The Tribes of the Oceti Sakowin have united to stop the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) because neither the oil company nor the U.S. government cares that we never gave our consent for it. In the U.S., the standard for moving forward on such projects is “tribal consultation,” but in practice, that’s not a standard at all. Simply sending us an email shouldn’t count as consent. We insist on a higher standard, one that values our perspective and doesn’t subjugate our people based on meaningless words from the colonizers’ handbook. Mni wiconi — water is life.