Yesterday afternoon a group of Midwest Quakers gathered via Zoom in response to the terrible news of the remains of children at Native residential schools in Canada. Tragically there is no doubt many more will be found.
We began with an hour of worship together. For those not familiar, many Quakers worship in silence. If so led, vocal messages can be given. Afterword we had a discussion about what we might do.
I believe those gathered shared my appreciation for a chance to listen for the Spirit, and to each other, for strength and guidance for what we might be called to do. Many, if not all of us, wonder what our responsibility is for the trauma of forced assimilation. We are aware that Quakers played some role in some of those institutions in the land called the United States.
These traumas have been passed from generation to generation. Described as an open wound in Native communities today.
We must look to Indigenous peoples to learn how we can support them. I’ve been asked to tell people about the concept of LANDBACK. I created the website https://landbackfriends.com/ as one way to do that. There you can find explanations of the concepts of LANDBACK and Mutual Aid. And a number of posts about Native residential schools.
If you are so led, you can add your signature to the LANDBACK epistle. You can also add your email address if you’d like updates.
My friend Christine Nobiss, of the Great Plains Action Society, asks us to support the July 4th event Stop Whitewashing Genocide and Slavery This is a real opportunity for us to demonstrate our support for her work. I would also encourage you to invite young people to attend.
Photos I took at last year’s event can be found below.
This is likely to be a kind of stream of consciousness. Exploring proximity of distance, of time, proximity to the Spirit. How proximity changes our perspective.
I’m floundering. I seem to have become unmoored from the Quaker faith community I was raised in and chose to remain part of my entire life.
Throughout my life there have been tensions between us. One related to the profligate use of fossil fuels. I had hoped when I was led to live without a car, other Friends might also. Had hoped other Friends would be draft resisters. Find ways to join communities of color. Ways to be accountable for settling on Native lands. For participating in the cultural genocide of institutions of forced assimilation.
There have been some Friends who have done some of those things.
A number of things contribute to my current condition. One is realizing the inherent racism, evil of the colonial capitalist economic system. How have we become immune to the hunger, houselessness, disease and despair of millions of people? To endless wars? To the utter devastation of Mother Earth? All predicated on capitalism and white supremacy.
The vast majority of Quakers in the United States are white and relatively well off financially. Benefactors of capitalism and white dominant culture. Many avoid looking at the evils of the capitalist economic system they/we live in. Which, I would contend, is why we don’t have a diverse membership. Why many of us have trouble comprehending racism and privilege.
My perspective has radically changed over the past decade. First when I was blessed to become part of the Kheprw Institute community in Indianapolis. A black youth mentoring and empowerment community. I was mentored myself in the process. I learned there is no substitute for spending a great deal of time in oppressed communities. Justice work is founded on relationships. Without this development of friendships, no meaningful work can be done. This is the proximity of physical distance.
Over the past four years I have been similarly blessed to build relationships, friendships with Native people in Iowa. This was another example of the proximity of physical distance, which was the intention of the First Nation-Farmer Climate Unity March I am profoundly grateful to have been part of. For a week in September, 2018, a small group of about 15 Native and 15 non-native folks walked together, and camped along the route of the Dakota Access pipeline. Walking down rural gravel roads, we shared our stories with each other. Began to build friendships and trust. Since then, there have been numerous occasions when we worked together.
For over a year now I have been so grateful to become part of Des Moines Mutual Aid. My good friend Ronnie James, an Indigenous organizer with more than twenty years of experience, has been generously, patiently mentoring me about Mutual Aid and activism in Iowa. I spend several hours every Saturday morning with a very diverse group of friends as we put together and distribute boxes of food for those in need. Another example of proximity of distance. Over these times together we share our stories. Get to meet family members. Share our joy of being with each other. My perspective relative to Quakers and black, indigenous and other people of color (BIPOC) has changed significantly as a result.
What has brought about my crisis of connection with Quakers has been the recent verification of the remains of Native children at residential schools in Canada. Verification because Indigenous peoples knew children were buried there.
A problem for me was Quaker involvement in some of these schools in the land called the United States. I doubt those Friends harmed the children physically. But looking back from our perspective today, grievous harm was done by forceful attempts to assimilate the children into white culture.
I knew I could not have honest relationships with my Native friends if this wasn’t brought up. So I did. Those stories are for another time.
There are Quakers and many others who contend this was done in the past. Not something that needs to be dealt with today. Not a close proximity of time.
