'The Data Speaks For Itself': AOC Blames Oil Companies For Kidnapping, Rape, and Murder of Indigenous Women

Brittany M. Hughes | March 18, 2022
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New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says the data “speaks for itself” that the fossil fuel industry is directly tied to the disappearance and murder of indigenous women.

Of course, what that supposed data is saying is anyone’s guess, because the only one who seems to understand it is AOC.

"Today, I want to discuss part of this crisis that is all too often overlooked, but whose evidence shows that there's a very meaningful connection here: The correlation between fossil fuel extraction sites and abductions and murders of indigenous women across the United States," Ocasio-Cortez claimed in a virtual appearance at a March 3 hearing on "The Neglected Epidemic of Missing BIPOC Women and Girls."

AOC then asked testifying witness Angel Charley, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women, how the fossil fuel industry is responsible for these disappearances.
 

"We know that when these man camps or temporary establishments are created, that there is an increase in violence and particularly sexual violence against our Native women," Charley responded.
 


AOC then suggested that “ruthless” oil companies target indigenous people, including women, by “encouraging violence” against pipeline protesters, a claim with which Charley agreed without offering proof. The congresswoman then claimed these oil extraction sites are "strategically" placed on or near Native American land, and suggested that oil companies are directly culpable in covering up violence against tribal women.

"Those fossil fuel companies pay local police departments to protect their extraction sites even when workers are raping and murdering indigenous women," she said. 

AOC continued, “The ACLU of North Dakota also reported that 411 missing murdered, and indigenous people were kidnapped or murdered in states affiliated with pipeline projects, and that 10% of these cases occurred in counties where the Keystone Pipeline alone is proposed to be built," even though the project was never completed and those sites lay dormant.

She concluded by saying that “the data speaks for itself” without actually proving, or even clearly establishing, the alleged correlation between these disappearances and killings, and the oil projects supposedly linked to them.

I guess we're just supposed to take her word for it.

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