Ihave been trying to write about what it means to be a Native Woman in white, colonized, feminist spaces before this election cycle even began. Since Trump was awarded the presidency, this task has only become more challenging.

Trying to find the words to describe such complexities as colonization and its connection to the fabric of American (or as I call it, ameriKKKan) “rights” that the feminist movement fights for is difficult. How do I accurately describe my reality to white women who often don’t even realize my people are still here and are struggling for not just our legal rights, but for the right to literally live?

How do I properly describe to white women that their values are killing us?

Since November’s election, the discourse surrounding women’s rights, feminism, and oppression has reached meteoric heights. The nationwide women’s marches broke records for protester turnout, political petitions and campaigns abound, and more major Hollywood stars are getting involved in activism than ever. One might think, in light of this new era of political action and awareness, that those who are supposedly committed to justice and equality would have started caring about and listening to Native Women. In reality, however, while many white women have been reawakened by Trump to their plight, they’re no more racially woke now than before. Despite the lip service paid to racial justice, their behavior reeks of arrogance and colonizer privilege.

How do I properly describe to white women that their values are killing us?
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At the women’s march in DC, Madonna proclaimed — after being introduced by the notoriously racist Amy Schumer — that “It took us this uniquely dark moment to wake the fuck up.” But this is not a uniquely dark moment in ameriKKKa, and many of us were already woke. This nation was built upon, and maintains itself upon, the genocide of Native People. And while Native Women bear the brunt of this abuse, white feminists — our so-called allies — continue not only to erase and appropriate us, but to be outright condescending and aggressive.

The Failure Of ‘Feminism’

I once strongly identified as a feminist, but the hypocrisy of the feminist movement has pushed me away. My people, the Tsalagi, never needed feminism before white, christian men invaded our lands. We were matrilineal and matriarchal. Our women had power, safety, and love. It is only as a result of white invasion that feminism is supposedly needed; that is, ameriKKKan feminism is merely one more way in which the white settlers have forced themselves upon us. Native Women no more need feminism than we need colonialism and christianity.

Moreover, white feminists seem only to remember us when they want to appropriate and misconstrue our pre-colonizer ways — which placed balance between the genders and instilled respect for our women — for their own ends. Or, when white women want to feel like a special snowflake, they make false claims to our tribes, as Blake Lively and Senator Warren have done.

Trump, Warren, And The Dehumanization Of Native Women

At the same time, these same white feminists expect us to be eternally thankful that they signed a petition or took valuable resources away from us by sitting on their privileged asses at the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) resistance camps.

Far too many white women think that having worn a white pant suit to vote for Hillary abstains them from being destructive to other women. In reality, however, it proves that they place their rights above those of Indigenous and other marginalized women. Some white women even go so far as to condescendingly tell those of us who knew Hillary was our enemy that we were to blame for Trump’s victory.

The unique horrors and marginalization that Native Women face — from the highest rates of violence and incarceration within the colonized borders of the U.S., to lack of access to healthcare or legal means to pursue justice — make such condescension and lack of allyship even more unconscionable.

Violations And Violence

Settler colonialism has brought innumerable ills to Turtle Island. Because we are the bringers of life, our women have been targeted for centuries by the white man in order to kill us off. This dynamic has not ceased since the 15th century, as painfully discussed by Tami Truett Jerue, Director of the Alaska Native Women’s Resource Center, at a congressional briefing in February. She relayed at the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center’s (NIWRC) panel that Alaskan Natives comprised only 16% of the total state population, yet Alaskan Native Women make up 28% of the total murders in Alaska.

Jerue spoke of how the women in her family would sit at the kitchen table discussing the missing and murdered women they knew. This is an all too common conversation among Indigenous Women — and one I’ve never experienced with white women.

Settler colonialism has brought innumerable ills to Turtle Island.
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Further, resource extraction not only pollutes our lands and bodies, but also brings more white men to our lands to abuse us, as well as drugs that eat at the fabric of our communities. Jade Begay, Diné and Tesuque Pueblo, of the Indigenous Environmental Network, told me during a recent meeting that due to the fracking, coal, and mining projects on Diné land, many of her cousins and family members are unable to run or exercise outside by themselves given the high threat of abuse: They’re afraid of being assaulted or going missing.

And these are not isolated issues. Native Women suffer the highest rates of violence of any racial group in the U.S., with about 56.1% of Native experiencing sexual assault in their lifetime.

