"In 2023, Native American children are still forced to cut their hair. A school in Kansas forced an 8 year old Native child to cut his hair because it didn't fit the requirement for boys. Despite being protected by the First Amendment of Freedom of Expression and Religion."
I remember the story of a young Black teen who was told if he didn't cut off his locks before a wrestling match he could not participate. There was footage of him looking despaired while they cut off his hair. Or another time when another Black teen who was told if he didn't cut his dreadlocks he couldn't attend his own graduation ceremony -he was suspended just like so many have been for refusing to cut their hair. I'm also thinking of the countless times Black girls and women, who have disproportionately experienced hair bias, been told their hair isn't 'professional,' if it hasn't been straightened.
Telling Indigenous people to cut their hair has white supremacist roots (as it does for the cases I just mentioned above) -settler-colonizers did this when they kidnapped and forced Indigenous children into these genocidal concentration camps (yes, that's what they were) and it's beyond despicable. And is something that is a political issue because hair is political -for so many cultures and traditions, it is sacred -this is just horrifying.
I know ppl in the US aren't saying they need a break from the several genocides the USA is abetting while their Thanksgiving turkeys thaw.
I know they aren't about to sit down and be 'grateful' the Turtle Island genocide provided them a place to live while insisting they need to take a mental health break from the genocide that Palestinians are the actual victims of.
And frankly, if Palestinians under occupation can force the entire world to notice their genocide while blackouts of internet and electricity happen then you can share their posts about it from the dinner table.
And in the spirit of the holiday you insist on celebrating: you can be grateful that's your only personal experience with genocide this year.
If you as person in the USA, do not share the same values as the white supremacists forefathers that got you here, then start acting like it.
Stop breathing life into traditions built on oppression. And stop celebrating them the same heartless ways they did. Natives couldn't even vote in every state until 1957, but y'all were having Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is not and was never a holiday that celebrated peace or harmony or equality or appreciation or appreciation. And we all know that's never what it's been about anyway. You know how I know?
Because enslaved people from Africa are who served colonizers their Thanksgiving meals.
Because bringing an end to our ongoing genocide would have been peace and harmony and the USA to this day refuses to do so.
This Thanksgiving I hope every bite goes down like native blood into soil.
Stop celebrating genocide and start standing behind global indigenous liberation so we can create a day to celebrate that instead.
To anyone supporting or calling for the “adoption of Palestinian children” I beg, beg of you to read about adoption as a tool of human trafficking and genocide, read about overseas adoption in the Korean War, read about boarding schools in North America and Australia and Aotearoa, ICWA and other laws we put in place to prevent it from happening again, missionaries and orphanages throughout Africa and the global south that are still continuing .
Adoption has long been used as tool to deprive children of their language, their religion, their culture, and their family.
November is Native American Heritage Month, and I beg of you to learn, and to not repeat what was done to our children.
Children are the future. We must not allow theirs to be stolen—in any capacity.
Seeing global indigenous solidarity right now and I wanted to say I think y'all should be looking into the history of the land youre on, looking into the support your local tribes need, learning about the native plants and foods and animals around you.
If you do not want to be defined by consumerism, hyperindependence, or white supremacy you must start to build a future for yourselves outside of it.
And what does that look like if not becoming indigenous to the place you live?
Making sure that the land pilgrims and colonizers handed to you isnt something that you exploit, but actively participate in taking care of. Making sure that you don't see the indigenous people or the land as beneath you, but as equals if not teachers.
Because this is your home now too. Isn't it?
And rather than villifying the people who were here first for having a birthright claim that you dont and forcing us to assimilate to capitalism... learn about the land you inherited.
How it works, what and who takes care of it and how it takes care of you. How you can return the favor.
Show us you are not your ancestors. That the change we see online and in support of Palestine is not shallow or just a trend.
By showing through action that not only do you believe all humans are equal but that you are willing to engage and actively help dismantle the systems hurting all of us.
That you're no longer just a settler on occupied land taking advantage of the way the land and it's people are exploited.
Show us that you no longer feel like a colonized person who wants to uphold white supremacy and it's ideals. That you no longer want those privileges or any comforts bought with innocent blood overseas. That you don't want to perpetuate the systems destroying the planet and it's people.
Your people.
Show me that you know you belong on Turtle Island. Show me how you respect your home and land.
Show me that you are not "white" because you know that race was created Solely to create separation and false superiority.
Show me how you've defined yourself outside of it.
The click language is the foundation of all world languages. Africa tells the human story of the world but not even most Africans themselves don't know this.
People living outside of Africa knows more about African prehistory better than most Africans who are born and live on the African continent. Scientist knows more about African prehistory history better than anyone because science were first used in Africa by Africans before the world knew anything about science.
Zionists love to be like well Jewish people are indigenous to Israel! Like LOL u colonial weirdos have no idea what being native means do u. It doesn’t mean “my far back ancestors were at one point originally from here”, it means a place is you and your peoples home. the logic of “indigenous identity” zionists have would also mean then that Cajuns are indigenous to Canada.
Natives were (probably) not the first people to be in the Americas, migration happens all the time and used to happen freely a lot more! We also probably came from somewhere else and ended up in the Americas. We don’t have some fucking magical ethnic connection to the land, we just lived here for millennia and over time developed our own cultures and traditions and tribes and communities and homes. That’s it. The only reason Native identity has all this mysticism around it, is because at some point white settlers came, decided they were owed the land, decided they didn’t want us there, and killed us.
Notice that if I take that paragraph and make it about Palestinians it’ll still make sense, but if I make that about “israeli” settlers, it won’t? Yeah. Stop co-opting our movements.