 Hi everyone, it's such an honor to be with all of you and thank you very much Hadrian for the land Acknowledgement that means so much and said ways into what I want to talk about today First you have this historic moment that's happening as we sit here today at Baruch, which is the impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Let's only hope that it expands beyond what they are talking about right now to so many critical issues like the deaths of children in US custody on the US-Mexico border, the separation of thousands of families and the critical issue of climate change and the president of this country, the climate change denier in chief Pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement the only country in the world to be pulling out But the good news is there are movements All over this country that are linking up with movements all over the world It is only empowering and inspiring them As we speak now there is the longest presidential primary period in US history We're talking about looks like a couple of years now Why does this matter? Well, I put the question to Elizabeth Warren one of the leading Democratic presidential candidates on Friday night in Orangeburg, South Carolina at Orangeburg State University Orangeburg in 1968 you might not know it But it was the site of the first massacre on a US campus African-American students weren't allowed to bowl at the local bowling alley and so they started to protest For one day two days three days. They built a bonfire on campus and the South Carolina state troopers moved in and opened fire on the students who wanted to bowl and They killed three kids two 19 year old college students and a 17 year old who came to the university campus every day after school to get a bite to eat and see his mom and Critically wounded many others 28 were injured. You know if we had only taken seriously Orangeburg This was before Jackson State and the killing of students there This was before troopers opened fire on Kent State, which is most well known because we're talking about white students Maybe Jackson State and Kent State wouldn't have happened That is why journalists artists it is so important that we bear witness So on Friday night I co-moderated with Mustafa Santiago Ali the first ever presidential forum on environmental justice It's not just climate change, but it's about who impacts the most in the world the front line and fence line communities and to her credit Elizabeth Warren came Cory Booker came Tom Steyer came and other candidates At the end of our questioning of Senator Warren I asked her if she was concerned that the first two primary states that's Iowa and The two of the first primary states Iowa and New Hampshire are the whitest states in the country Over 90% white Why does it matter? Because these are the states that determine the presidential candidate They drop out after that They don't have the means to go on if they don't get support there And why does that matter that they are overwhelmingly white that when even in the Democratic Party more than 40% of the voters are non-white it matters that people have a voice that they are represented Which brings us to standing rock and why I so deeply appreciate this land acknowledgment back in 2016 The standoff at Standing Rock and how we need a media that actually conveys what's happening on the ground April 1st 2016 Ladonna brave bull Allard of the Standing Rock Reservation the unofficial historian of the tribe opened her property along the Cannonball River To the resistance. She said, you know if people would like to come and resist what? The three point eight billion dollar what they call black snake Dakota access pipeline that would be built from the back and oil fields of North Dakota through South Dakota Through and make its way hooking up with a pipeline to the Gulf of Mexico and the Standing Rock Sue were saying no Now they actually weren't very different than more most North Dakotans The people of Bismarck the capital said no in their views were respected the people of Mandan Where the courts and the prison is? Where so many hundreds of Native Americans were imprisoned for their protest? Many of the guards I dare say were from the area had said no to the pipeline and their views were respected The Standing Rock Sue were just not as lucky and so they stood up and they said no They said no to energy transfer partners that owns the Dakota access pipeline And it was beyond that they were concerned that if the pipeline was built under the Missouri River the longest river in North America It would empower all the water supply of some 17 million people many of them non-native But they cared about everyone and they cared about sustainability of the planet pipeline politics They were leading the charge against this unsustainable form of energy that is Not empowering our planet, but just pleading it And so she thought a couple dozen people would come and she would host them and a couple dozen people came then a couple hundred Then a couple thousand then it became the largest unification of native tribes That this country has seen in decades Nations from Latin America from the United States first nations from Canada and all their non-native allies Thousands and thousands of people. I mean she set up the sacred Stone camp and there was the Red Warrior resistance camp and they just kept growing Democracy now is covering this from afar Of course it was getting almost no attention in the corporate media and we went their Labor Day weekend of September 2016 