Moreover, due to the ruling in the SCOTUS case Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, we are unable to prosecute non-Natives who commit crimes on our land, and as such, we cannot protect ourselves from white invaders. And despite the Department of Justice acknowledging that crime rates experienced by Native communities are two and half times greater than the general population’s, the federal government often fails to investigate any crimes reported. This is in part due to systemic bias, and in part due to Public Law 280, which placed some tribal nations under state law enforcement control.

On top of this, states do not receive federal funds to police tribal lands, and so they rarely give additional law enforcement coverage to reservations. And when such law enforcement coverage is provided, the abuse these officers have perpetuated against Native People over the years has prevented any kind of trust that justice will be served — not to mention that crimes committed against Native Women are rarely investigated.

These and other jurisdictional issues unjustly created by the federal government have led to a complicated bureaucratic fiasco, which many of us fear will worsen in the age of Trump. Not only has he restarted construction on the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, but his signing of HJ Resolution 44 — which places the control of federal lands back into the hands of states, cutting down decision-making time concerning the use of federal lands — further threatens Native land and autonomy.

The violence Native People face is not new — and it didn’t take Trump to make us woke and fight back. We’ve been fighting for the rights of all women since 1492. However, the same can’t be said for white women.

The Glaring Absence Of White ‘Allyship’

While white women are quick to rally against the injustices in rape cases where they’ve been or can see themselves being abused and experiencing institutional oppression — such as Brock Turner’s — they go silent when it comes to the violation of Native Women. When I’ve repeatedly raised the issue of the horrifically high rates of violence against Native Women I have either been ignored by the mainstream feminist organizations, such as Ultraviolet and the National Organization of Women, or have been told that we are somehow responsible for our assaults. A colonizer/“feminist” tweeted to me that if the abuse on our reservations were so high, why didn’t we just leave? This statement is ignorant and insulting. As if we should give up what’s left of our lands. As if the abuse we suffer is in our control, and as such, our fault. By this logic white women should stop attending college so they’re less likely to be raped.

We’ve been fighting for the rights of all women since 1492. However, the same can’t be said for white women.
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Her statement also overlooked that the overwhelming majority of us are urban-based thanks to the U.S. government’s termination and relocation policies. Such policies stole even more of our lands and culture, and lowered our numbers in the eyes of the government so they had “less responsibility” to financially maintain our programs, honor treaties, and properly manage our trusts and lands, pushing us into urban poverty.

Not to mention that urban-based Native Women still experience devastating rates of violence at the hands of white men and the state. My home of Oklahoma, for instance, was once known as Indian Territory. We were removed by the ameriKKKan military from our ancestral homeland to Indian Territory in the 1800s. Today, it has the second-highest Native population in the U.S. — and yet, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, my nation, doesn’t have a reservation. Despite my not living on a reservation, I’ve been raped several times by white men. And sexual assault-related resources are yet another area where Native Women face massive obstacles.

We are also the most likely racial group denied post-rape care in the U.S. There are 17,000 rape crisis centers in the U.S. and less than five that serve Native Women. The Indian Health Services (IHS) is often the only health care we have access to, and there is rarely anyone on staff who can perform a rape exam with the necessary rape kit. And if a rape kit is performed, then it’s almost never processed.

America’s Conversation On Sexual Assault Is A Failure If It Ignores Native Women

As white feminist organizations have dissected various iterations of the AHCA for its many failings on women’s health, they have yet to highlight the impact it will have on Native communities. The Indian Healthcare Improvement Act (IHIA) has a continual renewal process under the American Care Act (ACA). If the ACA is repealed, all the life-saving funds the IHIA gives to the Indian Health Service (IHS) could be lost. The IHS hospital in Eaglebutte, South Dakota, which serves the Cheyenne River Sioux Nation, has already been hit with a $4.1 billion cut from the federal government. This will hurt our women even more and quite possibly lead to higher rates of death, but, again, this doesn’t seem to be a concern for white feminists.

Unique Threats In The Era Of Trump

I spend — and have for a long time spent — much of my time reminding white feminists that they are blanketed in privilege not only as white people, but as settlers. I expend a great deal of my finite energy being expected to educate these privileged darlings — for free no less — on how to be “whole people” as they infer that we’re “primitive” and have no right to call them out on their racism.

