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Title: Settlers on the Red Road
Author: Tawinikay
Date: April 12, 2021Author
Language: en
Topics: indigenous anarchism
Source: Retrieved on 2021-04-22 from https://north-shore.info/2021/04/12/settlers-on-the-red-road-a-conversation-on-indigeneity-belonging-and-responsibility/

Tawinikay

Settlers on the Red Road

This zine is not going to be comfortable for some people to read. It is

likely to personally challenge a few of you out there who may yourself

be dipping a toe in the pond of indigeneity, trying it out to see how it

feels. This zine is not going to beat around the bush, because the bush

has been thoroughly beaten around.

This is the start of a larger discussion on indigeneity, belonging, and

responsibility in our anarchist community. But there is something here

for everyone, even if you don’t call yourself an anarchist. At the time

of it’s writing, it is already long overdue. In the past two years in

southern Ontario, there have been multiple incidents of settlers

claiming indigeneity within our intersecting anarchist circles,

incidents which caused great harm to relationship and undermined

solidarity with Indigenous communities. In Quebec, the rise of the

“Eastern Métis” threatens to bleed over into radical spaces. In this era

of state-sponsored reconciliation, the line between settlers and Indians

is being purposefully blurred by Canada in an attempt to gently complete

the assimilation initiated long ago and, try as anarchists might to keep

ourselves separate, the dominant culture has a way of creeping in.

This is not a defense of identity. In fact, it will be a critique of

identity in many ways, particularly of the way we drape identities over

ourselves to give us a purpose for fighting injustice. A rail against

the culture of identity that breaks people into hard categories and

fuels each of our dark indulgent desires to join the ranks of the

oppressed instead of being satisfied to fight for the dignity of all

living things from wherever we happen to stand. But it will also be a

critique of individuals and their choices, and it will urge each one of

you to think not only about your potential complicity in trying on

indigeneity but in allowing your friends and comrades to do so as well.

Taking Scope of the Problem

I long for a world in which the difference between settler and

Indigenous communities is one of custom and not of power. But we do not

live in that world and all alive today are unlikely to see it. Our

reality consists of a colonial occupying state, armed with extraordinary

force, urging a reconcilatory way forward while it simultaneously

invades the last shreds of semi-autonomous Indigenous territory within

it’s borders at gunpoint. It is still important to distinguish between

oppressed and oppressor; it is still important to know to who wields

violence in self-defense.

It matters when settlers decide that a distant Indigenous ancestor, or a

DNA test, or affinity, or a “feeling” makes them Indigenous. I argue

that race-shifting is a vehicle ripe for manipulation and an incredible

opportunity to erode the legitimacy of Indigenous claims to land and

liberation. And it is important to understand that this IS happening. It

is possible that within your circles, you will find at least one person

who is actively developing the confidence to start claiming indigeneity,

publicly or privately. And around that person you will find a circle of

settlers who feel too uncomfortable to challenge their “Indigenous”

friend about their race-shifting identity.

They have good reason to be afraid. It is possible that if they refuse

to support their comrade in their indigeneity, they will be accused of

using blood quantum to discredit their “Indigenous” friend, placing them

in a long line of colonizers who have tried to erase Indians by simply

claiming they no longer exist. And more likely, they won’t understand

how to argue back that point because they don’t actually have a deep

understanding of the concepts of blood quantum or kinship or

indigeneity. This is a problem in an of itself. This is why I am writing

this zine. Settlers generally, and anarchists specifically, need to be

more comfortable talking about these things amongst themselves. In the

absence of a competent shared knowledge, it is time and time again left

up to Indigenous communities – mostly women and Two-Spirits – to process

these conflicts as they arise and to educate the settlers around them.

We need to talk about what is happening. We need to develop our own

critique against this Native homeopathy bullshit or risk losing the very

real bonds of solidarity forged between anarchists and Indigenous

resistors across Turtle Island over the last decades. This is not to say

that anarchists have not fucked things up and lost relationships in

other ways: by swooping in and ditching early, by not repping their own

politics, by breathing way too much air, or simply not knowing much

about the history of this land. They definitely have. But having to add

“letting their friends play Indian” to that list feels like a real

shame. Of all the settlers here on Turtle Island, anarchists have the

most to offer Indigenous struggle and the closest shared vision of a

decolonial future. I say this as both a Michif halfbreed and an

anarchist.

