Anti-Indigenous things to quit saying/doing:
- Stop saying “off the reservation”. It’s a reference to the pass system that was in place restricting Native people from leaving without permission.
- Stop making “1/16th”, “great-great grandmother”, etc. jokes. All of these reference blood quantum, a system designed to “breed out the Natives”. Indigeneity isn’t defined by a percentage, fraction, etc. Quit policing Indigenous identities and quit joking about genocidal tactics.
- Stop calling things your “spirit animal”. You don’t have one. Only Indigenous people from specific nations have spirit animals.
- Stop making dreamcatchers. They are sacred Anishinaabe culture and are not cute trinkets, crafts, etc. Buy them from Anishinaabe artists.
- Stop buying those little cloth “teepees” for your kids/pets/whatever. Also stuff with tipi prints
- Quit referring to your “tribe”. Enough with the “bride tribe” nonsense and all the rest. Stop trivializing tribal affiliations.
- Don’t wear “war paint”. Don’t put a feather in your hair. Don’t dress up as Native people or characters.
- Stop referring to your meetings/side discussions/parties as a “pow wow”.
- Stop supporting sports teams that use racist terms and logos and caricatures of Indigenous people.
- Stop using white sage. It is sacred and overharvested. There are lots of types of sage you can use instead.
- Stop “smudging”. Smoke cleansing exists in many forms in many cultures, use that. Non-Natives can’t smudge.
- Stop tokenizing your Native friends, classmates, in-laws, half siblings, etc.
Please add more!
- Stop treating Native spirits as generic monsters or cryptids, especially w*ndigoag and sk*nwalkers.
- Stop using imagery of skulls in Plains headdresses, especially as tattoos. This shouldn’t need to be explained.
Non-native but ESPECIALLY white witches/pagans stop trying to practice native religions/spirituality or trying to contact native spirits, leave our shit alone. They’re closed, period. The only time it’s okay for you to participate is when you’re invited by a native person, and your participation ends when that event is over, case closed.
- “You don’t *look* Indian” is wrong on numerous levels, among them the assumption that mainstream media’s stereotypical presentation of us is the way we somehow all must look. Stop saying any version of that. Your nearest midsize powwow will give you a full array of Native people with every phenotype you can imagine, from the ones who fit your narrow, stereotypical boundaries to the very pale, blue-eyed, blond grass dancer to the dark-skinned dancer with locs and her fancy shawl appliqued with African tribal patterns. If we’re Native, we look Native, period.
- “Native Americans believed…” As though 1) there was a monoculture and 2) Natives no longer exist/aren’t relevant in modern times and are relegated to history. We’re still here, and acting like we aren’t just helps perpetuate the genocidal tactic of deliberate invisibility. Also, we are not now, nor ever were, a monoculture, so a present-tense “Native Americans believe…” is also invalid.
- This was somewhat covered, but to be clear: “How much?” is not something for you to ask, especially not to people fighting a war of cultural attrition and erasure while trying to weave together the ragged threads of families and cultures and identities that were targeted and torn apart for centuries in an (ongoing) attempt to eliminate us.
THIS 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 I CAN NOT COUNT HOW MANY TIMES IVE HEARD “BUT YOU DONT LOOK NATIVE”