And despite this new era of “resistance,” political awakening, and feminism, nothing has changed. In fact, this toxic dynamic was perhaps no more pointedly on display than in the heart of the feminist resistance: at the Women’s March in D.C. On that day, groups of Indigenous Women gathered to have our collective voices heard. The Indigenous Women Rise contingent had only Native speakers and prayers to our ancestors; we marched together for representation and visibility — or, at least, we attempted to have our own space. One white woman after another pushed her way through our group, repeatedly ignoring our cries that we were marching together. I, as did many other Native Women, lost the larger group.

Despite Trump’s even higher threat to our survival, white women wouldn’t even allow us space for one day on our own land.

On top of that, the comments that many of us received from these feminists were as vile as the hate that Trump himself spews. One Muskogee Creek Woman from Oklahoma took to Twitter to describe her experience of white women at the D.C. Women’s March claiming they were “an Indian today” or that we “did not look like Indians” and were “pretending” — the very words that Trump used to described the Mashantucket Pequots when attempting to steal their economic livelihood in 1993. After describing this experience she was inundated with racist, colonizing replies from white feminists.

The comments that many of us received from these feminists were as vile as the hate that Trump himself spews.
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The New York Times review of the Women’s March was no more enlightening. Emma-Kate Symons’ article proved that, once again, white women simply don’t get it — nor do they care to: “Can’t we rise above the sniping about ‘privilege,’ ‘white feminism,’ ‘intersectionality,’ and hierarchies of grievance in the face of Trump and the dangers he poses to the American and international liberal world order and women everywhere?”

To be frank with you, Emma-Kate, no we can’t. Yes, Trump is dangerous to all women, but the Democrats are also dangerous to us and have already inflicted great harm. They support resource extraction and the prison industrial complex, and have no understanding nor concern for Native sovereignty. Furthermore, many wouldn’t even stand by Native Women in Standing Rock as we were being assaulted by the primarily white men law enforcement officers and Energy Transfer Partners hired goons. DAPL, and many other resource extraction projects, began under the Obama administration.

The ‘Birth Of The Americas’ Runs Red With The Blood Of My People

Where were all these white women while we were being maced, tear gassed, hosed down in subzero temperatures, shot, maimed, mutilated, and sexually assaulted in the jails? Did this abuse mean less because a Democrat was in the White House? Did it mean less because it’s just us Indians and we’re all “pretending” anyway?

Even when white women attempt to show allyship with women of color, they still get it wrong. Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl performance was a perfect example of this. Her performance of the Woody Guthrie song, “This Land is Your Land,” was unacceptable. The fact that white people believe they have any right to decide who comes onto this land, Indigenous land, is settler colonialism. The fact that this performance was at an NFL event — an organization that has profited off the racist characterization of Native People — only makes it more despicable.

Did this abuse mean less because a Democrat was in the White House?
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Now that white women are truly feeling the wrath of the ameriKKKan government, they care about women’s rights. Now that it’s their pussies being grabbed, they care about women’s rights. Now that they see the majority of leaders as a threat to their lives, they care. The problem is that they only care about a small segment of women: They only care about the most privileged of women, and will obtain their rights at the expense of the rest of us.

The activism they pursue — while ignoring all critiques and pleas from Native Women and other marginalized communities — makes it very clear what feminism is to them. Crushing colonialism and standing with Native Women are clearly still not on their agenda.

Since taking center ring of the 2016 Republican presidential circus, Donald Trump has accosted many of his detractors — from women and People Of Color, to Muslims and Disabled people. There has been much criticism from both sides of the aisle about the GOP nominee’s offensive behavior — but virtual silence regarding his repeated racist and misogynistic attacks on Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren’s claims to the Cherokee and Delaware Nations.

And, per usual, it’s Native women who are paying the ultimate price.

Warren’s claims to Native ancestry first debuted in the public consciousness during her 2012 bid for the Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat, when they were unearthed by her opponent, the incumbent Senator Scott Brown. Apparently, throughout the course of her law career, Warren had claimed that she was Cherokee and Delaware. Those claims, however, were revealed to be little more than family lore and the racist stereotype of “high cheekbones.”

At no point in her life has Warren participated in tribal government, cultural activities, or advocated on behalf of Native peoples while serving as the Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) or in the Senate.