Why They Do It: Settler Redemption Stories

Settlers claiming Indigenous identity is not a new thing. Nor is the

critique of it, which has been written about by others before me. There

are settlers with no blood lineage or connection to Indigenous

communities who simply say they “feel Indigenous” psychically or

metaphysically or some nonsense. There are settlers who feel like they

have spent so much time in Indigenous communities that they “become”

Indigenous or claim adoption into those communities (these are the

Joseph Boydens of the world). There are those who claim a distant and

unknown ancestor through DNA testing or shoddy genealogy work (the

Elizabeth Warrens and Michelle Latimers). There are those with a family

story about a Indigenous ancestor. So common is this phenomenon that

there has long been a term for it: the Indian grandmother complex. And

there are also those who have a bit more information about their family

history. Maybe they have a known Indigenous ancestor three or four

generations back, giving them the false confidence to assume the

identity of that ancestor and centralize it in their life while

deprioritizing their much more real and tangible connections to their

settler community. There are even settlers who slowly take on the

symbols of indigeneity, eventually arriving to a place where most people

they meet simply assume they are Native and they choose not to correct

them, coming to exist in a personal mythology around their pretend

indianness. In the last year, I have come face-to-face with almost every

one of these variations. These settlers are most often white people,

though not always. Though each of these claims differ from the others,

they exist in the same continuum of violence.

That continuum has been best defined in Eve Tuck & Yang’s pivotal text

Decolonization is Not A Metaphor. I’m not going to expand on their

points here, look it up. The important note to hit is that these actions

by non-Natives all represent a “settler move to innocence”. I don’t

believe that I am on the same page, politically, with Tuck & Yang, but

the basic premise of their piece is something I accept.

For settlers actively engaged in struggle, who share a vision of the

future that best aligns with Indigenous thought and runs counter to the

settler ideologies of their parents, the idea that they can escape

settlerism is very appealing. It feels uncomfortable to want to fight

for the land and water where you live, while also having to acknowledge

that it is not yours at all. The opportunity to stand on the frontlines

with your native comrades, not as a supporter, but as an equal part of

the resistance feels deeply affirming. And being a white settler in

solidarity sometimes means humbling yourself, decentering your opinions,

and holding the colonial rage of your Indigenous comrades with grace.

This is difficult and often produces hard and complicated feelings for

people. The opportunity to cast that responsibility aside provides a

tempting relief from settlerism and whiteness. But –

By telling yourself that you are Indigenous, you are giving yourself the

right to feel entitled to this land. You are letting yourself alleviate

some of the guilt you carry for your family’s participation in

colonization. By telling Indigenous people that you are Indigenous, you

are relieving yourself of some of the accountability you have to them.

By telling other settlers that you are Indigenous, you are relieving

yourself of some of the work you share with them.

I also understand that indigeneity holds the promise of a spirituality

lost to white settlers nearly a thousand years ago during some of the

earliest rounds of colonization that were between European societies. I

think the devastation of that ancestrally is very real. And I believe

that, as humans, we have a need to feel deeply connected to the world

around us. Since settlers now live here on this land, it makes sense

that some of them would crave a deeper connection to it. I personally

feel like part of each settler’s decolonial work is to truly build their

own relationship with this land and shatter their own ancestral

alienation. But that connection needs to be hard won and honest and

novel, and it can’t come from appropriating the traditions and

identities of Indigenous people.

On Ancestry

I believe connecting with our ancestors can be grounding and healing,

and it can break down the individualist indoctrination most all of us

have gone through by situating us in a long lineage of those who came

before and those who come after. Each of our own family histories tell

us about the reasons things are the way they are now. Instead of just

relying on the stories of a few dead white men, we can decentralize the

stories of our communities. Knowing where we come from provides us with

an anchor in this very complicated and scary world and it helps us to

identify our responsibilities. It may be that you come from a long line

of freedom fighters and that proud legacy keeps your fires stoked in

this protracted social war. Or it might be that you come from a long

line of fascists and colonizers and you are bestowed with the

opportunity to be the generation that branches off towards a life of

liberation.

The process of meeting our ancestors makes us each historians who have

an opportunity to interpret the information we find and weave a story

based on birth certificates and travel documents and funerals. This

responsibility needs to be taken seriously and it takes a great deal of

humility and honesty. It is up to us to contextualize race and class and

gender in a way that positions us accurately and fairly in the world

today, because identities are extremely loaded and come with advantages

that can – in the right context – grant us material benefit, rights,

access, and privilege. Especially when those identities are not written

on our skin and are things that we can step in and out of with ease. In

many other communities, being Indigenous does not come with social

advantage. This is why generations of Indigenous people, including my

family, sometimes made the choice to pass themselves off as settlers.