But that is not true. Some of those schools were still in operation until around the 1970’s. And the traumas that occurred at these residential schools have been passed from generation to generation. A close proximity of time. Native peoples suffering now.
Some have suggested we aren’t accountable because there were not residential schools close to us geographically. Proximity of distance.
More what I meant by the proximity of distance relates to physical presence. Because I am often in the presence of my Native friends, I see the great pain this latest news of the Native children has caused. This totally informs my perspective.
I don’t know how often my Native friends think about it, but I imagine our conversations about Quaker involvement come to mind.
There are calls now to look for children’s remains at all the residential schools. They will undoubtedly be found. Very likely found at schools Quakers were involved with. The numbers are already staggering, with over 800 children found at just two schools. Heightening tensions between Native and non-native peoples.
So there is proximity of time. Here and now. For some Quakers there is also proximity of distance. In various ways some of us are physically in touch with Native people. Close in terms of relationships with each other.
Don’t be a bystander to white supremacy
Christine Nobiss
I know I am fortunate, and many other Friends don’t have such relationships. That needs to change.
There are several reasons I have, hopefully temporarily, created distance from Friends. Many don’t acknowledge our responsibilities in this tragic history. Contend we don’t have accountability because these schools operated in the past. Don’t feel a proximity of time. Don’t realize the depths of the pain of Native peoples, because these Friends don’t have physical proximity.
So how can Friends find ways to be present with Native people? One way is to show up for Native gatherings. One such opportunity will be this July 4th, 2021, 1 – 3 pm. West terrace Iowa State Capitol. Stop Whitewashing Genocide & Slavery!!! Bring Back Critical Race Theory & Remove Monuments to White Supremacy in Iowa!
My friend Christine Nobiss is asking for a large turnout to support the removal of such statues in Iowa. She writes, “Don’t be a bystander to white supremacy. Fight back!” For more information: Stop Whitewashing Genocide and Slavery
I pray for proximity of the Spirit for all of us. Extremely trying days lie ahead of us. There will be an increasingly desperate need for Quakers learn about all this. So we will be prepared for what the Spirit will ask of us.
The intention of the website, LANDBACK Friends, is to help us learn and share about Quakers and Native peoples, about the Native boarding schools. Learn about the concepts of LANDBACK and Mutual Aid. LANDBACK Friends
The Indigenous people who have suffered the tragedies of the residential schools are who should their stories.
“In their silence, they woke the world” – these powerful seven words are spoken at the end of a short video released by the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) this week to remember the many lives lost and impacted by residential schools.
The moving video comes after Tk’emlups te Secwépemc First Nation Chief Rosanne Casimir shared the heartbreaking news on May 28 that the remains of 215 Indigenous children were found in unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site.
“To support our people in their grief and promote healing in light of the recent discoveries at former residential schools, the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation) filmed a video response,” Kelley McReynolds, director of Ayás Mén̓men Child and Family Services, the team that produced the video, explained.
“For far too long, these schools taught our children to be ashamed of their culture and language. This video celebrates that we are still here and encourages our people to take comfort and pride in their culture during this difficult time.”
From their beginnings the Indian residential schools, as they were called, in the United States and Canada, were institutions of cultural genocide, abuse, hunger, illness and death of Native children. Some were literally killed. Others died from disease. Or during their desperate journeys of escape. The institutions were usually far away from the tribe.
I hadn’t realized it until recently, but this purposeful cruelty was intended to quell Native resistance to being forced off their lands.
The recent verification of the remains of Native children at the Kamloops institution has triggered profound grief. See: Boarding schools – LANDBACK Friends
This discovery led Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, to create the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative for a comprehensive review of Federal boarding school policies in the United States. See: Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative – LANDBACK Friends
Part of the devastation at the news from Kamloops was knowing children’s remains would be found at many, probably most, other residential schools. Now there is news of many more remains at another Canadian institution. It doesn’t seem right to call them schools.
“This was a crime against humanity, an assault on First Nations,” said Chief Bobby Cameron of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous First Nations in Saskatchewan. He said he expects more graves will be found on residential school grounds across Canada.
“We will not stop until we find all the bodies,” he said.
From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend state-funded Christian schools, the majority of them run by Roman Catholic missionary congregations, in a campaign to assimilate them into Canadian society.
Report: Over 600 bodies found at Indigenous school in Canada. Leaders of Indigenous groups in Canada say investigators have found more than 600 unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school for Indigenous children — a discovery that follows last month’s report of 215 bodies found at another school By JIM MORRIS, Associated Press June 24, 2021
This is just incomprehensible. A web of grief for all the connections of each child. The parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters and other families and tribal communities and nations. A web that continues across generations.
