rosadefuego:

Don’t Colonize Indigenous Identities

Appropriation is not Solidarity. Recently my Native and radical activist friends and I have encountered a very bizarre phenomenon. There are non-Natives who are claiming to be anti-racist activists who really believe that imitating NDNs (or, their outsider fantasies of how they think NDNs live, speak, and do ceremony) is something that will build solidarity with Indigenous people. Right now there are intense arguments going on between some white people who say they want to be allies, and the Native people who are deeply offended by their actions. If you’ve been following the #NDNZ and #Decolonize and #AppropriationIsNotSolidarity tags on Twitter, you’ve seen some of it, as well as some excellent blog posts on the topic. I will collect some of these posts and add them here, as others have already said it eloquently, humorously, militantly, and every other way they can think of, in an attempt to get the message across. I hope one of these days the pretendians will understand.

Or if they refuse to understand, that they’ll move on to a new fad. Because, quite frankly, I’m sick of hearing that any of the pretendians “have good intentions”. They don’t. Those who are colonizing NDN identities, attempting to replace Indigenous voices with white American ones, are committing cultural extermination. It’s not an honor. It’s not solidarity. It is shameful and harmful and people aren’t going to put up with it. At least not quietly. 

This.  If you ever feel the burning need to utter the phrase “good intentions” then it’s probably because you’ve been called out on your behaviour.  If that’s the case, you need to seriously take a look at what you are doing, rather than reacting out of shame and anger.  A real ally, and a real activist, needs to have the ability to re-examine his/her own beliefs and behaviours critically, rather than merely on an emotional and defensive level (which makes analysis impossible). 

The problem is that most settler activists are active because they feel they have solutions for problems.  And while this is not inherently problematic, believing that one has special knowledge that is more important than other people’s knowledge is.  You cannot liberate others, you have to liberate yourself.  You cannot lead others when you hold them in contempt, and believing yourself better equipped, more intelligent or more capable of leading means only that you are contemptuous of the skills of those in the ‘group’ of people you want to ‘help’.

In short, read some fucking Paulo Freire if any of this confuses you.