In the wetlands of the Northern Great Lakes, the sacred grows on the water. Centuries ago, wild rice growing in watersheds and along slow moving rivers in the region marked the final home of a migrating people. The Ojibwe, who often call themselves the Anishinaabe or the “true people,” followed a prophecy from the Atlantic coast to the Great Lakes, and have harvested manoomin (wild rice) in the late summer ever since.

​Now, climate change threatens the survival of the crop in their ancient homelands of Northern Wisconsin.

Warmer winters, disease, and floods have caused entire crops of rice to fail in the last decade along Bad River and in watersheds along Lake Superior. For the people who have always relied on it for physical and spiritual sustenance, the loss of this sacred rice reflects the loss of wild places all over the world.​

“I’ve been hearing these stories since I was a kid” said Joe Rose, looking into the middle distance. Rose is a Bad River Ojibwe elder, professor emeritus and former director of Native American Studies at Northland College for forty years. He’s an environmental scientist and an Ojibwe storyteller.

In an unused conference room at the Bad River reservation lodge, Rose passed a Styrofoam cup of coffee from one weathered hand to the other, and told me about a prophecy that has guided the Ojibwe for hundreds of years. He told the story of the Seventh Fire.

The dreams of eight prophets some 500 years ago revealed the Ojibwe journey from the Atlantic coast through the centuries to their current moment in history. These dreams told of Seven Fires or epochs in the story of the Ojibwe. The first three prophets compelled a migration from the east coast, and provided stopping places along the way to their final stopping place. That place would be marked by a sign, it would be “where food grows on the water.”  This is the link between the Anishinaabe and wild rice—it signified their final destination—their home.

The next three fires foretold the arrival of French with whom the Ojibwe traded and became more powerful, and then the rise of the United States and its anti-native policies. As the United States grew and pushed westward, the Ojibwe were forced to cede territory, their religion was outlawed, an attempt to forcibly relocate them resulted in the death of 400 Ojibwe in the Sandy Lake Tragedy, also known as the Wisconsin Death March, and eventually 19th century boarding schools would strip their children of their tribal identities. Later epochs foretell the power and devastation the white invaders would have over not just native land and lives, but also on the future of the human race itself.

And then there was the Seventh Fire.

This is the link between the Anishinaabe and wild rice—it signified their final destination—their home.
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“We are in the eleventh hour of a very serious environmental crisis,” Rose said.  He placed the coffee cup on the table and leaned forward. He swept his hand over the table and outlined two roads diverging. “And that is where we are, at the fork in the road.”

Down one road, was the Eighth Fire, a peaceful final world. Down the other, was catastrophe.

“It was prophesied that in the age of the Seventh Fire, a new people would arise and retrace their footsteps and learn the way of the ancestors,” Rose said. “If Ma’iingan (the wolf) no longer has a place to retreat, if there is no wilderness, Ma’iingan will soon pass out of existence. Then soon after, the Anishinaabe will pass out of existence. And then so too will all of humankind.”

Bad River, Wisconsin, winds along a stretch of Highway 2, deep in the forests of Northern Wisconsin. Tall, thin pine trees and bone-white birches crowd in from just beyond the road, and a view of Lake Superior slices through them, only a few weeks free from its partial blanket of ice. Snow still hides in the forest on the shadowy side of the road in mid-May. With snow melt, Bad River  ran swollen and fast through the reservation.

In June, wild rice begins to grow, floating and fragile where water moves slowly, spawning from winter dormancy in the wetlands. But there’s no telling if it will be healthy enough to make it to the end of the season with the flash floods and hot spells of a warming planet.

There have always been good and bad years for wild rice. Peter David from Wisconsin’s Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLFWIC) knows you can expect to have a thin harvest every four years or so. But in the past eight years, the crop has failed as many times as it’s been successful.

Twice, a brown-spot fungus broke out and swept the entire region. The crop couldn’t germinate and respawn the following year; no rice grew at all. In 2016, a massive flood that took out part of Highway 2 and stranded residents without power for four days also wiped out the wild rice.

In GLFWIC’s office, Peter and his wife Lisa, showed me photos of the rice beds on possibly the oldest laptop still in use, with a handle on the top to serve as  its own briefcase. In a healthy year, almost all the water in Dean Lake is carpeted in a verdant green. But then the next year, the same lake isa sickly pale brown. It’s the fungus. The entire crop is dead. He clicks on the next photo of a blue lake. There is no rice at all.​

By his estimation, there isn’t much long-term hope for rice in the region. And when the rice fails, the ecosystem ripples with the effects. The rice beds don’t just supply the Ojibwe with a sacred and vital source of food, but they also serve as a habitat for countless species, from the muskrat to the moose. Migrating swans, geese, and ducks rely on the rice beds for cover and food along their journeys.

