#indigenous perspective

[ometochtli2rabbit]

The 4th of July, celebrates the adoption of the Declaration on July 4, 1776. The 13 colonies formally declared their independence from Great Britain. But the document excluded Native Americans, calling them non human “merciless savages,” and helped justify years of genocide against them. It also began the process of structuring the U.S. government, which was mostly inspired by Native governments that were going on before they even arrived.

Many Native nations cooperated through a unified council while keeping their independence. Settlers admired this balance of unity and autonomy. Particularly loved by settlers was that many of the Native government systems had constitutions, Representative government, Separation of powers, Checks and balances, and Federalism. The settlers witnessed most Native systems had the concept of Freedom, Equality, Self-government, and the idea that governments derive their powers from the consent of the people they govern and thats what was wanted as a large message of the Declaration.

The Declaration came about because Britain was abusing its power. Colonists were inspired by the Native argument that people have natural rights inherently for being human like right to live and be safe from harm, freedom to make personal choices freely, freedom of thought and action, and the right to be able to keep the fruits of one’s labor.

Today, Native Americans are working to correct that systemic exclusion, still aiming for the same goal as during colonization and even prior, where everyone is welcome on the land and while on the land everyone’s basic needs are met and neither the land nor people should be exploited. It can often be confusing or even sound controversial to hear terms like “land back” or “this is Native land” but really those phrases are meant to assert in modern times the collective goal of equality, basic human rights for all, not exploiting humans or land, and that on this land that gives us all we need nobody “owns” it but it’s a shared resource and that every human no matter your background is deserving to be on the land with safe shelter, food, health care and ability to actually enjoy it

Jearica Fountain (facebook)

[bemodreamy]

There's an alternate reality where the Avatar films ended up more like the Black Panther franchise, actually employing people from the culture who they are inspired by, and making something genuinely awesome, powerful and well liked.

But instead we have an aging ego maniac who prefers his blue furry colonizer brained fanfic over the indigenous people he claims to respect.

It's real disappointing.

[thicklylethalillusion]

Mfw the active volcano I live on does active volcano shit

[bigpunjaban]

Just something to rehash as Fire and Ash is now out

[yeehawzima]

I need your help!

For my major, I’m writing an essay about the ‘Legend of El Dorado’, and would love to interview somebody of Colombian descent with ancestors effected (in any way) by the Spanish Conquistador’s/any expeditions during the 1500′s. In particular, any links to the Muisca people would be deeply appreciated. Your answers may be included in my paper, which you are welcome to read before I submit it. Please message me if you are interested, thank you!

[underwaterspiderbird]

I don't trust the Speaker of God

I don't. They might mean well but their good intent doesn't mean shit to me. Not when they rep the same organized religions & the same imagery that's co-signed the colonization, enslavement & attempted erasure of everyone like me, that preys on me, my loved ones & our very existence If their word truly means anything then they and the god they speak for will put an angelic bullet in their own "holy" skulls after a sincere, actual sorry, without trying to control or tell me how to feel about them, after all of Heaven's burnt to the ground and rotten away by the face they look at in the mirror. 🤷🏿‍♀️

I hope Lilith breaks their halos like glass and makes them drink soda laced with their own halo shards & botulinum toxin so they rip their throats from the inside & choke on their own rotten mustard blood.

[aimnerual]

Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance

In July 1990, a dispute over a proposed golf course to be built on Kanien’kéhaka (Mohawk) lands in Oka, Quebec, set the stage for a historic

[goingtiny]

Voting is Not Harm Reduction - An Indigenous Perspective

Voting is Not Harm Reduction An Indigenous Perspective February 2020 - www.indigenousaction.org Zine format printable PDF download: Voting is Not Harm Reduction Zine-FINAL-PRINT (9.8MB) When proclamations are made that “voting is harm reduction,” it’s never clear how less harm is actuall

When proclamations are made that “voting is harm reduction,” it’s never clear how less harm is actually calculated. Do we compare how many millions of undocumented Indigenous Peoples have been deported? Do we add up what political party conducted more drone strikes? Or who had the highest military budget? Do we factor in pipelines, mines, dams, sacred sites desecration? Do we balance incarceration rates? Do we compare sexual violence statistics? Is it in the massive budgets of politicians who spend hundreds of millions of dollars competing for votes?

Though there are some political distinctions between the two prominent parties in the so-called U.S., they all pledge their allegiance to the same flag. Red or blue, they’re both still stripes on a rag waving over stolen lands that comprise a country built by stolen lives.

We don’t dismiss the reality that, on the scale of U.S. settler colonial violence, even the slightest degree of harm can mean life or death for those most vulnerable. What we assert here is that the entire notion of “voting as harm reduction” obscures and perpetuates settler-colonial violence, there is nothing “less harmful” about it, and there are more effective ways to intervene in its violences.