Support the Shinnecock Right to Self-Determination
Announcing a new campaign
My Shinnecock sisters are under attack.
Have you heard of the Hamptons? The playground of some of the wealthiest people on earth, here in the United States? This glamorous community with homes costing tens of millions of dollars is polluting the lands and waters of a tiny Indigenous tribe because this glamorous community refuses to build a sewer system.
I learned about this in December 2023 when I met Tela Troge, attorney, community leader and environmental activist. She told me a story that was so unbelievable, I had to ask her to repeat it, several times, to be sure I accurately understood.
Then I looked it up. Shinnecock Bay, the source of food for the Shinnecock Nation for thousands of generations, can no longer support marine life because of nitrogen pollution caused by human sewage.
Wait, what?
That’s right. The Hamptons does not have a central waste-water treatment facility. The New York Times reported that Suffolk County has more unsewered residents than any other typical suburb in the United States. Another article published by the New York Times in December 1975 reported that at that time, fifty years ago, residents of Southampton protested building a sewage treatment plant.
So, where does the poop go? Answer: Shinnecock Bay, the food supply for the Shinnecock nation.
My friend Tela explained to me that most homes in the wealthy community of Southampton depend on old septic systems that use cesspools to store human waste (75% of homes in Suffolk County, according to the New York Times). During the Covid pandemic, the town’s population surged as New Yorkers fled to the Hamptons, flushing human waste into the groundwater and surrounding waterways.
The Shinnecock have lived on Shinnecock Bay since time immemorial. The Bay has served as the source of food and security for my Shinnecock relatives, supplying fish, clams, mussels, quahogs, and seaweed. But today, 99% of these foods are annihilated due to solid waste generated by the wealthiest Americans, who depend on failing septic systems to store their waste and refuse to create a solid waste treatment facility.
If you find that shocking, just wait.
The economic development projects the Shinnecock have devised to care for their elders and children are likewise blocked by the town of Southampton. This tribe has continuously resided on their homelands throughout settler colonialism, supporting its people with resources from the Bay. Now their livelihood is not only endangered, but eradicated.
In the United States, our Declaration of Independence claims that the rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness are unalienable – the Creator endows them. Worded slightly differently in our Constitution, we are guaranteed the rights to life, liberty, and property. That means, if we have the money, we can own land and improve it without the threat of search or seizure by the gentry or the ruling class.
The narrative of the American Dream many of us hold dear, the essence of our collective freedom, is the right to pursue wealth with as few restrictions as feasible. We are free to seek a living, to sell our labor as we see fit, to seek our fortunes, unimpeded by dictates of class. For European colonists, the promise of freedom in the United States guaranteed the ability to own land and pursue economic self-determination regardless of one’s class at birth.
These rights are not guaranteed to Indigenous Peoples, however, a fact that the Shinnecock Nation’s bid for economic development illustrates in the extreme. The Shinnecock are located on the eastern end of Long Island, New York. These relatives have the great misfortune of being occupied by one of the richest communities on earth. While Americans are guaranteed the right to pursue self-determination without facing harassment by the ruling class, the Shinnecock face constant displacement and harassment by the communities of the Hamptons.
While my relatives’ economic security has been destroyed by human waste, their ability to seek a livelihood is undermined by the same community that has caused the destruction.
The Shinnecock people erected two electronic billboards on 80 acres of hill country they were able to retain, to the protest of Southampton, which objected to the billboards because they are unsightly. These billboards fund the elder food program and the preschool program, yet protestors have worked to have them removed, seeking to truncate economic self-determination through legal actions.
The Shinnecock residential land base is made up of 800 acres on a spit of land below sea level. The Shinnecock were removed by settlers from the beautiful, wooded hills of their homelands, which are now populated by the wealthy. They were pushed to a tiny swampland area adjacent to three “ponds” that spill into Shinnecock Bay. Tela explained that with every major storm, the reservation floods because it is below sea level. Every building on the reservation, whether residential, government building, school, or clinic – every building – is infested with black mold. Everyone living on the reservation, young and old alike, every baby born there, lives with black mold.
The Shinnecock have planned a gas station on the 80 acres they retain in the hill country. They planned for this project to fund mold remediation efforts, but it has also been blocked by legal proceedings.
We live in a capitalist nation. I would argue that the Shinnecock’s wealthy neighbors benefit from projects empowered by capitalism. But the Shinnecock nation is barred from participating in the only economic system available to all of us. I find this dynamic to be so interesting, and I hear it all of the time.
Settler-descended Christians often ask me how I feel about Indian gaming (read: casinos). How do I feel? I feel like we are stuck in a capitalist economy, where Indigenous Peoples are routinely either excluded or criticized for participating. Few question the ethics of the President of the United States, who owns casinos for his own profit. But Indigenous Nations who generate income to feed their people are held in contempt.
I ask this: What are the Shinnecock people to do? They have been driven from their land base; their existing reservation is below sea level; their livelihood has been fouled by the wealthy and powerful; and all attempts to seek an alternate livelihood are blocked.
It appears that the only future the rich and powerful have in mind for the Shinnecock is to lie down and die.
I am tempted to cry right now as I write this, out of frustration and despair. But instead I want to issue an invitation to you, our readers:
I ask you to pray with me, every single day, for the softening of the hard hearts of those living in Southampton. The Spirit of Life is still here, on this earth. And the Spirit is capable of moving the hearts of humans. Please join me in praying for the hearts of the mighty.
I ask you to accompany me to the lands of Shinnecock. To stand with these women and men as they protect the billboards they erected to care for their children and elders and to support the economic activities they see fit to construct.
The prophet Zechariah said this to a society content with performative fasting while practicing injustice:
“This is what the Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’
“But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and covered their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or the words that Almighty had sent by the Spirit through the earlier prophets.
- Zechariah 7:9-12
We will support Tela and the Shinnecock people with a national campaign for environmental remediation and economic self-determination. Please join us.