As the climate warms, wild rice may continue to survive farther north, moving into Canada where the winters will continue to be cold. Attempts to save the wild rice are also complicated by the sacredness of the plant itself. David explained that genetic mutation or otherwise altering wild rice to make it more durable in warmer climates isn’t an option because of the importance rice holds for the Ojibwe and their migration story.

“That doesn’t help anyone in Bad River,” David said.

Joe Rose grew up ricing in the late summers in the Kakagon Sloughs, processing it the traditional way: drying, parching, hulling, and winnowing the rice all by hand. The first time I met him, he was coming back from three days of sapping maple sugar in the bush, just like his grandparents taught him when he was young.

His relationship to the reservation and the traditions of the Ojibwe informed his environmental activism. Anishinaabe teachings rely on the balance between the human world and the natural, represented by the wolf, or ma’iingan. Ma’iingan’s territory is ever-shrinking due to the influence of humanity and the Anishinaabe have long fought to retain the wild places.

By his estimation, there isn’t much long-term hope for rice in the region.
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Rose organized and spoke out against potential mining operations and toxic waste dumps that could harm the local ecosystem. In 2012, Bad River helped beat a proposed open-pit iron-ore mine in the neighboring Iron County. Runoff from the mine would have threatened the rice. But non-native members of the neighboring Iron County—eager for the mining jobs—struggled to see the significance of the plant, Rose said.

Mary Annette Pember wrote in Indian Country Today about an incident during a tribal presentation on the importance of wild rice at a county board meeting. A county board member interrupted the presentation to ask what economic value wild rice had to the region.​

“All the white man thinks about is money,” Rose remarked afterward.

While the Ojibwe continued to fight environmental threats to Bad River, the United States emitted roughly 15 trillion pounds of greenhouse gases annually, and the fossil fuel industry grew to be worth over $5 trillion. All the while, global temperatures continue to rise.

“We’ve been successful in fighting these attempts to harm the land,” Rose said.  But the threats to wild rice due to climate change don’t come from one industrial source the tribe can rally against – it comes from all industrialized areas of the globe  The tribe has had to go to extreme measures just to try and keep wild rice alive in the region. A hot dry summer can prove deadly. “In 2007, the Lake Superior level was about two feet lower than normal, and the rice was sitting in mudflats rather than floating. So for the first time in history, the tribal council closed the sloughs to ricing. And then it happened again.”

Non-native members of the neighboring Iron County—eager for the mining jobs—struggled to see the significance of the plant
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The flooding poses another deadly threat. In the summer of 2016, when the wild rice was beginning to form roots to attach itself to the bottom of lakes and rivers,  a massive storm hit. Ten inches of rain flooded the river, the highway, and the homes and workplaces on the reservation, destroying ten homes completely. It took four days for power to return to the area. It cut off the tribe from normally routed supplies of food, water, and medicine. The storm affected a huge part of northern Wisconsin, leaving three people dead.

The tribe once again closed the sloughs to ricing as so little of the plant survived the flooding.​

The World Resources Institute explained that climate change will cause a greater number of extreme weather events, including heat waves, storms, droughts and wildfires. The Great Lakes themselves are warming, which creates a problem for an entire ecosystem built for long winters. Earlier retreats of lake ice could not only devastate the rice, but nearly every part of the region’s wildlife.

Bad River isn’t the only native community under threat. These threats are made more pressing by the current administration’s attitude towards climate change. By removing the U.S. from the international Paris climate accord and encouraging a “Second Renaissance” of oil and gas sector expansion, the Trump administration is backing away from the critical global goal scientists have set to stay within two degrees of warming.

Native American environmentalism has long led movements against mining, drilling, and pollution, with the Dakota Access Pipeline multi-tribal protest just a recent example of a long history of activism. Four tribal nations, including the Quinault, even announced an intention to follow the Paris agreement. Native traditional relationships between people and the natural, wild world has influenced the larger environmentalism movement. And for the Ojibwe, that looking backward was prophesied all along.

The choice of which path to take, the Eighth Fire or annihilation, isn’t just for the Ojibwe to make—the Seventh Fire specifies that it will be the “light-skinned race,” the same people who caused the destruction of the environment, who will be the ones to determine the fate of the world.

Sacred wild rice is withering and dying in the changing climate at Bad River, but stories like this are unfolding in every place on earth where the people live close enough to the land for the impact to be unavoidable. And while Rose still retains hope, the time to make this choice is now. According to Rose, we entered into the age of the Seventh Fire several decades ago, and our window is closing.

“So,” Rose said, placing his hands flat on the table. “Wild rice is only symbolic of what could happen to everything.”

