Indigenous People’s Day 2019

Getting rid of Holidays and monuments that celebrate and honor people like Columbus is just the bare minimum of the work that needs to be done. Acknowledging Indigenous People during Indigenous people’s day or by reciting a well-written land acknowledgment is just the beginning, even though these things have been won through hard work and organizing it’s not the end. 

Today we are focused on the deeds of one man and his legacy, while the primary focus of his horrendous deeds is the “America’s” however his impact was global.  He impacted the lives of Indigenous people’s globally, Genocide and Slavery were his products and Europeans enjoyed them. He helped set up the systems that would determine how valuable Black and Brown bodies were to the world. He helped lay the foundations of how people would see the land that we are on and the resources it holds. 

Today marks the start of a holiday season that celebrates and honors genocide. Each holiday bringing its own myths of some horrible settler or group of settlers( The Thanksgivings,) While more people are aware that Columbus and others like him were horrible people, what they don’t seem to grasp are a few things…

One: That genocide, slavery and the mistreatment of Black and Brown bodies is ongoing and never stopped. It just evolved, capitalism changed so did how our people are exploited and harmed. Right now on Indigenous lands, we have cages with Indigenous people being held, We have old forts that use to hold Indigenous people’s during the 1800s are now holding Indigenous children. We still have Indigenous children being removed from their families and placed with non-Indigenous ones. We have Indigenous people being killed at a border that was made to split apart and divide our people’s.  We have a prison system that lives off the lives of Black and Indigenous bodies to makes profits. Our Women and Two-Spirit/LGBTQ community members are still being hunted. Every day a name is added to the list of MMIWG and Two-Spirit. The violence that Indigenous and Black women and Queer community members face is a product of the violence that Columbus brought with him. Sexism, Homophobia, Transphobia are all settler colonial ideas. Columbus knew that dehumanizing the most scared, the most important people to the community would help break the community. 

We have Indigenous relatives in Brazil fighting against a fascist who wants their land and wants to wipe out the Indigenous people of the Amazon. We have relatives in Equador shutting down their government with a general strike. We have relatives fighting against pipelines that treated our waters and lands.  We have relatives in Hawaii fighting to protect their sacred Mauna from desecration. 

Every day we are fighting these systems that were not created by us. They were brought here, an invasive system that continues to harm everything it touches. 557 years of this system and it has done so much harm that it’s hard to measure, it’s seen in the scars that our communities bare and the continued war we are still fighting every day. 

Two: That even though Columbus and those that followed tried their best to destroy us then, and they created this system to destroy us now, they haven’t won. Today bask in the light of our accomplishments, our victories. Be proud that you are the product of resistance. That in order for you to be here today your family line had to survive 557 years of genocidal tactics aimed to destroy you. Your ancestors while they were being killed and sold by Conquistadors, Pioneers, Pilgrims, United States Army, bounty hunters, scalpers, slavers, presidents, the church, and everyone else that didn’t see our value as human beings, our ancestors were out there praying and fighting. You have them within you. Every time we reject settler colonial standards of how we should look, think and act we are honoring them. Every time we learn a new word in our language we are healing, Every time we go to our sacred places we are honoring them. When we stand in solidarity with one another as Indigenous peoples we are honoring them, and we fight against the oppression of others we are honoring them. 

 Also, It’s okay to demand more, then just a name change to a holiday, it’s okay not to be settled with or happy with bare minimum justice.  We don’t have to sit back and be happy with acknowledgment when we should have been acknowledged this whole time. It’s okay to ask for our lands back, it’s okay for us to want more than just performative acts of reconciliation. 

And lastly, We have the power to stop others from becoming the Columbus of the future. That we do not allow monsters that commit horrible acts of violence to magically be redeemed and their stories rewritten and turn them into heroes.  We have to ability to hold leaders accountable for the actions and crimes. We do not have to forgive them, nor forget what they have done. The harm they have cause matters, the trauma they have inflicted should be remembered. No more monuments to people like Columbus. 

Happy Indigenous People’s Day.