“Decolonizing” most institutions would actually mean dissolving them and closing them down as most institutions are colonial by design and by function.
Recognizing the sovereignty of Native nations solely to acquire reproductive healthcare now that the settler state threatens the bodily autonomy of non-Natives is settler colonialism in practice!
“Indigenous” is a global term y’all!
I know we (especially in the U.S.) often use it interchangeably with “Native” but please let’s remember that there are Indigenous peoples (who are native to their ancestral lands) everywhere.
I wish y’all authentic community! Where y’all actually know and genuinely care about one another. Where y’all pour into each other. Where accountability isn’t about the destruction, but rather the love for one another. Where y’all are safe and can be y’all’s authentic self!
If you actually believe BLM, then you must also be an abolitionist.
You must absolutely be about dismantling this system that is determined to destroy Black lives, Black liberation, Black well-being, Black autonomy, Black self-determination, Black power, Black futures, Black...
Remembering and centering the Wampanoag, the Pequot, the Narragansett, the Podunk, the Nipmuc, the Mohegan, and all other NE tribes/peoples who endured, resisted, and survived the first “Thanksgiving” which was and is a celebration of their attempted genocide and ongoing erasure.
Keeping Native children with Native families, in Native homes, and in Native communities is our absolute and inherent right as sovereign peoples/nations!
The settler argument that colonizers were/are justified in their attempt at global conquest because Indigenous people too had violent conflicts amongst ourselves (including war), is not the comeback folks think it is.
"Revolution means protecting the people. The plants. The animals. The air. The water. Revolution means saving this planet. Revolution is love."
-Assata Shakur
Land Back is literal. It is not, nor will it ever be a metaphor.
It literally means give the Land Back. It literally means end settler colonialism so that Indigenous people can return to our Lands- the Lands of our ancestors!
Folks steadily be trying to delegitimize Indigenous knowledge and deeming it non-scientific. Meanwhile Indigenous people have always understood and developed scientific methodologies. Astronomy, biology, botany, geology, geography, chemistry, physics, etc., we been doing that!
People don’t like Black mermaids, elves, fairies, aliens, unicorns, super saiyans or any other fictional characters because let’s be honest, they simply don’t like real Black people.
bell hooks was Afro Indigenous/Black and Native.
In fact, her pseudonym was in honor of her great grandmother whose name she chose to honor her family’s Native identity.
The ancestor Toni Morrison said,
“The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being…
LandBack challenges the settler imagination not bc it’s difficult but bc it requires the settler to acknowledge Indigenous peoples’ inherent right to self-determination & autonomy, & to prioritize our right to steward our ancestral lands over their desire to own/exploit the Land!
The Underground Railroad was not only a refusal of the plantation and a declaration of Black Liberation, it was also sometimes a point of solidarity between Black folks and Natives.
“Colonized” is not who we are, nor is it our birthright. Rather “colonized” is a temporary state of oppression forced upon us which has required us to become colonial subjects against our will. And against our nature!
There’s an unjustifiable expectation from settlers that “Land Back!” will be some easy and orderly process that ensures there will be no disruption to settler power, settler institutions, and/or the settler way of life.
Native peoples, our sovereignty, nor our (already stressed and underfunded) healthcare systems exist to rescue you when the colonialism you practice, participate in, and benefit from no longer serves you!
With all due respect, this country was built on the attempted genocide & dispossession of Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island and the enslavement & oppression of Indigenous Africans/African Americans. And almost all of our protests have sought to disturb and disrupt the “peace!”
This nation was built on peaceful protest. No elected official should lose their job simply for raising their voice – especially when they’re doing it on behalf of our children.
Seeking to assuage colonizers’ attempt at global Indigenous genocide and erasure by pointing to the conflict and humanity of Indigenous people will never validate or justify colonialism or the ongoing global projects of settler colonialism.
A nation cannot claim to have birthed freedom when it has, from its inception practiced genocide, land theft, and enslavement as nation-building strategies. It cannot be the epitome of freedom when it has enshrined anti-Black and anti-Indigenous policies into its very foundation.
Please note, we can praise Guthrie for his protest of property/land ownership while holding him accountable for his blind spot.
The song absolutely erases Indigenous peoples and perpetuates the genocide of our peoples even while critiquing capitalism and wealthy landowners.
Disenfranchising Blackness from Indigeneity is an attempt to render those racialized as Black (globally) incapable, even ineligible of being connected to land and place!
“Whiteness” was invented to coerce poor and landless settlers to forfeit their authentic identities and buy into a racial hierarchy and racial capitalism.
Some people hear “ethnostate” when Indigenous peoples say, “Land Back!” or when Black folks say, “Black Power/Black Liberation!”
There is a genuine fear that Black and Indigenous peoples (and other POC) will do exactly to the oppressor what has been done to us.
So focused on what they assume they’d be deprived of instead of accounting for all they’ve lost and/or are loosing under settler colonialism, white supremacy, and racial capitalism!
Land acknowledgements do not assuage settler institutions of their historical and ongoing theft of Indigenous Land.