But in our anarchist/leftist communities, being Indigenous often grants

you a certain honour and respect. This, coupled with the growing

(tokenistic) appreciation of Indigenous culture in Canadian society at

large, presents a tempting set of reasons for people to try to claim

Indigenous ancestry.

When settlers find Indigenous ancestry in their family, it is a very

respectful thing to do to honour the story of that person and consider

it a responsibility to stand in solidarity with their struggle. But if

that ancestor is not connected to your family in any way other than

blood, it is not okay to assume their identity as your own. It does

nothing to uplift the struggle of that person and it undermines

Indigenous sovereignty in a way that perpetuates colonial violence

today.

Adopting yourself into an Indigenous community that you have only a

blood connection with but no kinship ties to serves the blood quantum

goals of the state. It says, blood (the way the state defines membership

in a community) is enough and kinship (the way Indigenous people define

membership) doesn’t matter.

It dissolves the lines that Indigenous people draw to define their

communities, which makes it harder for them to fight for land and

reparations based on who has been wronged and who carries the burden to

right the wrong. In another time and place where there wasn’t a massive

imbalance of power and a grave injustice to be righted, it might not be

so harmful to let the boundaries around community waver, but right now

it is.

The Pseudoscience of Blood Quantum

Make no mistake about it, blood quantum is a tool of state violence. It

has been used to disenfranchise First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people

for hundreds of years. In the US, Natives have status cards that list

their percentage of Indigenous blood. Vicious and self-serving state

structures govern who no longer counts as Indigenous because their blood

is no longer pure. But these constructs of mathematical genetics are

imaginary. Contrary to what eugenics-hungry rationalists might believe,

genetics do not pass down in easy fractions and race is not biological.

Nor is there any truly accurate way to map your racial genetics from a

swab of your cheek, leading some scientists to issue warnings to

unwitting customers of DNA tests that the practice can amount to little

more than “genetic astrology”.

The one-drop rule is the racist theory behind the pseudoscience of blood

quantum. When used against Black people in the colonies, the one-drop

rule served to govern that even “one drop” of Black blood in a white

person made them Black. The colonial mentality ruled that Black people

were so animal, so depraved, that any amount of Blackness in a person

made them less than human. Plus, they needed more slaves so there was a

benefit to counting as many people as possible as Black. In regards to

Indians, the rule was generally reversed. To take the land, settlers

needed to erase Indigenous title, and an easy way to do that was to say

that only “true Indians” had a valid claim. If you can say there are no

more Natives left, then you rightfully own the land. Essentially,

whichever way white supremacy needs the one-drop rule to work is how it

works.

Governments invented “status” because they needed a way to quantify and

control Indigenous people based on these ideas. Colonial legislation

serves the purpose of creating the categories of Indian and Canadian and

then slowly assimilating the Indians into the Canadians until they can

complete the colonization of the Americas. The Gradual Civilization Act

of 1857 was the first such document and it allowed for Indigenous

peoples to voluntarily give up status to receive private land or to

vote. Only one Native ever partook. So the Indian Act was created in

1876 with mechanisms to take their status from them against their will.

To this day, it remains a vital tool in the domination of Indigenous

people in Canada. Native people here have lost status because they were

children of even just two generations of mixed-race unions. The “double

mother” rule said that if your mother and grandmother did not qualify

for status, then you lost yours on your 21^(st) birthday. Yet there were

many reasons that Indigenous folks, women in particular, lost status

that weren’t attached to blood quantum at all. Up until 1961, Indigenous

people who graduated from university had to give up status. Indigenous

women who married settlers, or who married a status man but became a

widow, lost their status automatically. The gendered discrimination over

status was “revoked” in 1985 but much of the damage had already been

done.

It has been obvious from the beginning that people didn’t become Indians

when they gained status and they didn’t stop being Indians when they

lost it. It is an unfortunate truth that some of this logic has been

internalized by Indigenous nations and some here in Canada and in the US

will kick out their own members for falling under “25% Native”. But for

as long as status and the pseudoscience of blood quantum have existed

there have been those fighting against it. Arguments made by Indigenous

people against blood quantum were meant to keep close Indigenous

relatives who were cut out of community by the state. So that

grandchildren of the “double mother rule” were still part of their

Native community if they lived there in the culture and shared kinship

relations. It is a beautiful resistance. To deny the state’s ability to

determine for your community who belongs and who doesn’t is an act of

decolonization.

