An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

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there is hardly any chance in hell that someone who is ignorant about a subject will learn about it. As I mentioned above, holding each other accountable is important. But it has to be rooted in liberation and not individualism. It can’t replicate the carceral state’s goal of punishment. What I’m saying is that we shouldn’t be out here snitching on one another, calling out people in public, for some individual pettiness; save that for your private DMs. We have to rely on those with wisdom in our communities, young and old, and find ways to be better human beings. Finally, we need to be patient with one another. If that’s not the point of holding people accountable, then what is? Technology and social media are not going to save us. Only our offline relationships built on a foundation of revolutionary struggle will. If, as Safiya Umoja Noble convincingly argues in her book, Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (2018), that this form of technology is not neutral, and can reproduce racist and sexist ideas about Black women, then how can we rely on it to order our steps in the fight for social justice and radical transformation? 19 Our liberation is going to come in face-to-face meetings and taking it to the streets. R*DSK*N/N*GG*R/NIGGA AND THE POWER OF LANGUAGE In this section, I want to analyze the discourse on blackface and redface, specifically the social use of two words. But first, what is language? Language is an essential component of our everyday lives. It shapes how we think about the world and our place in it. Language is also symbolic, and has many meanings depending on context, time, place, and who is involved. Before expanding, let me share a brief story of being on the rez, my brother and cousins, and a rap battle. In the summer of 2007, I was with my two cousins and my older brother. My brother and I were on the rez partying it up for a few days, staying at our auntie’s crib. My cousins knew of a party happening on the rez, so we went. There was a wide array of people. There were Saginaw Chippewas, Black folks, and some whites. We had a blast. Toward the end of the night, we noticed a commotion and went to see what it was about. Two young men, a Black brotha and a Native brotha, were engaged in a rap battle. I was curious to see how the Native brotha was going to do. The Black brotha went first, getting all up in the Native brotha’s grill, spitting out some
clunky but decent lines and referring to the Native brotha as “nigga” a few times. The Native brotha came out with some fire. They went for another round. Both rhymers got better. I was struck, however, in the second round, when the Native brotha said something like, “I will destroy you, nigga.” I, having just finished my second year of university and thinking I knew everything, awkwardly looked around (think Issa Rae from the show Insecure) to see if my brother or cousins heard it. They continued to watch the battle. I couldn’t listen anymore and was bothered. My family was unbothered. I asked them about it later and they seemed to have collectively concluded that hey, we all niggas! I thought to myself, Damn, can this Native nigga actually say “nigga”? Maybe I was the nigga trippin’! 20 I tell this story to reveal the complexities of the N-word and the politics of who can say it, who has said it, and who might want to think carefully about saying it outside certain community boundaries. To my non-Black folks, I’m not saying don’t say it, cause, you know, some Black people are cool with non-Black people saying it. Other people wanna be grown and pretend like the N-word passport allows them entry and usage in every Black group. If you’re non-Black and out here slinging the N-word, I would highly recommend you understand that the laying on of hands might come your way—and I ain’t talkin’ bout the preacher praying for you at church! According to critical sociolinguist and activist Geneva Smitherman, “Language plays a dominant role in the formation of ideology, consciousness, behavior and social relations; thus contemporary political and social theory must address the role of language in social change.” 21 Discourse and language are important factors in oppression, and also liberation. This concept applies to a discussion of the terms “n*gg*r/nigga” and “r*dsk*n.” The conversation vexes me. It baffles me when I hear Indigenous people uncritically assert, “You wouldn’t say the N-word, so why would you say the R-word?!” What if I told all my Indigenous peers that Black folks do, in fact, use the N-word? Would that change your question? Let me break down the uses of the N-word. There are two versions: “n*gg*r” and “nigga.” The former is racist; I don’t need to explain anything else about it. The latter has some nuance to it. Black people use it in a variety of contexts. Some are okay with it and some are not. There are a variety of opinions about it.