Per usual, it’s Native women who are paying the ultimate price.
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Warren is not a citizen of any of the Cherokee or Delaware Nations. Rebecca Nagle, Cherokee and Founder and Co-Director of FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture, told me during an interview:

“For me, my Native identity is my tribal citizenship; I’m a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. It’s who my family is. It’s who my grandma is. It’s who my community is, which is one of the reasons I’m critical of Elizabeth Warren. I think it’s a very interesting way to be Native, to just be Native alone without connection to Native community.”

Never missing an opportunity to bully someone, Trump has taken up Brown’s campaign to expose Warren’s false claims to Native heritage. He has repeatedly referred to Warren as “Pocahontas” and “the Indian” (not to mention “goofy” and “ineffective”).

Despite having Nicole Robertson, a Cree woman, tell him point blank, “That’s very offensive,” he has persisted with this abusive name-calling, going as far as to say that he calls her Pocahontas because “she’s the least productive Senator.”

Howie Carr, conservative radio talk show host and Trump supporter, referred to Warren as “Wonder Squaw” in the Boston Herald before opening with a mimicked Native war cry at a Maine rally for Trump this past June. (There have been numerous derogatory memes of Warren made by Trump supporters.)

In short? The onslaught of racist and colonizing imagery has been endless. Even one of Warren’s supporters obtained the domain rights to Pocahontas.com, which redirects to her campaign page.

Despite all of this, Warren has not addressed the racism and sexism behind Trump’s attacks on Native women via her. Nor has Warren acknowledged the concerns of Native people, in particular the Cherokee or Delaware, when we have expressed our pain and anger over her false claims to us.

The fact that Warren, a white woman, believes she has the right to claim Native nations when it suits her is, in turn, a form of colonization of Native women. As a result, she has been an active agent in our harm at the hands of non-Native men, such as Trump — and that harm is severe.

For one, Trump has completely erased the plights we face as a people due to colonization and racism. Natives’ rates of higher education are the lowest in the nation — only 18.5% have a Bachelor’s degree. Rates of unemployment are also staggeringly high, with the Bureau of Indian Affairs defined Navajo Region faring the worst at 35.2–37%.

The fact that Warren, a white woman, believes she has the right to claim Native nations when it suits her is, in turn, a form of colonization of Native women.
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And with his continued use of racist and fetishized imagery, Trump has further dehumanized a people who have suffered — and continue to suffer — a literal and cultural genocide. Most pointedly, his dehumanization is continuing an epidemic of abuse. Put bluntly: One of the greatest dangers to a Native woman’s life is a non-Native man. Such a brutal reality makes Trump’s comments all the more despicable.

Native women suffer the highest rates of violence of any racial group in the U.S. According to the National Institute of Justice 2010 Findings From the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, more than one in three (39.8%) American Indian and Alaskan Native women have experienced violence in the last year and more than four in five (84.3%) have experienced violence in their lifetime. More than one in two (56.1%) Native women have experienced sexual assault in their lifetime.

Pointedly, the vast majority of this violence is interracial, which is an anomaly in the U.S. Ninety-six percent of Native women reported that their sexual assaults were interracial, whereas 91% of non-Hispanic white women reported their assaults were of the same race. The numbers for interracial attacks are similar for every type of violence that Indigenous women in the U.S. face: domestic violence, sexual trafficking, stalking, and murder. On some reservations, Native women are murdered at 10 times the national average.

(It’s important to note that these statistics only reflect American Indian and Alaskan Native women, which does not include Native Hawaiians, who have their own unique struggles as a result of colonialism.)

With his continued use of racist and fetishized imagery, Trump has further dehumanized a people who have suffered — and continue to suffer — a literal and cultural genocide.
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Trump’s behavior has only added fuel to the fire of the colonialist and misogynistic non-Native men who violate and kill Native women, while also furthering the American public’s racist stereotypes of the “squaw.” When asked why he calls Warren “Pocahontas,” he replied: “It’s because she’s a nasty person, a terrible Senator, and it drives her crazy.”

By this logic, the public is left to assume that being called a Native woman is an insult because being a Native woman is disgusting and deserving of punishment. It is this very mindset and messaging that intensifies the dehumanization and violence we face.

A History Of Violence

Madonna Thunder Hawk, a member of the Oohenumpa band of the Cheyenne River Sioux Nation, Co-Founder of WARN (Women of All Red Nations), and current Tribal Liaison for the Lakota People’s Law Project, explained during our interview:

“Violence against Native women is a historical thing that goes way back to the invasion that first started on the east coast. It’s part of who money people are, especially the men. They’re brought up in that culture, the culture of money and greed. They could say and do whatever they feel like saying and doing. It started then.”

