I attended the Native Raised Black Workshop in August 2018 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Four of us attended, along with Marcie Rendon (International Liberation Reference Person for Native Americans) who led the workshop. An additional person attended by Zoom. We were all female and ranged in age from late thirties to late sixties. We spent time counseling, cooking together, and thinking about our constituency of Black Natives. We also spent some time at a park and attended a Native play festival that featured all-Native casts and crews.
The weekend was a great reminder that we exist— that Black Native people exist! It was wonderful to be with my people, wonderful to be with a group that is willing and able to acknowledge who we are and all that we are—we are Native and Black. It was a safe place to openly be who we are—Black and Native.
Our work includes separating out and discharging the anti-Black racism that we’ve experienced growing up in North America, racism directed at us from the dominant mainstream society and also from within the Native community.
We get to work on how we are disappeared/“genocided” by the dominant mainstream as well as within the Native community. As in the Black community, we are pressured to choose one of the two identities. We can be considered a “sellout” [having betrayed our cause or associates for personal gain] if we choose to identify as all of who we are.
I am obviously mixed with Black (with browner skin, curlier hair, fuller lips), and I have Native patterns. I grew up on two of my reserves. I came home from the hospital to Xwemelch’stn (Homulchestan) reserve. I was around one year old when we moved to the Eslha7an (Uslahan) reserve. I was raised by three Native women: my birth mum, my maternal aunt, and my maternal grandmother. I am the oldest Squamish person mixed with Black to have grown up in my community. I’m pretty [quite] sure that there are Black Squamish members older than I am who were raised outside the community.
“COLOURISM”
Those of us who are Black Natives and Natives raised Black have an important place in Native liberation work.
We’ve been discharging on internalized racism for a number of years now. “Colourism” is a central piece of the hierarchy caused by racism. We do get judged by the colour of our skin. There are a tonne of stereotypes and falsehoods associated with various skin colours and tones. Darker skin colours and tones are associated with less access to resource and with negative attributes. Lighter skin colours and tones are associated with greater access to resource and privilege along with positive attributes. Colourism is real. Society assumes it knows or understands an individual’s life story by her or his appearance alone. We base many of our thoughts or beliefs about a person on skin colour. We assume to know x, y, or z about her or him by seeing her or his skin colour. It affects every single one of us whether we’re aware of it or not.
Colourism has been used in an insidious way to divide and conquer. It has divided Black people from all other people. It has interfered with the connection that Black Natives and Natives raised Black have with our Native communities. We are told we don’t get to claim our Native people. Therefore, it is clear that we don’t get to exist as Native people because we are deemed to be Black.
ATTEMPTED GENOCIDE
Attempted genocide of the Indigenous people of this continent is at the beginning of the establishment of mainstream North American society. Discharging on internalized genocide is a key piece of Native liberation work. We’ve been doing this work for a number of years. The work is key due to the fallacy that Native people were killed off or have died out and no longer exist.
STEREOTYPES AND FALSEHOODS
There are a tonne of stereotypes and falsehoods associated with being Native or Indigenous to this continent. The mainstream perpetuates these myths and tropes about Native people. It gives the impression that we are all intimately acquainted with and have full knowledge about Native people and their experiences. A prime example is the story of Pocahontas. This Disney fairy tale has no basis in reality and no resemblance to the actual lived experience of Pocahontas. This false account is troubling to say the least. It leads us down the garden path [to be overly optimistic] in regard to the reality of Native people, our lives, and our continued existence on this continent. This, too, affects every one of us whether we’re aware of it or not.
The images that go along with such stories are problematic, too. This continent stretches from the Arctic Ocean down to the Gulf of Mexico. Native people have lived throughout those vast reaches, in very different situations and climates, for thousands of years. We speak different languages, wear different clothing, eat different foods, and have unique cultures and appearances. Our commonality is that we are of this land. There is no one particular look or appearance that can be said to be the definitive look or appearance for all Native people of North America.
ASSIMILATION MOSTLY UNSUCCESSFUL
We continue to exist. Our land and its resources were stripped from us. Once it was determined that the genocide wasn’t completely successful, assimilation was attempted. Residential schools were one of the tools used in an attempt to destroy our cultures, languages, and worldview. Assimilation into the dominant mainstream society was the endgame [final stage]. This was not very successful either, as we’ve mostly been excluded from the political economy of both Canada and the United States. It becomes difficult to assimilate when one is kept from fully participating in mainstream society.
There is a pragmatism that has allowed some of us to see that the current system, capitalism, does not work for us. We are aware that the system is not set up to be inclusive and does not work for the majority of people. It often goes counter to the interests and concerns expressed by Indigenous people. One way the system can be summed up is with two words: resource extraction (the extraction of oil and gas).
The trials that Native people have faced in our attempted assimilation butt heads with the forced assimilation of Black people into North American society.
Native people don’t want to assimilate and have been unable to successfully assimilate en masse into mainstream society due to the extremely limited roles that we have been granted within mainstream structures. It has made more sense to opt out and to stay in our communities.
The forced assimilation of Black people, including Natives raised Black, has meant that some of us have bought into the lie that the current system simply needs to be tweaked in order for it to work for us. There is a faulty belief in the lie that we could gain equality and full participation in society within the current system. It’s true, there has been some forward momentum in terms of the civil rights movement. Unfortunately, even with those gains the system is not set up to be inclusive and to work for the majority of people. This is the only system that Black people are familiar with, having been taken from our Indigenous lands; having been stripped of our languages, cultures, and worldview. Black people and Native people raised Black need to discharge on the current system as a foreign system that has been imposed on us.
Black Natives and Natives raised Black are Native. We need to name, claim, and discharge on our Native identity. This is a discharge issue. We get to discharge on our early hurts—attempted genocide is the earlier hurt tied to this land. This does not mean that we have to give up any part of ourselves. We do not have to give up being Black. The only expectation is that we do the discharge work on our internalized genocide. That we commit to discharging on the internalized genocide that has been passed down to us through our Native ancestors. Fortunately, or unfortunately, this is not “feel good” work!