It adds to the injury that there has been so little press coverage of these monumental tragedies. Yet another way lack of concern for Indigenous peoples continues to be demonstrated. I find it infuriating. Native people are who should tell the stories here. But we can help spread the news as appropriate. So others are aware and looks for ways to help in these dire times. The purpose of this blog is to inform people about the concepts involved in LANDBACK. Which includes being informed about all aspects of the relationships of non-native people with Indigenous peoples.
The foundation of LANDBACK is to support the leadership of Native people. In Iowa we are being asked to show up for “Stop whitewashing genocide and slavery. Bring back critical race theory and remove monuments to white supremacy in Iowa”. July 4, 2021 at the Iowa State Capitol.”
With this crappy critical race theory bill being passed in Iowa, I think it’s more important than ever that folks show up to this event! The law bans teaching certain concepts, such as that the U.S. or Iowa is systemically racist… but yet this entire state is littered with monuments to white supremacy.
Please try and find the time to be there and show your solidarity with BIPOC folks.
Christine Nobiss
Stop Whitewashing Genocide & Slavery!!! Bring Back Critical Race Theory & Remove Monuments to White Supremacy in Iowa!
We have an event planned for July 4th at the Capitol Complex and we would love to see a mass turnout to support the BIPOC struggle in Iowa. If your organization would like to join our coalition and co-host, hit me up ASAP and send me your logo.
Don’t be a bystander to white supremacy. Fight back!
Following are excerpts from a blog post I wrote about the gathering on July 4 last year related to white supremacy and monuments to white supremacy.
Statues to Confederate soldiers are monuments to White supremacy. These White men committed treason by seceding from the United States, and going to war to preserve the institution of slavery. They were clearly saying White culture is superior to all others.
Another campaign of White supremacy was the theft of Native peoples lands and the cultural genocide from forced assimilation of more than 100,000 Indigenous children. This occurred in White run boarding/residential schools and was the epitome of White supremacy. Forcing native children to give up their ways, and try to learn how to fit into White society. The trauma related to forced assimilation that affected the children and their relatives has been passed from generation to generation and is felt by those living today.
Systemic racism in the U.S. today is the interconnected web of ways White supremacy continues in our society.
As I have learned more about Indigenous peoples, it is clear to me we would not be in this rapid spiral into deepening climate chaos is we had lived within our ecological boundaries, as Indigenous peoples have always done. Another way we are all suffer because of White supremacy.
Besides the Confederate statues, pioneer monuments are also displays of White supremacy.
The earliest pioneer monuments were put up in midwestern and western cities such as Des Moines, Iowa and San Francisco, California. They date from the 1890s and early 1900s, as whites settled the frontier and pushed American Indians onto reservations.
Those statues showed white men claiming land and building farms and cities in the West. They explicitly celebrated the dominant white view of the Wild West progressing from American Indian “savagery” to white “civilization.”
Pioneer statue, Iowa State Capitol grounds, Des Moines, Iowa
My friends Christine Nobiss and Donnielle Wanatee organized the event at the Iowa State Capitol on July 4th, 2020, regarding removing the Pioneer statue on the grounds there.
Following are rough notes I took from Christine Nobiss’s remarks.
Christine Nobiss: As an academic, as an Indigenous person, as an organizer railing against monuments to White supremacy, whether they be statues, murals or entire buildings.
As an organizer, rail against statues, murals, buildings, spaces Uprisings George Floyd Movement to taking these statues down Concerns about safety of my people, the safety of black people, people of the world majority when taking statues down.
Is it our job to take them down?
In reality, in the best sense of how all this is occurring, the best thing would be that they would just be taken down. The states would see these as human rights violations, symbols of hate speech that leave out and single out portions of the populations and make them feel unwelcoming spaces.
So it wold be the duty of the state and Federal governments to see these as symbols that glorify of slavery, ethnic cleansing, land theft and so many violations of human rights.
But that’s not happening, is it?
So it is, again, up to people on the ground to do it, to make this happen. But I don’t want people to get hurt.
I would like to see legislation, I would like to see us push for the ancestors of these people who put them up take them down.
They put them up, they should take them down.
S.A. Lawrence-Welch: I have to concur. I believe in the power of the people. We need to start holding the government accountable for the atrocities that have occurred, are still occurring, and these monuments that remind us day after day that this has happened. You know that taking them down we are not erasing history, we are acknowledging the actual stains on our history as a nation.