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PRAISE FOR AN AFRO-INDIGENOUS HISTO
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REVISIONING HISTORY SERIES A Queer
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To Liseth, El Don, ChiChi
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CHAPTER SEVEN Black and Indigenous
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Indigenous people in our collective
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and places. In fact, the whole book
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INTRODUCTION Thousands of volumes h
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RECONNECTING DISCONNECTED HISTORIES
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solidarity between Black and white
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important to understand how the whi
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Indigenous peoples have sought ways
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need both movements, as both are he
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Some established (mostly white male
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meeting between a variety of Indige
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Atlantic Diaspora Connections (2009
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During every Black History Month in
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consciousness, and to a considerabl
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PAUL CUFFE Perhaps one of the earli
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Afro-Indigenous peoples in the Unit
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antiblackness. Finally, these exper
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America. There was so much we cover
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president-general and another counc
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the dehumanization of Native people
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On March 4, 1801, Jefferson, during
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lasting in its impact than that wit
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The Native person could not truly e
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CHAPTER THREE ENSLAVEMENT, DISPOSSE
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local autonomy—Reconstruction cha
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unpleasant, but we must try and com
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Choctaw owned 14 percent and the Cr
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surpassed those predecessors by per
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eaders to reconsider the role of In
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a time they moved back to Wisconsin
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white people were interested in rem
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of their resistance to white encroa
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liberation and women’s rights. Ty
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covered numerous topics in the spee
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commit the same sin that the nation
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had to change. They could no longer
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Still, Native people continued to s
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government’s boarding schools and
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civilization and its so-called virt
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function of the National Associatio
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treatment with white men, . . . [th
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In the post-Garvey era, after the U
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learned about the prolific and viol
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Eastman likely participated in the
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Du Bois’s paper offered a broad s
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and men to assert their right to ci
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CHAPTER FIVE BLACK AMERICANS AND NA
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gap we have today, are rooted in ea
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Black Americans remembered this Ind
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legacies have been tainted. People
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Here, King describes the root of ra
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working as a collective to achieve
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egistered in Mississippi. She helpe
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surprising if she did. The Choctaw
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understand history, how they practi
Page 122 and 123: indeed fought in every war since th
Page 124 and 125: US, given that the US was not Black
Page 126 and 127: Malcolm understood well the connect
Page 128 and 129: me think in terms of American’s i
Page 130 and 131: In the following scene in the docum
Page 132 and 133: the land, isn’t four hundred year
Page 134 and 135: For the majority of white Americans
Page 136 and 137: this growing unity is the best assu
Page 138 and 139: with hardly any people of color wil
Page 140 and 141: did their best to understand how th
Page 142 and 143: “It was not until Malcolm X came
Page 144 and 145: lived there. What about their claim
Page 146 and 147: and operates under a racist and imm
Page 148 and 149: oth deeply invested in Black civil
Page 150 and 151: challenge the assumed authority of
Page 152 and 153: Committee. BWLC, with Frances Beal
Page 154 and 155: international monopoly finance capi
Page 156 and 157: Conference on Indigenous Peoples an
Page 158 and 159: awarded until 2011, and discontinue
Page 160 and 161: CHAPTER SEVEN BLACK AND INDIGENOUS
Page 162 and 163: practices and incorporate them into
Page 164 and 165: e performing minstrelsy without eve
Page 166 and 167: influenced by racist oppression, th
Page 168 and 169: Beyond the specifics of this incide
Page 170 and 171: acism and sexism, as well as across
Page 174 and 175: For example, in July 2007, in Detro
Page 176 and 177: No one wants to be a r*dsk*n. It is
Page 178 and 179: even absurdly funny. The use of the
Page 180 and 181: was trying to make. Jones responded
Page 182 and 183: Desus sarcastically adds, “How ca
Page 184 and 185: CHAPTER EIGHT THE MATTER OF BLACK A
Page 186 and 187: Indigenous and Latinx police, “sh
Page 188 and 189: protester and getting hit with them
Page 190 and 191: Native people’s use of tropes, sl
Page 192 and 193: CONCLUSION THE POSSIBILITIES FOR AF
Page 194 and 195: “they are the problem” and tell
Page 196 and 197: oppression and white supremacy. . .
Page 198 and 199: movements.” 14 We can learn from
Page 200 and 201: est to acknowledge the importance o
Page 202 and 203: Ta-Nehisi Coates’s fantastic arti
Page 204 and 205: possible. Our imaginations, coupled
Page 206 and 207: to people of African descent. I don
Page 208 and 209: 2. You know how Indigenous Nations
Page 210 and 211: they treated? We should instead cen
Page 212 and 213: Indigenousness are not so different
Page 214 and 215: maintain African enslavement. For n
Page 216 and 217: opposed to her likely believe that
Page 218 and 219: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS YOU DON‘T WRITE a
Page 220 and 221: Emory University. Thank you to the
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5. Patrick Wolfe, Traces of History
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the initiative strikes which open t
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13. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the
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28. Robert Dale Parker, ed., The So
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8. Andrew Woolford, This Benevolent
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6. Malinda Maynor Lowery, The Lumbe
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CHAPTER 6. BLACK POWER AND RED POWE
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47. William H. McClendon, “The Bl
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15. Abaki Beck, “Rendered Invisib
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1. Billy-Ray Belcourt and Lindsay N
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Name: The Harmful Consequences of P
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INDEX Please note that page numbers
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Beck, Abaki, 143, 144 The Beginning
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Chicago Defender (publication), 76,
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Dyson, Michael Eric, 140, 149 Eagle
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Hamilton, Charles, 110 Hampton, Fre
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Kaplan, Amy, 205n54 Katznelson, Ira
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Metacomet (chief), 60 Metropolitan
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N.W.A. (band), 161 N-word, as term,
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Red Cloud (Oglala Lakota leader), 6
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“The Souls of White Folk” (Du B
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Wheatley, Phillis, xxii, 8-10, 14,
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North and South American activists
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Dennis Banks and unknown woman at a
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Audience at a rally in support of D
Page 273:
American Indian Movement member and
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An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

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