However, it’s not as simple as saying that it’s wrong to disallow the

families of settler-Indigenous marriages to live on the reservation. The

gradual inclusion of white spouses over time could lead to a situation

where settler spouses make up a large part of the population. Does that

mean they have the right to be represented on Council? What about the

shortage of land? Indian reserves only make up 0.02% of “Canadian”

territory. This continues to be a real problem. With the shifting

political landscape of Canada, we are now needing to defend ourselves

against a new intrusion.

The original theories on blood quantum were established at a time when

being anything but white was shameful. Canada is currently undergoing a

complete paradigm shift in terms of their national story. State-led

reconciliation is attempting to erase the past injustices of colonialism

and is urging Canadians to see the Natives of this land as a proud,

noble people that are part of Canadian multiculturalism. There have

always been summer camps where white kids play Indian and there have

always been colonial tales of frontiersmen who dance with wolves, but we

are witnessing a wave of indigenous romanticization unseen in history.

Our peers are growing up as the first or second generation where

settlers are becoming proud to claim “Indian heritage”. And as such –

because it now suits settlers – the rules of blood quantum are being

reversed. It seems now settlers agree that one drop of Native blood

makes you an Indian.

From a Native perspective, however, the argument remains simple:

Indigenous people never willingly judged membership in our nations based

on blood, but by kinship, and only we have the legitimacy to decide who

belongs to us and who doesn’t.

A Case Study: Métis ≠ Mixed

Placeless and often unwanted, the children of French fur traders and

Native women called themselves the Bois-Brûlés (later adopting the name,

Métis). A strong bond led them to form their own communities with their

own language, governance, and custom, with a motherland in the Red River

region of current-day Manitoba. They had complex kinship, political, and

trade relations with the Cree, the Saulteaux, the Assiniboine, and at

times the Iroquois. Yet, the government opportunistically denied them

status, reservation land, or basic human dignity for not being “Indian

enough.” It is likely this denial of land and recognition was a

punishment by the Canadian state for their armed resistance in 1885,

given that Chris Andersen – in his book Métis – has demonstrated that

other federally-recognized Native nations along the fur routes were of

comparably mixed descent. They fought for years alongside other

non-status Indians for recognition. Métis Nation organizations – formed

to advocate for rights from the state – first opened up for membership

in the 60s. Immediately, they were flooded with a barrage of people

claiming citizenship from all over. Some people who applied for

citizenship were Natives who lost status from their own communities for

any number of Indian Act reasons and were trying to regain state

legitimacy. A lot of people were settlers who had one or more Indigenous

ancestors.

This occurred because a great majority of people saw (and continue to

see) Métis identity as one of mixed blood, instead of a political

community of Indigenous people who were born, lived, fought, and died

together in kinship on the Prairies. Métis organizations have spent the

last 40 years grappling with this issue and trying to determine who is

Métis and who is not. They’ve done a generally dismal job and, while I

am a member of one such organization, it is my belief that their

existence does more harm than good. They cater to the Canadian

government when it needs token Native support; they sign pipeline deals

through lands they have no claim to; and they perpetuate forms of

democracy, nationalism, and statehood that I feel are counter to the aim

of dismantling colonial-capitalism.

Métis Nation formation led to a huge backlash by First Nations people

who saw Métis identity as a backdoor for settlers to flood into

indigeneity. While some of the criticism was akin to lateral violence,

it was also really legitimate. Because the Canadian appetite leaves us

fighting for scraps. Because many, many white settlers call themselves

Métis illegitimately. And because Indigenous people have never governed

belonging and membership based on blood alone.

The fact of the matter is, if all settlers who had a blood connection to

an Indigenous person were considered Indigenous, it would make the

category meaningless. Settlers and Native folks have been intermarrying

for as long as settlers have been here. Some studies show that up to 40%

of francophones in Quebec have an Indigenous ancestor. What would happen

to Indigenous claim to land if all of those settlers began demanding to

be included as Native people?

A Case Study Inside a Case Study?: The “Eastern Métis”

Ah! But we don’t need to imagine it, because it’s already happening.