Simply acknowledging that an institution currently resides on the ancestral Lands of Indigenous peoples does not absolve it of its Land Back responsibilities.
So interesting how folks be steadily conflating Land Back with colonial violence. Land Back is not a genocidal policy. Colonialism and settler colonialism, however, are!
Black Natives often have to do extra work to prove we’re also Native.
This hyper investigation of our “claims” to legitimate heritage, ancestry, community, culture, and kinship is rooted in white supremacy and anti-Blackness.
FR though, is it really hard to fathom and accept that keeping Native children in communities to maintain familial, kinship, and cultural connections is what’s best for Native children? That that alone should top a non-Native’s desire to adopt or to “love” a Native child?
#ICWA
When Indigenous peoples insist on “Land Back” we are bombarded with excuses as to why it is impossible to return the stewardship of our ancestral lands to us.
Yet land theft happens by any means necessary with persistence, determination, and presumed divine and moral authority.
The oppressed are expected to resist the violence of our oppressors with flowers and to contest their tyranny with beautiful words. So when their hatred buries us there are no more flowers to lay on our graves and no more beautiful words left to eulogize us or remember our names.
Relatives, it is completely possible to root for Black liberation while fighting for Indigenous Sovereignty.
The two movements aren’t mutually exclusive, they are complementary.
@MrMarcus260
I love how this thread displays the love Black parents have for their lgbtq+ children. It’s a narrative we don’t often hear. This is Black love!!
Listen to Black and Indigenous people
Listen to Black and Indigenous people
Listen to Black and Indigenous people
Listen to Black and Indigenous people
Listen to Black and Indigenous people
Today is the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Trans, Non-Binary, 2 Spirit, and all Native relatives.
We see you! We remember you! You are not forgotten! We carry your memory as we continue to fight for you!
#MMIP
#MMIWG2S
Black Natives who grew up in their Native communities primarily, are still Black. Black Natives who grew up in their Black communities primarily, are still Native. Black Natives have both a Black and Native lived experience.
The plant is literally burning! We are over surveilled and over policed! Oligarchs are stealing wealth and demanding more of us for the sake of “the economy!” Mitch McConnell! Monsanto! The banks! Shall I continue?!
I mourn with our relatives who are mourning today. Who feel erased and forgotten. Who find no comfort in a national day of “thanks”- a colonial holiday constructed on top of their ancestors’ memory and in service of the maintenance of settler colonialism! I see you relatives!
The world is literally on fire as a result of colonialism and settler colonialism, and yet colonizers are out here rehearsing and recounting their genocidal exploits while asserting their stance that the world is better off bc they’ve “conquered” Indigenous people and the Land.
Word on the street is that I’m a “pretindian.” Lol!
Folks out here contacting institutions & relatives on social media (especially those w/large accounts) claiming that I’m not Native. Demanding w/out any authority that I be removed from projects, unfollowed, & “de-platformed.”
It really is okay for those of us who are both Native and of African decent to identify as “Black and Native,” “Afro Indigenous,” or other versions of these idenfiers. Using these terms doesn’t diminish our Native-ness or our Blackness.
This is a reminder that settler academic institutions also exist to reinforce Eurocentrism and white supremacy, and by extension reinforce the notion that the scientific method and science in general doesn’t apply to Indigenous knowledge.
…Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”
This include internalized racism weaponized against our kin and skin folk! So enough of the distractions, we’ve got work to do!
Historic ruling today from the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court, which has removed any reference of "by blood" from our Constitution, stating "unequivocally" that the descendants of Freedmen are citizens of our sovereign nation:
Long live our ancestors and us-their descendants- for resisting, refusing, and surviving attempted genocide, erasure, dispossession, land theft, imperialism, looting, enslavement, human trafficking, subjugation, and all the other consequences of colonialism/settler colonialism!
Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples, it’s okay to bask in today’s victory while simultaneously acknowledging the settler state, white supremacy, and racial cacapitalism still exist.
“Indigenous people make up 5% of the world's population and protect 80% of global biodiversity.”
This statistic informs us of how invaluable Indigenous peoples are AND simultaneously reminds us of the ongoing role colonialism plays in the genocide of Indigenous peoples globally.
“No person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow and be perceived as fully blossomed as you were intended. Or who belittles in any fashion the gifts you labor so to bring into the world.”
-Alice Walker
…Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up…
@PeccaryNotPig
Theft of Indigenous land was/is ratified under settler colonial law. Therefore, it will never be illegal nor will it need justification until the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples is rightfully restored.
Colonialism got folks assigning Eurocentric knowledge of the natural world as genuine, authentic science. Centering it and making it the sole authority and expert on all things deemed, “science!” Thus giving it permission to delegitimize Indigenous knowledge!
Not on our watch!
For many Native relatives today is a day of mourning, as Thanksgiving is a holiday that promotes and reinforces the genocide, dispossession, and erasure of Native peoples.
So today we uplift and center our relatives who had to endure the onset of colonialism on this continent.