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.

by Taté Walker

We’ve told you to stay away from headdresses and not get the dreamcatcher tattoo. We’ve asked you to burn the Indian princess Halloween costumes and stop referring to everything as your spirit animal.

Trust me: Your attempt at irony has failed.

Still, even when it clicks with things like mascots, y’all keep finding new ways to twist the knife. The line between casual and overt racism is getting thinner and thinner, folks.

As I write this, there are a few such anti-Native gems circulating across pop culture, from movies, to politics, to fashion.

“Savage” slang, fashion’s legal thievery of the tribal name “Navajo,” and politicians and superheroes going “off the reservation” are some of the most despicably buzz-worthy items happening now.

Good-intentioned people keep coming up with new ways to prove racism isn’t going anywhere soon.
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Good-intentioned people keep coming up with new ways to prove racism isn’t going anywhere soon, especially when they dig defensive trenches full of dismissive and self-centering rhetoric like, “But I’m honoring you!” or “Stop limiting my creativity!” and “It’s just a movie — stop being so sensitive!”

Here, we’ll discuss why these items (and excuses for them) are problematic and where you can go for better Native representation.

1. ‘Savage’ Slang

I see this word being used a lot on places like Twitter to describe when someone does something badass or gutsy or without remorse, i.e. “Damn @KimKardashian did @taylorswift13dirty. #savage” (actual tweet referencing Kanye/Kim/Taylor beef).

I remember people using it back in high school (late nineties) for the same reason. Its recent resurgence can be traced back to the British, which is interesting considering their ancestors used the term in colonist propaganda to describe Indigenous people the world over.

Savage, meaning wild and untamed, was a term to dehumanize; it excused everything from land occupation and Native genocide to slavery.
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Savage, meaning wild and untamed, was a term to dehumanize; it excused everything from land occupation and Native genocide to slavery.

While I despise Disney’s Pocahontas on several levels, the scene in the film where the bad guys sing “Savages” is pretty accurate in terms of how the British felt about Native Americans.

More to the point, the term spreads the systemic racism Native Americans experience here in the United States. The founding fathers called us “merciless Indian savages” in the Declaration of Independence, a document paraded out every July while Natives continue to flail at the bottom of every socioeconomic ranking imaginable.

If you’re operating under the impression the term no longer applies to people, think again: A quick glance at “savage” on Thesaurus.com shows “aboriginal” and “native” as relevant synonyms.

The founding fathers called us ‘merciless Indian savages’ in the Declaration of Independence.
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It’s not a term welcome among Indigenous communities. Stop using it.

2. Tribal Names as Fashion Trend

In a decision that left many of us who follow cultural appropriation issues angry and confused, New Mexico Federal Judge Bruce Black ruled in July to accept Urban Outfitters’ fair use defense in an ongoing suit filed against them by the Navajo Nation in 2012.

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

According to The Fashion Law, Urban Outfitters claims the term “Navajo” has “acquired a descriptive meaning within the fashion and accessory market… the fashion industry has adopted ‘Navajo’ to describe a type of style or print.”

Before I get into how gut-wrenchingly awful this perspective is (I mean, can we talk about reducing a whole tribe of people to a style or print?!?), some backstory.

A few years ago, Urban Outfitters came under fire primarily for featuring a set of tribal print (cringe) underwear they called — wait for it — “Navajo Hipster Panty.”
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It’s important to note many Navajo people refer to themselves and their language as Diné; some prefer Diné over Navajo, and some use both terms.

This is common in tribal communities. We have “legal” names made official by the U.S. government and these names were often given to us by outsiders. When in doubt, ask for individual preference.

For better or worse, Navajo is the official, legally recognized name for which the tribe has many live trademarks.

A few years ago, Urban Outfitters came under fire primarily for featuring a set of tribal print (cringe) underwear they called — wait for it — “Navajo Hipster Panty.” At the time (2011-ish), the company sold more than 20 items with “Navajo” in the name.

After the retailer ignored a cease and desist order, the Navajo Nation filed suit.

This isn’t the first (or last) time we’ve seen tribally-specific cultural appropriation used by mega brands.
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The largest federally recognized tribe in both land and citizenry alleged the use of the word “Navajo” on products like panties and flasks violated trademark laws and the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, which says you have to be a member of a federally or state recognized tribe or certified as a Native artist by a tribe in order to sell items marketed as Native-made, or tribally-specific products.

This isn’t the first (or last) time we’ve seen tribally-specific cultural appropriation used by mega brands — the automobile industry loves driving over us, i.e. Pontiac, Jeep Cherokee, or Dodge Dakota.

It’s also not the first time tribes have taken these companies to task: The Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina recently dropped a suit it had filed earlier this year against Anheuser-Busch for using its tribal trademark in advertising its beer products. The company took the ad down and agreed to make “a substantial donation” to a tribal nonprofit.

