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Shailene Woodley Thinks It’s ‘Amazing’ Malia Obama Joined DAPL Protest

"If she doesn’t participate in democracy, there will be no world for her future children."
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Senior Reporter, HuffPost

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Shailene Woodley saw a familiar face in the crowd during a protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, Monday. 

Speaking with Democracy Now this week, the “Divergent” actress revealed that Malia Obama was also in attendance at the event organized in solidarity with the people of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. 

“It was amazing to see Malia. I saw her last night when we did the event with [Standing Rock] Chairman Dave Archambault. And it was incredible to see her there,” Woodley explained. “To witness a human being and a woman coming into her own outside of her family and outside of the attachments that this country has on her, but someone who’s willing to participate in democracy because she chooses to, because she recognizes, regardless of her last name, that if she doesn’t participate in democracy, there will be no world for her future children.”

Obama, who joined her family on a Palm Springs vacation following Donald Trump’s inauguration, has been reportedly spotted attending screenings at the festival all week. The 18-year-old recently secured an internship with Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, but it’s unclear whether she attended Sundance in a professional capacity. 

Woodley has been one of most high-profile advocates against the Dakota Access Pipeline, which would carry crude oil across sacred lands, potentially contaminating the population’s fresh water source and disturbing sacred grounds. She and 26 others were arrested for criminal trespassing while protesting the pipeline in October.

Amid massive protests at Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, the Obama administration halted construction on the pipeline two months later, which was hailed as a significant victory for indigenous people everywhere. In January, President Trump reversed the decision by signing an executive order to continue building on the land. 

But Woodley and other protesters plan to challenge Trump’s decision and “mobilize” following the setback.

“What we could do now as a population, as a society, is to hold our corporations accountable and hold our banks accountable, because there are a lot of banks that are invested in this pipeline,” she told MSNBC. “Regardless of any executive order or what our politicians want to do, if there’s no money invested in the pipelines, then they can’t be built.”

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Before You Go

Why These Interfaith Activists Are Standing With Standing Rock
Rev. Karen Van Fossan(01 of09)
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I'm the minister of the Unitarian Universalist congregation in Bismarck, ND. I'm honored to stand with Standing Rock. My tradition is very much a church of the world, where love supports justice and justice makes deeper love come alive. I see Standing Rock as the center of the world right now. I'm grateful to the people of Oceti Sakowin camp for sharing this center with me. (credit:United Religions Initaitive)
Jaya Reinhalter(02 of09)
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I am an interfaith youth organizer. I stand with Standing Rock because as a believer in the sacredness of all life, I see the struggle at Standing Rock as a fight for the right to life by way of the preservation of sacred and clean waters, but also the refusal to accept the decimation of the indigenous peoples and cultures of this nation. Those who share in the interfaith tradition recognize that it is high time we ascend delusions of separateness and create new models that hold interconnection at their heart. The indigenous leaders at Standing Rock have done just that, and we owe them tremendous gratitude for this gift. (credit:United Religions Initaitive)
Moji Agha(03 of09)
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I am Muslim, was born in a Shia family in Iran and I have obviously Sufi tendencies. I [am] standing with Standing Rock because as a Muslim and as a Sufi, I am called to stand with the oppressed, to understand that we are interconnected in such a profound way with everything and every being in the universe -- we are brothers and sisters. My brothers and sisters at Standing Rock are just yet another group that are being oppressed by oil companies, huge corporations that are destroying Mother Earth. We are stewards of nature. (credit:United Religions Initaitive)
Rev. Dee Lundberg(04 of09)
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I am a pastor in the United Church of Christ in Wyoming. I standing with Standing Rock because the United Church of Christ has had a really long history of social justice movements; In particular we have spent a lot of time in the last couple decades looking at our own historical role in the oppression of the Native American community ... Standing with Standing Rock is our social and moral and religious obligation to stand with our brothers and sisters regardless of race, color, sexual orientation or any of that ... We all have a duty to stand with our tribal brothers and sisters and let them know that they’re love and supported -- that we care. (credit:United Religions Initaitive)
Great Grandmother Mary Lyons(05 of09)
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I am an old Ojibwe woman...Our cultural belief is of the oneness. We believe in the protection of the four elements of life, that is fire, air, water and earth. That is what sustains us. We also believe...that we originally had an agreement with Creator, as we are spirit, and when we were birthed here, we had this agreement of coming down to Mother Earth as a student so when we entered, we entered the purest of waters, which is our mother’s womb and she blessed us with making this beautiful blanket of a body that embraces our spirit. And when we enter Mother Earth we take our first breath so when we walk here we believe that every morning we inhale Mother Earth’s breath and we exhale our ancestors. We believe that ... we’re never alone, because we reference our self as the ‘we’, that’s the body and spirit ... Our blanket is made up of a library of DNA of all our ancestors ... So we have to learn how to take care of those four elements. (credit:United Religions Initaitive)
Rabbi Rain Zohav(06 of09)
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I come from the Jewish Renewal tradition. I’m standing with Standing Rock because my tradition teaches the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. My heart told me I needed to be here. (credit:United Religions Initiative)
Adam Wiese(07 of09)
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I am from the Bismarck bi-monthly meeting of the Society of Friends (Quakers). I stand with Standing Rock because not a very long time ago my ancestors settled this land beside the native people and when they did that they [threw] their lot in with a common destiny. And being a part of the Christian tradition, I am very concerned with who our neighbors are and our proper relationship to our neighbors. And our neighbors at Standing Rock asked for our help to protect clean drinking water and ceremonial grounds and cemeteries. That is a call that, as a Christian, I feel compelled to follow for any of my neighbors. (credit:United Religions Initaitive)
Father Jakob Thibault(08 of09)
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I am Fr. Jakob from Providence, RI, and I’m an Old Catholic. I stand with Standing Rock because our faith calls me to stand with those who have no voice and to stand against violence and against the money power that control the world so that we can live in a better world. (credit:United Religions Initaitive)
Vindo Seth(09 of09)
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I identify with all the world's religions. I am quoting my lovely wife who said this yesterday and it touched me: When Gandhi did his passive resistance to get the [independence] for India, I was not born. When Martin Luther King lead the protests at Selma when people of all colors joined, I was not in America. Now that the Standing Rock people are doing a passive, nonviolent protest to protect our waters, I want to be with them. I am proud of their nonviolent, prayerful, passive resistance. It is the largest such movement on earth now. (credit:United Religions Initaitive)
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