There is a sizable movement in QC of white settlers who have formed

their own “Métis” organizations to claim Indigenous heritage in order to

gain rights from the state. A lot of those people base their indigeneity

on ancestors from the 1700s, but quite a few of them have a relation in

the last five generations of their family. I’m not going to get into the

absolute fuckery of what those people are doing and why (go read Darryl

Leroux’s many critiques if you need to know more) but their selfish

actions have severely undermined both the real title Métis people have

to indigeneity, and in turn, the concept of indigeneity entirely. While

this is a fairly extreme example of Native appropriation, it is

important to look directly at it. The phenomenon of settlers trying to

edge their way into indigeneity based on distant ancestry has had real

and lasting impacts on historic Métis communities, further robbing them

of the recognition they deserve as a real people on the losing end of

colonialism.

And I don’t mean that the appropriation by settlers is going to sabotage

their process of recognition by the state, because FUCK recognition by

the state. As anarchists, we need to realize that white folks claiming

Native casts doubt on the indigeneity of Métis and other mixed-blood

Native people, which creates chasms between them and First Nations on

the front lines of struggle.

Kinship is the Backbone of Our Nations

So if blood alone doesn’t make you Native, then what does? What came out

of the very messy and public dialogues on the Indian Act and status and

Métis community were well defined arguments explaining that identity is

multifaceted and that blood connection is but one of many markers that

determine membership in a community. More important than how much

“Indian blood” you have running through your veins is your connection to

a community to which you are accountable. This means that your family

has a history with a community and relationships that are meaningful and

reciprocal. It is important because there are folks who are adopted into

communities and have no blood relation but are nonetheless considered a

full and welcome member. Accountability in that relationship means you

are openly claiming your community and allow the other members the

opportunity to hold your actions and words up to the values of that

community.

The notion of accountability is tied to the more controversial idea that

your community needs to claim you. This standard gets complicated for a

lot of folks because some people are kicked out of their communities,

some people lose connection to their communities through state removal,

and a variety of other factors (like drug addiction) could mean that

people in that community don’t have relationships with you anymore. This

is a hard reality for some to accept, but it doesn’t make it less

meaningful. When you lose ties to a community over your lifetime or over

many generations, you do lose membership in that community in a real

way. It’s possible to rebuild those connections, but it’s also important

to step back and evaluate whether or not it is appropriate for you to do

so. Our communities often reveal themselves to us if we take a minute to

look at our existing strong and reciprocal relationships.

These webs of relationships are what Indigenous people call kinship. And

they have been more important to our understanding of community than

blood ever has been.

In addition to the main questions of:

“Who are you accountable to?” and

“Does the community you claim also claim you?”

It is important to explore the questions of:

“Do you have meaningful relationships with people in that community?”

“Do you have a family history interwoven with the families of that

community?”

“Do you share a connection to a common land base?”

“Were you raised with or close to the traditions of that community?”

“Do you, or people in your family, speak the language of that

community?”

“Do you have shared experiences with the members of that community?”

“Do you share struggle with that community?”

All of the answers to these questions together organically form a larger

and more nuanced picture than blood quantum. Which is why in the last

few decades, Indigenous activists have been fighting to diminish the

worth of blood alone in claiming a connection to a community or

identity. The rise of genetic testing and sites like ancestry.com have

led to a large number of settlers “realizing” they are actually part

Indigenous, some who then feel as though they should be included in a

community they have never really been a part of.

If a child with Indigenous parents is stolen by CAS and raised with

white people, it might seem as though the strong blood connection to

indigeneity is all they have. Yet, that wouldn’t really be true. Because

already they share a personal story of race-based state oppression, plus

the histories of their immediate family (which are part of their story)

are connected to stories of other Indigenous people and place. Blood

might be a part of their claim to community, and so it’s not completely

irrelevant, but it’s the complicated interplay of a variety of factors –

blood, kinship, language, experience – that come together to create an

identity and belonging in a community.

When you tell another Indigenous person that you’re Native, often the

first question out of their mouth is “from where?” Maybe even “who are

your parents? Or “lemme guess, Sturgeon Clan?” This is a pretty widely

accepted line of questioning and it’s not considered rude, because

kinship and ties to land are a huge part of how we know each other and

build relationships. Complex systems of kinship existed in all Native

communities on Turtle Island. Family lineages combined to form clan

systems which combined to form nations and the governance systems

depended on these interconnected forms of communication and

accountability. Were colonization not so successful, settlers touting

indigeneity just wouldn’t be a problem, because it would be easy to

trace the kinship ties of that person and weed out false claims. The

power of the state, however, relies on concentrating authority and

breeding loyalty to an institutionalized political body, and it is in

its best interest to undermine and destroy allegiance to any

decentralized systems. The state has tried to destroy clan governance

from the first days of colonization. Inventing the racist ideology of

blood quantum and insisting Indians be defined by their DNA instead of

their kinship ties is another tactic to disrupt the autonomy of

Indigenous people.

