It's generally easier on the conscience to not think about where the fuel that brought most USC students away from campus last week came from. Doing so involves delving into America's past in the Middle East and pollution at home.
But if you're ever going to care, I beg you to pick this week to do so.
As Americans celebrated a holiday that now commemorates Native American cooperation and historically celebrated Native American deaths, the latest chapter in America's sordid history with indigenous people was being written in North Dakota.
Energy Transfer Partners is building a pipeline to transfer oil from the fields of North Dakota to consumers and refineries in the eastern U.S. It is currently planned to cross beneath the Missouri River just north of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. The passage has become a rallying point for Native Americans, and thousands of protestors have been drawn to the site.
So let's go through how we got here.
ETP originally planned to build the pipeline so that it crossed the Missouri River north of the predominantly white city of Bismarck, North Dakota. The company claims that there is no risk to human health from the crossing, but still agreed to move the pipeline away from the city after local activists raised concerns. Experts say there is no way to guarantee that the pipeline wouldn't leak in the future, which would end up ruining Standing Rock's water supply.
Under current law, the company is required to consult with tribal authorities to undertake such a risky project. The tribe claims that never happened.
Non-violent protests have been ongoing for months, and the reactions of local law enforcement and private security firms have been horrifyingly extreme.
A lot of claims as to what exactly happened are hard to verify: The county sheriff's office uniformly denies them, and national media companies have largely ignored the protests. But the sheriff has been caught lying before, so his word is, quite frankly, far weaker than that of the protesters.
In the past, the sheriff's department has arrested journalists and put arrested protesters in dog cages.Dogs have been used to attack protesters as well. This has prompted the United Nations to monitor the situation.
The most recent escalation by law enforcement saw them fire water cannons in subzero temperatures, throw concussive grenades and shoot "non-lethal" bullets. One woman might lose her arm.
Sometimes I like to think that we have at least shamed racists into being subtler and less violent in the last 50 years. But right now, it looks like the ghost of Bull Connor is running rampant once more.
It's worth noting that law enforcement, sworn to serve and protect, is currently doing this to citizens exercising their constitutional rights to assembly and protest in order to keep their access to clean water.
Not that the country has historically cared about poisoning Native Americans' water, mind you. Just last year the EPA accidentally poisoned the Navajo Nation's water supply and still hasn't compensated them for it.
Maybe the worst part of this is what the implications of the public's silence. The nation's press has been reluctant to cover an oil company and its local allies brutally repressing protests, even when thousands of people's access to clean water is endangered. I mentioned in my column last week that it's hard for white people to learn about white supremacy when the press and education system won't cover it.
But white supremacy is definitely still real, even in its most violent forms. The government is currently using violence against unarmed protesters of color because we view marginally cheaper oil for the middle class as better than clean water for Native Americans. And White America is sitting back and letting it happen.
If you really view white supremacy as abhorrent, if you really deeply down despise it and all it stands for: Do something. Donate money to the main encampment of protesters at ocetisakowincamp.org. Call the Army Corps of Engineers or your Congressional representatives. Write letters to the editor of national and regional papers calling for them to give more coverage to the situation.
Because if you sit back and do nothing, you're silently voicing your contentment at the situation. You view your gas prices or time or comfort as more important than Native Americans' water. You are part of the country's white supremacist problem.