[Screencaps of a series of tweets by twitter user sydnerain, reading as follows:
Alright. Here is one indigenous woman's take on the #WomensMarch [female symbol emoji] on Washington, in a sea full of white women (WW). This will be a thread.
Many women of color (WOC) have criticized this march already. I'd like to share an indigenous experience of colonization and stolen land.
First off, I'd like to point out I marched with a group of indigenous women/people with @indigwomenrise. We stayed together as a collective.
Before I begin my critique of the march, I want to thank every single organizer and marcher in our group. The experience was invaluable.
We were surrounded by good medicine in DC, the belly of the beast. You could tell by our spirits we came from 100's of years of resistance.
We started a prayer circle in the morning in front of the American Indian Smithsonian museum, next to all those ancestors. It was powerful.
We took smoke from Ponca elder Casey Camp-Horinek, we sang warrior songs together. There were so many nations that came together as one.
I want to make it clear that I had my people with me, that I had a home in this march that was absolutely plagued with white supremacy.
I everyone [sic] to understand that our prayer circle was sacred & full of good spirits in those moments. And how leaving the circle was toxic.
I want everyone to know how disturbing it was during those brief moments I left the prayer circle and became surrounded by the gaze of WW.
My @IndigenizeOU partner and best friend Ashley and I wore our regalia. She wore her jingle dress and I wore my ribbon skirt & ribbon comb.
We were visible. They took pictures of us and then refused to take our fliers on pipelines, fracking, and #MMIW in Oklahumma.
The WW told us we "looked beautiful" and took pictures of us without our permission, but wouldn't listen to what we face as NDN women.
Ashley and I started a chant, "You're on stolen land." WW shot us ugly looks. One shouted in her face, "We know but it isn't our fault!"
Multiple WW scolded us for being "too loud." Multiple WW mocked me for lulu'ing (war cry, of sorts) alongside Ashley while she chanted.
You could hear what the WW said. "They're real Indians." "They're still here?" "I think they're faking it." "Why do they look like that?"
All the while I kept trying to focus on the energy & history of the land I was standing on. Washington DC. Capital. Stolen Piscataway land.
I always try to think about my connection to the land. Think about whose ancestors I'm standing on. And these WW ask me if I'm a real human.
Outside the prayer circle WW are taking pics & videos of us in round dance. Several WW roll up in R*skins hats. WW asking me "What is this?"
WW try to walk through our prayer circle and are immediately called out by our elders present. This is all before the march even starts.
When the march starts several WW try to join our group to march with us. Two WW beside me told me "Guess we're Indians today!" and laughed.
We responded, "We don't get to choose if we're native or not. This is our reality & you are not Indian. You are disrespectful & need to go."
WW responds: "I'm from Minnesota. I can name a lot of the lakes around me and they're all in Indian. I even know some tribes too."
None of us are amused and we ask her to leave. She calls us and our march "rude" and said "it's unfortunate that Indians can't take jokes."
When the march begins I am surrounded by WW holding up signs like "smash the patriarchy"[,] "keep your hands off our pussies" and so forth.
We begin our first chant, "Mni Wiconi, water is life." WW look confused. WW staring at us or just acting oblivious like we weren't there.
And it makes me so, so fucking angry to type this. The tone-deafness of all these "angry" white supremacists around me. Their lack of care.
Our lives as indigenous women are intersectional BY NECESSITY. Everyday it's life/death for us in this settler colonial terrorist regime.
I'm crying now typing this. One day it's a pipeline. The next our babies are stolen. Next our sisters go missing. Next we're killed by cops.
And I'm marching and trying to hold my head up and remembering my Mvskoke ancestors who marched on the Trail of Tears for me to be here.
The whole time I am treated by non-Natives and especially WW like a marching spectacle while they refuse my fliers. Like a real life museum.
They only stopped to pay attention to us when we drummed & sang our women's warrior song, round danced, or to say we have "pretty costumes".
These WW are saying "this is just the beginning." Our ancestors have marched since 1492. This is our whole lives. This is who we are.
WW do not understand the complexities of our reality as children of this grandmother earth, indigenous to her lands. And they don't want to.
WW want to call me their "sister," but my sisters don't touch me or my regalia without my permission. They don't speak over me.
You, WW with a transphobic sign about your vagina being your womanhood, WW that is a colonizer on my land, are not my sister. The opposite.
You want me to hold hands with you and sing kumbaya and be "equal," while you stand on our ancestor's graves and this is your first march.
You, WW, are complicit in my genocide, & until you abandon ur white fragility & acknowledge this[,] you're a white supremacist, not a feminist.
What did I learn from the way WW treated native women at #WomensMarch [female symbol emoji]? That we aren't human. Just museums of a past you know nothing about.
To WW we are living museums of a past you refuse to acknowledge & refuse to learn about. Treated as a guest on our own ancestral lands.
White feminists treat us like we are burdens or that we are divisive. Because it's inconvenient for you to let go of your whiteness.]