It is incredibly uplifting to see this uprising happen, but to decentralize the White superiority narrative I think that we need to work as people of the world majority, especially in these United States, to dismantle the government as its known now by influencing and having them follow our lead.
Christine: I am not saying I want to rely on them. I’m saying lets make them do it. I would love the nation states to recognize all the wrongdoings that are perpetuated and how they are responsible for the daily historical trauma of people that have to look at these and be reminded of what’s happened in this county. And look our whitewashed history because that history is not the truth, that is absolutely not the truth of this country was founded at the point of a gun for the sake of free land and free labor. That little sentence just basically barely describes the amount the violence and terror that people have had to deal with for centuries. All of these statues are monuments to that. They are basically irresponsible acts to put these up. Its not the truth and I believe they are human rights violations. They are symbols of hate speech.
Trauma is passed from generation to generation. The recent documentation of the remains of 215 Native children at a boarding school in Canada has re-opened deep wounds in Native communities.
Some of my Native friends have shared how this affects them and their families today. Many have been triggered by this atrocity. One of my Native friends wrote that she was NOT OK. Another told me, “I’m trying not to be enraged in my mourning.” Secretary Haaland says, “Our communities are still mourning”.
Another issue that is so personal to me is the devastating history of the U.S. government’s boarding school policies. Like many of you was, I was deeply impacted by the news of 215 Indigenous children found in a mass grave at a boarding school in Canada. I couldn’t help but think of their families.
Each of those children is a missing family member, a person who was not able to live out their purpose because forced assimilation policy. And did their lives too soon. I thought of my own child who carries this generational trauma with them. I thought of my grandmother who told me about the pain and loneliness she endured when the trains to curl away from her family to boarding school.
I wept with the Indigenous members of our team here at Interior. Our communities are still mourning. The federal policies that attempted to wipe out Native identity, language and culture continued to manifest in the pain our communities face, including long-standing intergenerational trauma cycles of violence and abuse disappearance of Indigenous people, premature deaths, mental disorders, and substance abuse.
Yesterday I wrote how the verification of the remains of 215 children at the Kamloops Indian Residential School affected my Native friends and me.
That discovery prompted Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland to announce a Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, for a comprehensive review of the troubled legacy of federal boarding school policies.
Conclusion Over the course of the Program, thousands of Indigenous children were removed from their homes and placed in Federal boarding schools across the country. Many who survived the ordeal returned home changed in unimaginable ways, and their experiences still resonate across the generations. The work outlined above with shed light on the scope of that impact.
WASHINGTON — In remarks to the National Congress of American Indians 2021 Mid Year Conference today, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland announced a Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, a comprehensive review of the troubled legacy of federal boarding school policies.
Today’s announcement is accompanied by a secreterial memo in which Secretary Haaland directs the Department to prepare a report detailing available historical records, with an emphasis on cemeteries or potential burial sites, relating to the federal boarding school program in preparation for a future site work. This work will occur under the supervision of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs.
“The Interior Department will address the inter-generational impact of Indian boarding schools to shed light on the unspoken traumas of the past, no matter how hard it will be,” said Secretary Haaland. “I know that this process will be long and difficult. I know that this process will be painful. It won’t undo the heartbreak and loss we feel. But only by acknowledging the past can we work toward a future that we’re all proud to embrace.”
Secretary Haaland recently reflected on the inter-generational trauma created by these policies in an op-ed.
“We must shed light on what happened at federal Boarding Schools,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland, who also delivered remarks outlining implementation of this effort. “As we move forward in this work, we will engage in Tribal consultation on how best to use this information, protect burial sites, and respect families and communities.”
Beginning with the Indian Civilization Act of 1819, the United States enacted laws and implemented policies establishing and supporting Indian boarding schools across the nation. The purpose of Indian boarding schools was to culturally assimilate Indigenous children by forcibly relocating them from their families and communities to distant residential facilities where their American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian identities, languages, and beliefs were to be forcibly suppressed. For over 150 years, hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children were taken from their communities.
The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative will serve as an investigation about the loss of human life and the lasting consequences of residential Indian boarding schools. The primary goal will be to identify boarding school facilities and sites; the location of known and possible student burial sites located at or near school facilities; and the identities and Tribal affiliations of children interred at such locations.
