As many of you I have been really concerned about the situation in North Dakota, where once again in an all too common script, the Rights of the Indigenous People are being ignored in favor of the greed of a dying industry. I was incensed by the images of police in riot gear facing the peaceful prayers of the rightful owners of the land. The Peace Treaties signed by US officials in 1851 seem to be worth less than toilet papers nowadays.
I did my little part to support them with a donation, but with the Holiday season coming up I was thinking to help spread the message and help funding them even more by buying a bunch of NO DAPL, Water Is Life t-shirts for gifts.
I have always loved ethnic art and Native Americans's culture has been one of my interests since I was 12 and some of these Standing Rock shirts have pretty cool designs. Not to mention the fact that I keep seeing Bernie Sanders picture holding one of these shirts.
However I am jaded about web, and in the general the unscrupulous greed of people that hides behind the anonymity of the web so I asked a few sites "How can I be sure some money from the sale of these t-shirts are actually going to the Sacred Stone Standing Rock camps?", well I waited a few days and nobody from, for example, TeeChip, where a few sellers use the Bernie Sanders photo to promote their merchandise, answered.
Yes TeeChip states that part of the proceedings go to a cause but there is no transparent accountability of the shirts sold or the money funded to the cause.
That's why I decided to do a little web search on this Standing Rock shirts business. The search confirmed that:
- they are selling like hot potatoes and there are tens of different styles and sellers all over the web. Even a guy from Ukraine is selling them on RedBubble for almost $ 30 (+shipping) a pop.
Google pulled up more than 1M results for Standing Rock shirt, 141,000 results for NODAPL shirts, even on Amazon you can buy your "Water is Life" shirt.
2. None of these sellers is paying a dime to the Standing Rock camp or to the NODAPL. They all say supporting the Standing Rock camp, but no details about who is the seller and how much of this money is getting to the Lakota or any indigenous peoples group.
Some got really carried away by with creativity on the Native American theme.
Some are really clear ripoffs.
THE ONLY ONE that offers some kind of accountability and transparency is the original campaign by Shailene Woodley on Omaze.com. If you want your official Standing Rock shirt which will actually fund the Standing Rock camp and the fight against the North Dakota Pipeline get it there!
This article was originally published on my blog but we need to spread the word as fast as possible, so I repost it here. Please help me spread the word!
Saturday, Dec 3, 2016 · 10:36:03 PM +00:00 · soulstyle
UPDATE
These in particular are rogue sellers that are advertising heavily on Facebook & Instagram:
PLEASE REPORT THOSE PAGES TO FACEBOOK (click “More” under the profile and you will see the Report link) so they will shut them down.
Basically every time you see the generic words “Native American” in their name and some stereotyped Native American imagery or various celebrities faces photo-edited on top of the body wearing one of their t-shirts you can be fairly sure it is one of those scammers.