Identity Politics & Liberation

It is a very uncomfortable position to be at once an anarchist, a

freedom fighter, and also part of an oppressor class. On the internet,

identity is a simple category, black and white (so to speak). But in

real life, identity is nuanced and slippery. It makes it so that we are

often disadvantaged and privileged at the same time. We owe it to

ourselves and our community to act with integrity, to represent

ourselves accurately and honestly, and to not try to jostle for position

with our friends.

Anarchists look to the roots. It’s not enough to say the problem lies in

individuals who make ego-driven choices. This is not only about

individuals doing independently shitty things, it’s also an issue of

politics. The adoption of a politics of identity helped to put words to

the centuries of degradation and devaluation faced by women, queers,

BIPOC, and disabled folks. Oppression that often felt invisible. Yet, it

was too easily co-opted by the state and capital and too easily divorced

from the material struggle for a radically different world. It is now

wholly possible for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to be called a

“revolutionary” for being a Latinx woman, trailblazing a path for other

women of colour to become agents of the state. This is not a critique of

all forms of radical thought that center around identity. I am a woman,

an Indigenous person, and a queer and I find power in organizing around

those identities. But there are many, many other times where I find my

strength in the affinity of ideas, running into dark alleys with

whichever comrade feels up to the task.

It is always important to remember that no identity marker can bind

together the disparate experiences of all people who match it. There is

no united womanhood, or Indigenous experience, or proletariat. The

binaries used to conveniently speak about identity are just as fake as

blood quantum. Unfortunately, the climate change and land defense

movements have romanticized Native peoples so that they take on an

almost mythical quality as earth guardians, with many anarchists buying

into it just as much as liberals.

Western society pushes us away from true community and towards an

individual, atomized existence. This transcends physical space to infect

the realm of ideas and stories, which we are encouraged to see as

accessible for anyone to use and change. It is common practice in

identitarian circles for people to depend on self-identification as

acceptable validation of an identity marker, and this has become rampant

in the issue of settlers claiming indigeneity. It is not enough to

simply proclaim that you now identify as Indigenous and it is playing

into settler psychology to do so. Using a wider lens, there are many

situations where it is appropriate to challenge someone’s claim to an

identity based solely on self-identification and I hope that as

critiques of identity politics mature, these questions can be

responsibly visited.

It is important to not let the logic of liberal identity politics

dominate relationships between anarchists, or between anarchists and

Native folks. This paves the other false path to settler redemption: the

white-guilt-ridden settler who sees self-sacrifice as the way to cleanse

their ancestors crimes. Co-creating a culture of obedience to Indigenous

people is a losing strategy, fostering not rebellious solidarity but an

environment of scarcity. Not only does it put too much pressure on

Indigenous people to make decisions for you, it robs us of one of our

most important protections against repression – decentralized action. It

prevents settler anarchists from questioning sketchy claims to

indigeneity touted by their comrades for fear of being accused of

racism, and creates a situation where settlers feel the only way to be a

true defender of the land is to become Indigenous.

I blame this binary between spiritually-rich Indigenous folks and

deadened, alienated white people for a part of the race-shifting

phenomenon of settlers trying to claim indigeneity, at least within the

“Left.” However, this is not a problem for Native folks to solve. There

are many steps that anarchists (and everyone) can take to practice real

solidarity and break away from the traps of allyship. Adopt your own

reasons for defending the land or attacking the state, separate from

your practice of support. Learn the real, unromantic history of

colonization, complete with occasional Native complicity. Understand who

you are and what your responsibilities are to the next generations. Gain

confidence in communicating your own politics of anarchism to Native

comrades. Don’t allow your crew to adopt a politic that makes it valiant

to be a victim, the kind that leads people to want to stack up oppressed

identities in order to gain social power. And, most importantly,

practice the self-assurance necessary to stop yearning for the approval

of Indigenous land defenders. Understand yourself well enough to catch

validation-seeking behaviours and be able to interrupt them and ground

yourself in your own reasons for acting.