The recent discovery of 215 unmarked graves by Canada’s Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc First Nation at the Kamloops Indian Residential School prompted the Department to undertake this new initiative with the goal of shedding light on these past traumas.
The work will proceed in several phases and include the identification and collection of records and information related to the Department of Interior’s own oversight and implementation of the Indian boarding school program; formal consultations with Tribal Nations, Alaska Native corporations, and Native Hawaiian organizations to clarify the processes and procedures for protecting identified burial sites and associated information; and the submission of a final written report on the investigation to the Secretary by April 1, 2022.
The Interior Department continues to operate residential boarding schools through the Bureau of Indian Education. In sharp contrast to the policies of the past, these schools aim to provide a quality education to students from across Indian Country and to empower Indigenous youth to better themselves and their communities as they seek to practice their spirituality, learn their language, and carry their culture forward.
I’ve been broken by the latest calamity, the verification of the remains of 215 Native children on the grounds of what was a residential school in British Columbia. More tragic is knowing hundreds of other Indigenous children died, or were killed, in these institutions of forced assimilation in the lands called Canada and the United States.
I’ve known about forced assimilation for years. But this is raw, because I see how devastated my Native friends are. And I know Quakers were involved in some of these institutions.
The trauma for Native families has been passed from generation to generation. Some of my Native friends have shared how this affects them and their families today. The news has re-opened deep wounds in Native communities. Many have been triggered by this atrocity. One of my Native friends wrote that she was NOT OK. Another told me, “I’m trying not to be enraged in my mourning.” [see: Time for a Reset]
I’m deeply troubled. I feel caught between my Native relatives and my Quaker community. To the extent that I’ve said I need to “step away” from my involvement with Quakers for a time. Even though I’m not sure what that means, or what will allow me to return.
It is frustrating to know all the work, the good intentions of Friends and others, will not lead to needed solutions as long as that work is done within the context of capitalism. [See the diagram below]
What it would take for me to return to Quaker justice work would be for Quakers to see capitalism must be abandoned. And to actively search for alternatives.
We do not have a new story yet. Each of us is aware of some of its threads, for example in most of the things we call alternative, holistic, or ecological today. Here and there we see patterns, designs, emerging parts of the fabric. But the new mythos has not yet formed.
We will abide for a time in the “space between stories.” It is a very precious — some might say sacred — time. Then we are in touch with the real. Each disaster lays bare the reality underneath our stories. The terror of a child, the grief of a mother, the honesty of not knowing why. In such moments our dormant humanity awakens as we come to each other’s aid, human to human, and learn who we are.
That’s what keeps happening every time there is a calamity before the old beliefs, ideologies, and politics take over again. Now the calamities and contradictions are coming so fast that the story has not enough time to recover. Such is the birth process of a new story.
The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible, Charles Eisenstein
I am in that very precious, sacred time Charles Eisenstein describes. Abiding in the “space between stories”. The teachings of my Native friends have awakened the honesty of not knowing why.
I invite you to be open to new ways of being, such as LANDBACK and Mutual Aid. And pray we can hold onto the space between stories before the old beliefs, ideologies, and politics take over again. There is an urgency to this.
It is instructive that Eisenstein is expressing the concept of Mutual Aid when he writes “in such moments our dormant humanity awakens as we come to each other’s aid, human to human, and learn who we are.“
What we have is each other. We can and need to take care of each other. We may have limited power on the political stage, a stage they built, but we have the power of numbers.
Those numbers represent unlimited amounts of talents and skills each community can utilize to replace the systems that fail us. The recent past shows us that mutual aid is not only a tool of survival, but also a tool of revolution. The more we take care of each other, the less they can fracture a community with their ways of war.
Once we envision that world our ancestors want for us, finding our role is natural.
My friend and mentor Ronnie James, The Police State and Why We Must Resist
Friends express this as seeking what the Inner Light is asking of us.
I urge us to discern whether there are circumscribed limits we might not be aware of, that hold us back from venturing into a new story.
My whole life I have tried to protect Mother Earth. Live without a car, live in small apartments, protect the water. Protect us from pipelines and other fossil fuel projects. Organize nonviolent direct actions.
I learned what I could about the many atrocities related to enslavement, land theft, and cultural genocide here and globally. White people must learn these things, which are not taught in our schools. White people must learn the dynamics of the forces that perpetuate these injustices before we can have meaningful interactions with those subjected to these injustices. Injustices which resulted, and continue to result in all kinds of trauma, genocide, suicide and death.
I followed Spiritual leadings to develop connections to communities of black, indigenous and other people of color (BIPOC).