Indeed, a series of oppressive policies have contributed to the bloodshed that Native women have historically experienced and still currently face. Most notably, perhaps, was the 1978 Supreme Court case Oliphant v. Suquamish Tribe.

Oliphant stripped the sovereign rights of tribal governments to prosecute non-Natives who commit crimes on our lands. Mark Oliphant, a white man, assaulted a tribal officer on tribal land. He felt that he shouldn’t be tried for his crime by the local tribal government, however, since he wasn’t Native. The Supreme Court ruled against the Suquamish Nation and sovereignty, and in turn essentially legalized non-Native-perpetrated violence against Natives. The U.S. government, once again, declared open hunting season on Native women, children, and men.

A series of complex federal policies have also stripped tribes of their sovereignty, such that the reporting of sexual assaults varies based on the location of the tribe within the U.S. The FBI or local law enforcement agencies have jurisdiction over sexual assault, murder, disappearance, trafficking, and child abuse (and a range of other crimes) by non-Natives, but they very rarely arrest or prosecute in these cases.

Under the federal 1968 Indian Civil Rights Act, tribal courts have the right to prosecute Natives for crimes committed on our lands, but not for more than a fine of $3,000 and one year in jail. Not only does this further strip tribes of our sovereign rights to govern ourselves and our land, but given that 96% of sexual assaults are perpetrated by non-Native men, it does very little to end violence against Native women.

The U.S. criminal justice system is also entirely different from the traditional ways in which women sought justice within tribes; on a cultural level, sending an abuser to prison may not feel like justice to an Indigenous woman.

In 2013, the federal government reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Through this policy, the government continued its legacy of giving with one hand and taking with the other. VAWA 2013 allowed federally recognized tribes in the continental U.S. and the Metlakatla Indian Community of the Annette Island Reserve in Alaska to prosecute non-Native domestic abusers and those that broke protection orders.

Yet prosecution for sexual assault, murder, trafficking, and child abuse were still off the table. The government also dictated how the jurisdictional process must be conducted and gave non-Native abusers protections that Natives don’t often receive in U.S. courts.

Defendants were given the right to petition the federal courts to challenge tribal convictions, to stay detention, and to a trial by a jury that does not “systematically” exclude non-Natives. It wasn’t until President Obama signed into law the repeal of section 910 on December 18, 2014 that all Alaskan tribes had the 2013 VAWA protections afforded to them.

When A Violent History And The Presidential Election Collide

In his 1993 testimony before the Congressional Subcommittee on Native American Affairs, Trump made multiple inflammatory and disparaging remarks regarding the Connecticut-based Mashantucket Pequots, including a claim that the Pequots “don’t look like Indians to me.” If that wasn’t derogatory enough, he doubled down on his racism, insisting that “organized crime is rampant on reservations,” an accusation that is completely unfounded.

He then went on to say that “there’s no way an Indian Chief is going to tell ‘Joey Killer’ to please get off his reservation.” On this he is correct; because of Oliphant, a litany of existing policy, and the continuing onslaught of new legislation that we are drowning in, we can’t tell the white, raping “Joey Killer” to get off our land.

Nagle, an anti-rape activist, commented that “when I talk to my Native elders about rape, you know what they say, this isn’t our way — this came from Europe.” She believes rape is part and parcel of a culture of domination. “Trump represents that,” she says. “It’s ‘take what I can,’ ‘I’m not going to apologize,’ ‘I can say whatever I want,’ ‘I’m going to do whatever I want.’”

Over the years Trump has had multiple allegations of sexual harassment and assault made against him by underage girls and women — including his ex-wife Ivana Trump — which epitomizes his disdain for half the population. As of June 20, 2016 an anonymous woman known only as “Jane Doe” filed a lawsuit against Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, Trump’s longtime friend and level 3 sex offender, for raping her in 1994 when she was only 13. A “Tiffany Doe” has been listed as a witness to another suit filed in April by another woman accusing Trump of raping her at the age of 13.

There are also the multiple incestuous comments Trump has made about his daughter, Ivanka Trump. In a 2003 interview on the Howard Stern Show he claimed that, “My daughter, Ivanka. She’s six feet tall, she’s got the best body.” On the March 6, 2006 episode of The View, he said that Ivanka has a “very nice figure” and that if “she weren’t my daughter, I’d be dating her.”