Solidarity isn’t about going along with someone else’s project, it’s

about seeing a mutual and parallel cause between you and another

community/crew and acting together towards a common goal. Most often

that means you go your separate ways afterwards. Which is what the

intention should be if you are a settler doing solidarity work. Because

if you are showing up to the struggle in hopes of leaving settlerism

behind and being accepted into Indigenous community, then turn around

and go home.

How To Have the Conversation

Maybe you picked up this text because you were interested, or maybe you

have someone close to you whose evolving indigeneity is making you

uncomfortable. Maybe you picked it up because you have been exploring

the possibility of an Indigenous connection in your own life. I hope

that, by this point in the text, you are seriously mulling over your

actions and assessing whether or not you are engaged in any of this

bullshit. This section will mostly be about holding our friends

accountable but you can follow along for yourself as well.

You may think that your friend assuming an Indigenous identity is not

harmful so long as they are not accessing monetary resources, land, or

jobs meant for Indigenous people. However, this analysis is

short-sighted and could also be an excuse you are using to get out of an

uncomfortable conversation. If your friend is not accessing these things

now, it doesn’t mean they won’t later, especially if their claims to

indigeneity go unchallenged and they grow in confidence. Outside of

financial benefit, they still gain access to space and power, often

resulting in the displacement of Indigenous people. They could take up a

seat in a car going to ceremony, they could speak at a demonstration

meant to uplift Native voices, or they could gain support for their

initiatives based on misplaced solidarity. It is important to widen our

gaze when assessing impact.

It is important, as a settler, to hold your settler

comrades/friends/family responsible for their choice to inappropriately

assume an Indigenous identity. This is a delicate task, but – really –

holding our friends accountable is part of an honest and healthy

friendship. It would really suck if you accused a friend of playing

Indian and they had a legitimate claim they were just stepping into for

the first time. This zine is not talking about Native folks who have

been cut out of their communities by the state or for those reconnecting

to their kinship ties, this is for (mostly white) settlers who are

attempting to “rekindle” a Native identity based on ancestor connection

or a feeling. Luckily, the difference can be ascertained quite easily.

First, ask a lot of questions. Your friend just confided in you that

they have “discovered” an Indigenous ancestor in their family and it’s

really “bringing up a lot” for them. Look for the words “discovered” or

“found” in their language. If they have kinship relations and ties to a

community, it is not likely they are discovering it as an adult (unless

they have just found out they were adopted). “Discovering” an Indigenous

identity usually means digging up old documents or looking over a family

tree, which demonstrates blood connection and not kinship relation. It’s

common practice to ask a lot of questions about kinship between Native

folks and it is only Western “politeness” that stops us from “prying”

into our friend’s story. Be curious. In some of the worst incidents of a

settler manipulating people around them by pretending to be Indigenous,

the biggest regret people had afterwards was not asking more questions.

If they are making you feel rude for asking, if they are evading your

questions, if they insist their ancestry is a private matter, this is a

bad sign. It is important to suss out exactly how they are connected to

indigeneity and it is possible they will speak in vague terms or try to

exaggerate their situation. Get specific.

Second, encourage them to seek out more information. If they don’t know

the answers to your questions, urge them to go find out before they

start telling people they’re Native. That means before telling people

they’re even a “little bit” Native, and it also means before privately

telling people while publicly identifying as a settler. Ask them to

prioritize the search for kinship. If kinship ties exist, it won’t be

hard to find out a good deal of information. And if they don’t find

anything, then there’s nothing to find and that’s really all there is to

say about the matter. They shouldn’t identify as Indigenous.

Third, if they do find some information about their ancestral ties or

relatives from a family line, press them to go through the questions

outlined in the section on kinship. Maybe give them this zine in advance

of the conversation and ask them to sit down with you to talk about it.

Remember that, as their comrade, you have a right to ask them to

reconsider political choices you disagree with and you have the ability

to walk away from them if they refuse. It is not apolitical to tell

people in activist communities in Canada that you are Indigenous. There

is a huge amount of reverence paid to Indigenous land defenders and a

great deal of criticism that they evade from settler accomplices.