Time and again, I found progress for justice only happens when white people such as myself spend a great deal of time in the communities where justice is needed. And by listening closely to, following the leadership of the people in those communities. White and BIPOC folks need to get to know each other before trust can begin to be built. That takes a long time of intentional work by all, in the presence of each other. This is not an intellectual exercise. This does not happen remotely.
Time and again, I have learned the root causes of injustice in this country are colonial capitalism and white supremacy. And the reasons I’ve been making changes in my life are because the white communities I have lived in have refused to break free from capitalism and white supremacy. White people are corrupted by the many advantages they enjoy.
It has been traumatic to find even my Quaker community, which is nearly entirely white, has not had the courage to break free from capitalism and white supremacy. People who have in many ways inspired me by their concerns for peace and justice. But, as with all white communities, no progress toward justice occurs when we are afraid to leave the frameworks that cause the injustice. It should be no surprise that few BIPOC people join us, much as we appreciate those who do. I have caused hurt and harm in my interactions with BIPOC Friends. Another reason I’ve been spending time in diverse communities.
The recent news of 215 Kamloops Native children buried on the grounds of a residential school has shocked non-native people, who did not know how many of these residential schools existed in the lands called the United States and Canada. Did not know tens of thousands of Native children were forcibly removed from their families and taken to these institutions where thousands were abused in many ways. Thousands killed or died. Though the stated reason for doing this was to assimilate Native children into white society for their benefit, the real intent was to quell Indigenous resistance to the theft of their land by white settler colonists.
The news has re-opened deep wounds in Native communities. Many have been triggered by this atrocity. One of my Native friends wrote that she was NOT OK. Another told me, “I’m trying not to be enraged in my mourning.”
One of my Native friends also told me, “The church is the church’s past, which is its future. It continues to see my people as obstacles in its endless conquest. To be blunt, there is too much damage that the church profits from and needs to protect to have any future there.” I have come to believe that. Vigorous attempts are made to hide it, but history does not lie. He also told me, “I wish you the best. I imagine its a hard struggle.”
I cannot face my BIPOC friends if I don’t continue to dedicate myself to seek the Spirit, and acting on the leadings I am given. “Don’t make orphans stand here covered in the blood of our parents and explain to you how this all came to be without doing something about it.“
When I ask my Native friends how white people can help them, they say one word, “LANDBACK”. The video below is a very good introduction to that concept. And the diagram below is the current version I’ve been working on to summarize the relationships I see among these concepts.
In that diagram you see Mutual Aid as a branch of a possible way forward. Mutual Aid communities are based on the principle of a horizontal, flat hierarchy, a way that rejects the vertical hierarchy of white societies. There can not be white supremacy if there isn’t a structure of some people somehow being above others. White people who are looking for ways to leave capitalism and white supremacy should look for Mutual Aid communities near them. But only if you have done some research ahead of time. Only if you are determined to not bring the attitude of white supremacy with you. Only if you are prepared to be led by the example of others. Only if you come as a student. Only if you are committed to change in your life. See: “mutual aid” | Search Results | Quakers, social justice and revolution (jeffkisling.com)
I think we all know we live with significant injustices. I believe most white people know we need to change. Unfortunately my observation is most white people are afraid of change. But we don’t have a choice. Significant change is upon us, and will continue to deepen and accelerate, driven by environmental chaos and the economic and political consequences of that. All the more reason to build better, just communities now. As the video below explains, we need Indigenous leadership to guide us through environmental chaos.
I’m not yet sure what the direction of the Spirit might be for me, for us. The Spirit has been and continues to be agitated. The Spirit has shown Mutual Aid is part of the answer for me. I am truly blessed to have Native friends who are teaching me by their example. Neither they, nor I, nor perhaps you, will put up with continued white obstruction.
Don’t make orphans stand here covered in the blood of our parents and explain to you how this all came to be without doing something about it. Don’t, for one second, think this is over. Remember, this was one chapter in the book. The story continues today in the form of the Department of Social, Family and Child Services. Our children are still being taken away from us, stripped of their identity, their culture and all humanity — and our babies do not always survive this process.
So yes, this latest news means we are acutely hurting. And we are angry. But we will carry on. We are mourning, and asking Creator to watch over those 215 souls. We are trying to take the time to heal the best way we can.The Tragedy of 215. Without truth, there can be no healing, by Sarah Rose Harper, Lakota People’s Law Project, 6/2/2021
LANDBACK Friends 