DC Reinvest again rallies at Wells Fargo against DAPL and other pipelines
On the 17th of May, DC Reinvest and Rising Hearts Coalition once again showed up in front of the Wells Fargo across 17th st from the White House. They were demanding that Wells Fargo dump the Dakota Access Pipeline and similar pipelines such as the revived Keystone XL. Failing that, they are demanding that the DC Government terminate their business relationship with Wells Fargo and advising depositors to move their money elsewhere.
As has become a tradition at the DC Reinvest bank protests, a round dance was held after the speakers finished. This is a social dance and in this context symbolizes unity among Indigenous people and with all the others harmed by and resisting Well's Fargo's dirty pipeline investments.
Anyone keeping their money in Wells Fargo is directly paying for the (already leaked once) Dakota Access Pipeline, the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, discriminatory housing practices, and all those private prisons the GEO Groups funds. Wells Fargo's failing grade for housing discrimination means existing DC law calls for removing the DC government's money from the bank. A bill to do so has been introduced but the committee that is supposed to hear the bill has so far refused to put it on the agenda.
Indigenous nations living in the path of the Dakota Access Pipeline and Keystone XL are being directly harmed by Wells Fargo today just as they were in the 19th Century when Wells Fargo statecoaches supported the invasion of Indigenous lands in Central and Western Turtle Island. Even the Wells Fargo statecoach logo is a deliberate celebration of assault while armed, armed robbery of the land itself, and genocide of the owners of that land.
Wells Fargo also has so bad a reputation that one of the most heard demands from No Justice No Pride is that Wells Fargo be expelled from the 2017 Capitol Pride Parade. Similar demands exist for other corporate sponsors but Wells Fargo is a "tier one offender" which has been protested at Pride many times before. Thus the claims by Capitol Pride organizers that there is no time to re-evaluate the presence of Wells Fargo in Pride for thie year ring hollow. They have had at least five years.