Claiming indigeneity falsely is a way of manipulating power in your

organizing community. If they are embedded in a community of anarchists

or organizers, but long to join an Indigenous community, ask them and

yourself why they are attempting to do so and why they aren’t fulfilled

amongst those who are most obviously their kin. If they have no kinship

ties to Native folks, it is okay to question or reject their claim to

indigeneity. Try to steer them towards an accurate interpretation of

their ancestry, maybe one that names them as a settler with a distant

Indigenous ancestor that they try to honour in struggle. Draw a hard

line if it is revealed that they are acting on an old family story, a

feeling, or perhaps nothing at all.

Fourth, ask them to interrogate their own desires to identify as

Indigenous. What do they feel is pulling them in that direction? Do they

feel a hole in their life that they think could be filled by ceremony?

Get them to dig honestly into their own narratives about what delineates

Indigenous people from settlers. Have them entertain the thought

experiment of switching out their Native ancestor with another racial

identity. If they found out they were from a lineage of white settlers

but discovered that one of their great-grandparents was Korean, would

they then feel entitled to start calling themselves Korean? Would they

learn Korean and start attending cultural services and get involved in

organizing projects for North Korean liberation? If not, what is the

difference?

Prepare yourself for backlash. They may accuse you of discriminating

against their claim because they are white or “light-skinned”. But this

isn’t about color. There are plenty of white Natives, and Black natives

too. In fact, the insistence of indigeneity to be defined by culture and

kinship instead of physical racial markers carves a wide doorway that

(mostly white) settlers take advantage of when they let themselves in.

Proving yourself as Native when you present Black is a far more

difficult burden and those individuals face far more lateral violence

than white skinned Indians ever will.

Your friend may accuse you of violence for forcing them to talk about

something “deeply personal” without their consent, or criticize you for

making something personal into something political. Identity is as much

a political issue as it is personal though, and it is important for us

to know the politics of our comrades, the way they see themselves in

relation to you and to others, and their reasons for acting.

Additionally, just because something is personal, does not mean it

cannot be challenged. There are many beliefs and stories that are

entrenched and meaning-making to a person that must be confronted and

dismantled, even if it should be done with care.

They may accuse you of weaponizing blood quantum against them to

disqualify their nativeness, of maintaining racist settler colonial

institutions that took Indians away from their community. This is

settler entitlement and it’s a gross ignorance of both history and of

the kinship systems of the community they are trying gain access to. The

idea of entitlement/disentitlement based on racial blood percentage has

always been used according to the needs of those in power at the time.

Settlers who convince themselves that a distant ancestor (or a story)

make them Indigenous are reversing the historic ways blood quantum has

been used against Native people for their own benefit. They are the ones

using blood quantum arguments to force themselves into a community they

have never really been a part of. They are the ones perpetuating settler

colonialism for their own benefit.

These are very hard conversations to have. I can’t guarantee you won’t

lose a friend. But it is important to hold your ground and stay

committed to your principles. Letting people continue on a path of

self-deception and entitlement is likely to end with a massive rupture

of conflict as Indigenous people who aren’t afraid to ask questions

eventually get smart to the ruse. You may find yourself answering for

your comrade’s behaviour. You may lose relationships with Indigenous

friends or comrades. The best thing that could happen is for settlers to

hold each other in community and stop this process before it gets out of

hand.

In Conclusion

This whole thing honestly sucks. I hate that I felt compelled to write

about it. But I almost left my anarchist community over an incident of

this very kind in the last few years. It was exposed to me that no one

really understood the issue and fewer people knew how to talk about it.

While I wish this was an endeavour taken on by settlers for settlers, we

don’t live in a perfect world. I want the people I organize with to act

from a place of strength. I want to know I can trust my comrades to make

good decisions. I want to know that my co-conspirators understand their

place in Indigenous struggle.

I believe that we push harder when we fight for our own freedom and

existence. I believe we try harder to build community and relationship

when we feel rooted in place. I believe that being motivated by a

personal connection to and love for the land makes us better anarchists,

and gives us the best possibility to create a new world less shitty than

the old. I want all of my friends in struggle to find those things, on

their own terms, from their own tradition (historic or invented). Let us

not forget that all tradition, ceremony, and ritual is created by us to

make meaning of the world around us and of our relationships to each

other!

I don’t need to be seen as only an Indian, I’m okay with my strange

halfbreed mutt identity. My indigeneity is grounded in blood, kinship,

and a fairly disjointed human experience. I walk my road trying to be

open and honest, and never overstepping my place. I demand no less

integrity from those around me because I honour and respect the

beautiful kinship relations that have built and sustained Indigenous

community on Turtle Island for tens of thousands of years. You should

too.