and What we saw was really astounding we saw Native American leaders indigenous activists kids adults teenagers Holding water ceremonies on these back roads holding up glasses of water and then making their way in their protests They didn't call themselves protesters. They called themselves water protectors and they would face up against the fully militarized sheriff's departments of North Dakota these were their neighbors by the way and they would say they would hand the water and say this is for you Not just for us. This is for your children. Not just for ours and then these militarized police departments sheriff's departments would face them with m-wraps that's with tanks with automatic weapons with mace and tear gas and They'd say but we're doing this for all of us to survive and that's what we were capturing that Labor Day weekend And then came Saturday and we heard that Native Americans were Gonna be planting tribal flags This is a holiday weekend and an area they called their sacred site and so we went to follow them and there they were and they were That's when they saw the Dakota Access Pipeline bulldozers on the sacred land Now a judge was gonna rule in a few days and the judge said to be fair Okay, you say it's your sacred land. You prove it to me. You give me the Maps that proves this so they did they got together and they gave the judge the map and the judge Gave it to the other side energy transfer partners because that's what judges do and when the Native Americans came up on this land They realized the energy transfer partners They felt that energy transfer partners had used these maps against them They'd taken the maps the bulldozers were way down the road And they brought them here to the sacred land to destroy it before the judge ruled and it would be a moot point And they were enraged and the women and indigenous Scarbe and their kids came up and they stood in front of the bulldozers one two three four five six of these Bulldozers is incredibly brave act. I mean when I saw them, you know, these are earth crushing machines. I Thought about a few days before the US invaded Iraq It was March 16th 2003 in another part of the Middle East in Gaza and I thought about a young American woman named Rachel Corey who went to Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington and she was about to graduate But she wanted to go participate in a movement for peace and went to Gaza and with the international solidarity movement and She had befriended a Palestinian pharmacist and his family was Their home was about to be demolished And so she another activist stood in front of the home and the Israeli military bulldozers built by Caterpillar in the United States We're moving forward and she stood in front of it with a bright orange Construction vest, you know like construction workers were and she was crushed to death by the bulldozer And that's what was in my mind is we were filming and we see these women Holding hands with kids and they're standing in front of these machines that are crushing the earth But this time they prevailed The bulldozers pulled back one two three four five six of them moving back And the people were moving forward and more people came from the resistance camps and they were moving forward and it was then We saw one guard Jump on top of one of the native activists We saw then the guards unleash dogs on the water protectors dogs and they were biting These citizens of the planet and we were just rolling our cameras But still the people prevailed Finally the guards took their dogs the bulldozers pulled back They got into their pickup trucks the bulldozers moved away and the people prevailed at a ridiculously high price They were bitten they were maced they were beaten But they present prevail that day and we had the film why it is so important and all that you do in Bearing witness is so important why it is so important to go to where the silence is By the way, so often it is not silent. It's just that it doesn't hit the corporate media radar screen So we took our film and that night we posted online now Sometimes I'm invited on MSNBC and CNN to talk about different issues And I always say why aren't you covering climate change more the climate crisis the climate catastrophe and hosts say we want to But the executives say people aren't interested. They don't get enough eyeballs They don't get enough attention. I said really I think people are extremely interested I actually even think in your corporate networks There would be a very good payoff for you, but they say no so we posted this video online and within 24 48 hours There were 14 million views We had to fly out, but we were continuing to cover what was happening So that next week the judge was going to rule on Friday after Labor Day weekend again in the midst of the presidential election of 2016 do you know in the debates that year in the general election debates? There was not one question asked about the climate crisis I'm not even talking about the standoff at Standing Rock, which was historic, but even about the climate crisis and This sets the agenda For whoever is going to be president because they understand at this point this moment that is very important the primaries the Candidates are paying attention. They want to win. They want votes, but if the questions aren't asked They think that's not an issue people care about So we go home, but we're continuing to cover it here in New York. What's happening? And on Thursday well, the judge was going to rule on Friday The governor