One would think that once Trump threw his hat into the presidential ring he would have ceased this blatantly misogynistic behavior, but he’s only marched on. In the September 9, 2015 interview with Rolling Stone he stated “She’s really something, and what a beauty, what a beauty that one. If I weren’t married, and, ya know, her father . . . ”

The irony that Trump uses Pocahontas as a primary insult is not lost on Native women. “Pocahontas as she’s talked about today isn’t a real person . . . When we talk about the white construct of Native identities, Pocahontas is part of that. Even though she was a real person, she’s become this white myth,” Nagle tells me.

Pocahontas, whose real name was Matoaka, met John Smith at the age of 10 or 11 years old. She was taken captive at the age of 17 and held prisoner by the white colonialists until she was married off to John Rolfe as a condition of her release. Matoaka was baptized Christian, renamed Rebecca, and taken to England, where she was paraded around white society as the “noble savage.” She soon died at the young age of 21. Pocahontas’s abuse continues to this day, with Trump throwing her around like a rag doll for his insidious political machinations.

Trump’s running mate is no beacon of hope in regards to racism and sexism, either. Indiana Governor Mike Pence, (R-IN), too, has a long record of using the government to exploit and oppress women and of using Natives for his political gain. The H.R. 3 No Tax Payer Funding for Abortion bill, which Pence sponsored, would have legally redefined rape to only “forcible rape.”

Pocahontas’s abuse continues to this day, with Trump throwing her around like a rag doll for his insidious political machinations.
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This would have excluded rapes that occurred while unconscious or under threat. In 2014, the state of Indiana cut $1.18 billion to domestic violence programs. This left 601 people — primarily women and children — escaping abusive living situations, without shelter. Pence even used the 1993 federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which furthered the rights of Natives to practice our religions without impunity, to push his anti-LGBTQ Two Spirit and woman agenda. To him, Natives are at best political pawns and not at all a community of people to be represented or advocated for.

As Nagle puts it:

“It’s not a coincidence that the same lawmakers, or potential lawmakers, and top candidates that are making these derogatory comments about Native people and Native women are making laws based on those stereotypes that are really harmful to our people . . . You have people like Trump and Warren making a game out of our identity, making a political game out of what it means to be a Native woman in the U.S. in 2016.”

She adds that “the people who are literally in the seat of power can tweet things like ‘Pocahontas,’ without a lot of consequence, and it’s not a coincidence that the laws that they make create a situation of really high violence against Native women.”

Whether it’s Warren or Trump or non-Native men who come onto tribal land to commit atrocious acts of violence against us, the colonization and abuse of Native women continues every day. Despite what many think, Trump is not one isolated, white supremacist on the fringe; he represents the U.S. government and many non-Native men’s views of Native women.

We have endured 526 years of colonialism and genocide in the “Americas.” Genocide never ended. We are experiencing it to this day through the non-Native men who beat, rape, traffic, and kill us. We are experiencing it through a government that refuses to acknowledge our tribal nations’ sovereign right to govern ourselves, our land, water, and destiny. We are experiencing this through white people, such as Senator Warren, who like to play “Indian.” And more dangerously still, we are experiencing this through people like Trump, who literally use us as an insult to bolster themselves in the polls.

Native people have had some gains in the Obama administration, but we are far from where we deserve to be in regards to our rights on this land, our land. There are many ways that we as Indigenous people must address this, one of which is by actively participating in the U.S. government. Madonna Thunder Hawk told me that, “Our ancestors learned to adapt and survive, and that’s why we’re still here . . . They fought. They hung on. They adapted. They survived. And that’s what we gotta do.”

Trump is not one isolated, white supremacist on the fringe; he represents the U.S. government and many non-Native men’s views of Native women.
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Natives will continue with the business of survival, and the way that this is going to happen is through a reverse adaptation. After centuries of flexibility and re-sculpting ourselves into people who are making it now, we need to take these skills and use them to our advantages.

The transition into politics and government needs to reach beyond our tribal governments. All Natives, urban and reservation based, women and men, must branch beyond tribal/local/state bodies of leadership and extend our reach to the federal government. This is the ultimate adaptation for survival, especially for our women. And it is the only way to make the fakers and takers like Warren and Trump stop spilling the blood of Native women.