culture and economy transformed overnight. I know a Somali guy who was an oil worker out there a couple years back, and he talked the other oil workers giving him a real hard time, having to deal with a lot of harassment about being black and Muslim and whatnot. I've also read a lot about how the housing/rent market has been totally transformed. I experienced myself a couple years ago when I drove through Dickens and tried to get a hotel room and saw that the cheapest one was like $175 because so many oil workers had started using the hotels for housing which drove the prices way up. Seems like the whole area is going through some really dramatic changes.

I'm just speculating here, but I suspect that a lot of North Dakota people feel pretty positive about the oil industry right now. And so maybe they aren't very sympathetic to a pipeline protest? Maybe it's kind of like trying to protest a new coal mine in a region where their economy is tied to coal. But that's all just my personal speculation, of course.

What do you guys think? How do most ND residents feel about the boom?

[raptors661]

Interesting. Out of curiosity, do you guys feel like the oil boom may play a part in people's feelings about all this?

I've read a lot about how much has changed in North Dakota in the aftermath of the boom, how some towns had their whole culture and economy transformed overnight. I know a Somali guy who was an oil worker out there a couple years back, and he talked the other oil workers giving him a real hard time, having to deal with a lot of harassment about being black and Muslim and whatnot. I've also read a lot about how the housing/rent market has been totally transformed. I experienced myself a couple years ago when I drove through Dickens and tried to get a hotel room and saw that the cheapest one was like $175 because so many oil workers had started using the hotels for housing which drove the prices way up. Seems like the whole area is going through some really dramatic changes.

I'm just speculating here, but I suspect that a lot of North Dakota people feel pretty positive about the oil industry right now. And so maybe they aren't very sympathetic to a pipeline protest? Maybe it's kind of like trying to protest a new coal mine in a region where their economy is tied to coal. But that's all just my personal speculation, of course.

What do you guys think? How do most ND residents feel about the boom?

There were positives and negatives with the boom. Positives were a ton of jobs came into town, and our minimum wage went up a bunch. We now have more businesses and restaurants, and a whole lot more places to live. Negatives: the rent went up a criminal amount. My rent for my 2 bedroom apartment went from $450 to $3200 a month. You pretty much had to work 3 jobs to pay that. Crime went up drastically. That annoyed pretty much everyone up here because the most that ever happened on a weekend was a few DUIs and now people are shooting each other in bars. I had someone break into my house while I was sleeping. The boom pretty much started in the middle of the worst flood our town has ever seen.

A couple of years ago, the boom stopped, most people left and everything leveled out. Now the protest brought a lot of people back and we're on the news everyday. People are annoyed and just hate anything that brings a lot of attention. As someone mentioned up thread, racism has a big role in it as well. The native Americans aren't highly regarded by alot of people here. The asset protection at our Walmart are told to focus on them when they come into the store. It's kinda crazy.

TL;DR people here are too easily annoyed by anything that upsets the quiet small town thing we got going on up here, even if it brings positives.

[Pillfred]

There were positives and negatives with the boom. Positives were a ton of jobs came into town, and our minimum wage went up a bunch. We now have more businesses and restaurants, and a whole lot more places to live. Negatives: the rent went up a criminal amount. My rent for my 2 bedroom apartment went from $450 to $3200 a month. You pretty much had to work 3 jobs to pay that. Crime went up drastically. That annoyed pretty much everyone up here because the most that ever happened on a weekend was a few DUIs and now people are shooting each other in bars. I had someone break into my house while I was sleeping. The boom pretty much started in the middle of the worst flood our town has ever seen.

A couple of years ago, the boom stopped, most people left and everything leveled out. Now the protest brought a lot of people back and we're on the news everyday. People are annoyed and just hate anything that brings a lot of attention. As someone mentioned up thread, racism has a big role in it as well. The native Americans aren't highly regarded by alot of people here. The asset protection at our Walmart are told to focus on them when they come into the store. It's kinda crazy.

TL;DR people here are too easily annoyed by anything that upsets the quiet small town thing we got going on up here, even if it brings positives.

Pretty much this.

I just moved from Fargo this summer but had been living there for the last 13 years. I too would think this has little to do with the boon in itself as well. Like raptors said all that's pretty much over now. As far as the Natives are concerned, I thought everyone knew we (pretty much everyone not native) don't talk about them anymore (major sarcasm). I think this whole protest kind puts a big spot light on that fact by how it is and really isn't being covered in the mainstream. I personally think the whole issue of Native American rights get generally disregarded and shit on for the most part.

Allegro- "I assume it's kinda like the "You-Pee" or Michigan's Upper Peninsula, which is basically a bunch of rednecks but they mostly HATE Native Americans because Natives get to fish as much as they want, blah blah blah, but the rednecks just bitch about how the Indians are a bunch of drunks on American free land, fuck them, blah blah blah. Uneducated rednecks."

Again, pretty much this though i doesn't just apply to rednecks. The racism is real.