at the time of North care of North Dakota named Governor Dowry Imple Called out the National Guard in Preparation for the decision the next day it didn't look good for the tribe and What I didn't know at the time is the authorities on that day also quietly issued an arrest warrant for me So the next day Friday we did the show and Nermeen Sheikh my colleague at democracy now co-host of democracy now And I were heading off to Canada For the Toronto. Well We weren't fleeing we weren't playing It was the Toronto International Film Festival and they were showing a film that day about the great muck raking journalist IF stone Who was teaching journalism students and said if you can remember two words remember? governments lie if you can remember three remember all governments lie and that's the name of the documentary that you should see and We were going to speak after it because it featured after talking about the life of IF stone democracy now as following in I have stones footsteps. I wasn't going to even go but I thought you know, we've just come from North Dakota and People in Canada care about First Nations. We should talk about what we just saw in the last few days so we're speaking afterwards and on the next day speaking at University of Toronto and hundreds of people were there and In the middle of the talk like right now. I always carry my phone I hate to call this corporate product my brain, but It said You're under arrest My phone I got a text and so I think okay who in the audience I'm looking at everyone's faces Someone must have hacked my phone with the heck I'm in the middle of a talk and I look is this some kind of scam Well, no, I see a North Dakota number. So I'm nervous now I understand how this works, you know, if there is an arrest warrant for you You're not going to automatically be arrested unless you have some interaction with FBI police or border guards and I look around I don't want to Let it be known what I just saw so I just said could someone call a cab because you know I'm in Canada. I have to get back to the United States over the border So I raced to the airport and I do make it back to New York and in fact this was real and We knew we had to do something better. I didn't take it personally I really felt it was the North Dakota authorities saying to journalists around the world do not come to North Dakota Which is exactly why we had to be there I mean the people on the front lines were the indigenous activists, but it is so critical that we all see what they are doing and so we decided to call their bluff and we headed back to North Dakota as We're arriving in Bismarck on the plane They announced that they've quashed the arrest warrant against me We wanted to stop the bullies But then we heard they were going to bring more serious charges against me charges of felony riot Like I'm a one-woman riot So I call my North Dakota lawyer not that I had one before and I said what does this mean? And he said it's not the worst thing in the world You face maybe a year in prison. I Said oh, I don't know about your life, sir But like that matters to me and I said how much time do I have he said three days He said it's Friday and you'll be arraigned 130 on Monday And so I thought okay We have three days to cover the protests Which we did and then on Monday morning the show must go on you know democracy now heirs on 1500 stations around the globe and also translated into Spanish and that show goes on at 8 a.m. Every morning Right here in New York. Oh, there's the music. I think I have to finish and so That's distracting I guess that sort of feels like when you went to Oscar or something in the music is up So okay, so we had to the show had to go on we had to figure out where we could break us We broadcast in front of the court and the prison in Mandan and then I could turn myself in so we get a broadcast truck from Minneapolis It comes up in the backdrop of the court in the prison Oh, the ten commandments were in between and we broadcast the show I interviewed the chairman of the Standing Rock suit Dave our shambles and I said have you been arrested? He said of course he said I was arrested for civil disobedience I mean this is like a misdemeanor. I said and what did you face? He said oh, I was stripped searched I was putting an orange jumpsuit and I was jailed I interviewed Dr. Sara jumping eagle the Pediatrician of the Standing Rock sue and I said were you arrested? Yeah? I was one of the first to care about the health of the children and I said what happened to you She said I was stripped searched and I was put an orange jumpsuit and I was jailed How much humiliation can a people take and so we did the show I'm about to turn myself in I get a call from North Dakota Public Radio the judge is not going to dare Have you arranged the media was all covering this because the journalist was about to get arrested It was the home page of the BBC Al Jazeera in New York Times, Los Angeles Times Vogue magazine was covering this and so He decided not to bring the charges, but most importantly many of the Native Americans that were going to court that day Had their charges dropped. This is what happens when the media shines a spotlight in the right direction This is the kind of reality television We must support not the kind he stars in but the kind that shows the reality of people's lives on the ground Whether we do it as journalists whether you do it as artists It is absolutely critical that we go to where the silence is and say something Thanks so much democracy now