The Navajo case is different. A decision like this has the potential to open the door for companies to plaster their products with whatever tribal-themed trend comes their way.

Our culture and spiritualities and languages are not a trend. We’re not panties, flasks, t-shirts, cars … The fact that we even have to spell this out highlights the systemic oppression we face.

Our culture and spiritualities and languages are not a trend. We’re not panties, flasks, t-shirts, cars.
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A government whose policies brought our lands, bodies, and cultures to the brink of extinction via colonialism, genocide, and assimilation now uses its judicial system to not only arrest, kill, or imprison us at rates well above any other racial demographic, but to also decide that not even our names and images are our own.

Because capitalism.

3. Going ‘Off the Reservation’

Both Hillary Clinton and Ironman’s Tony Stark were recently heard using this phrase against their rivals.

Clinton said she has worked with men who go off the reservation in behavior/speech and can therefore handle a political challenger like Donald Trump; and Stark said Steve Roger’s Captain America had gone off the reservation in rescuing his one-time-bestie-turned-brainwashed-villain Bucky Barnes aka the Winter Soldier.

Trump, Warren, And The Dehumanization Of Native Women

In most cases, people use “off the reservation” to refer to someone deviating from the expected or authorized. This is similar to using the phrase “gone Native” to describe a defector sympathetic to uncolonized/enemy ways.

In all cases, regardless of intent, it’s an oppressive throwback to anti-Native sentiments of yore.

Too many people called out for using it, including Clinton, claim ignorance to the phrase’s racist origins. Well, here you go.

In most cases, people use ‘off the reservation’ to refer to someone deviating from the expected or authorized.
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From the nation’s founding in 1776 through the late 1800s, the US government treatied, swindled, and stole some 1.5 billion acres of land from tribes. During this time, the government forced tribes onto reservations and promised government assistance for food, housing, protection, education, healthcare and more (not welfare but a bill of sale; assistance in exchange for land).

Reservations, as well as the promised assistance, were assimilation tactics meant to subjugate Natives and turn them into dependent white people. No really. These reservations were monitored by the US federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Natives needed federal permission to leave the reservation. For those tribes removed from their traditional homelands and sacred sites, reservations were like prisons, and many tribes, like my Lakota people from the Great Plains, resisted, sometimes with disastrous consequences.

Essentially, the phrase ‘off the reservation’ was U.S. government code for ‘escaped captive.’
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Essentially, the phrase “off the reservation” was U.S. government code for “escaped captive.”

In this 2014 story from NPR, the phrase’s origins and usage are described, including:

Many of the news articles that used the term in a literal sense in the past were also expressing undisguised contempt and hatred, or, at best, condescension for Native Americans — “shiftless, untameable … a rampant and intractable enemy to civilization” (New York Times, Oct. 27, 1886).

Besides its problematic origins, there are other issues with the phrase.

“Off the reservation” has a negative connotation. And yet today, though many face extreme socioeconomic disparities, reservations are filled with positivity, which outsiders can fail to recognize due to mainstream media’s poverty porn fixation. Interestingly, urban Natives like me will often say we’re “going back to the rez” to reconnect with families, lands, and spiritualities, especially during this time of year.

Not every tribe has a reservation. There are 567 federally recognized tribes in the U.S.; hundreds more tribes are not federally recognized.
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The phrase also furthers the stereotype that all Natives live on reservations and all tribes have reservations. Both assumptions are harmful in that they erase many Native people’s lived experiences in urban areas and devalue “unrecognized” tribal people.

Not every tribe has a reservation. There are 567 federally recognized tribes in the U.S.; hundreds more tribes are not federally recognized. Just 326 reservations exist.

Hearing someone — especially popular public figures — use “off the reservation” is an unwelcome reminder of how little we and our histories and our contemporary selves matter.

The message in all these examples is Native Americans aren’t living, contemporary people. To the average American, Natives look a certain way, act a certain way, and are neat props for trendy vernacular, fashion and politics.

Acknowledging our humanity doesn’t have to cramp your style.

Stop shopping at stores like Urban Outfitters that appropriate Native cultures and designs. Side-eye that generic, tribal print t-shirt, then head over to Native-owned enterprises like Beyond Buckskin, NDNcraft, and Eighth Generation, and buy something that truly represents that tribal spirit you love to honor so much.

Invest in a thesaurus. If you’re called out for ignorantly using a phrase like “savage” or “off the reservation,” listen, learn, remove from vocabulary, and continue on with human decency.

Uplift Native voices and demand better from your heroes, be they politicians or ironmen. These tips will help ensure your trends don’t tread on real people.

This story originally appeared on Everyday Feminism. Republished here with permission.

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.