hereiamtornado:

thegreatsapphicvein: hereiamtornado: thegreatsapphicvein: [Caption: a screenshot of the tumblr’s promotion bar that says, “Ask Mark Ruffalo about the North Dakota pipeline”] why tf would i ask Mark Ruffalo about the North Dakota pipeline? in what way is he an expert on the situation?

he’s an environmental activist???? so am i? so are a lot of people? being an activist doesn’t make you an expert, it just means you campaign for a cause.

i’m definitely not saying he’s an expert, but i also don’t think that’s the point of the whole “tumblr questions” thing. it’s basically him doing press, and what is he doing press for? to talk about the DAPL. which is what makes up almost the entirety of his social media platform. I think he knows enough to be a source for questions like “whats the next step in the fight against the DAPL?” or any questions that concern the #noDAPL movement going forward. he’s someone with a lot of influence and a pretty large platform. the movement has shifted, it’s no longer strategically threatening the lives of many indigenous people, it’s purely environmental. And now there are questions as to where the movement goes and how it looks from here on out. I don’t think anyone is asking Mark specific scientific questions about the pipeline, I think the point is to discuss the movement, which i think he’s equipped to do as someone with a large platform who seems to know a lot about the movement.

First of all, Mark Ruffalo does not need to be the one doing press with regards to the Dakota pipeline. He’s an asshole with a white savior complex. He thinks he can get away with speaking for the oppressed and I’m tired of it. If he really wanted to help the situation, he would use his (as you mentioned, pretty large) platform to allow the marginalized to speak for themselves instead of speaking for and over them.



Second of all, this movement has not shifted away from strategically threatening the lives of indigenous people. And indigenous people are telling us this, they are telling us that this permit denial was a win, but it wasn’t the end, and it may not even the stop the pipeline from being built on Sioux land. Not to mention, the tactics that were used against the indigenous people protesting at Standing Rock would never have been used against white people. Even if the threat of the pipeline was totally gone, which it isn’t, that doesn’t take away all of the racism that went into the harming of the protestors in the first place. None of this is purely environmental. Race cannot suddenly be removed from the equation.



And again, I don’t care what kinds of questions people are asking Mark Ruffalo, he is not equipped to talk about the movement. He is not the one spearheading these protests. He is not the one who gets to decide what happens next. He should be a silent ally, promoting indigenous people to speak for themselves, to listen to them on what the next plan of action is.

