An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

even absurdly funny. The use of the term is ubiquitous throughout hip-hop
culture and has many contexts. You can go savage on a beat or just be a
savage. Hip-hop sensation Megan Thee Stallion has inverted “savage” to
mean Black women’s empowerment. Over the last four years while giving
talks, Native people have asked me, “Why are Black people using the term
‘savage’? It’s offensive to me!”
It’s one of those comments I hear that, as an Afro-Indigenous person,
makes me want to pull out the little hair that I have left. Native Americans
who now exist in the US have never been the only savages, and also don’t
have a monopoly on the word “savage.” Europeans have called people of
African descent “savages” as they have with Indigenous people throughout
modern history. If Black people want to use the term, It’s fine. We can’t be
mad at their rhetorical brevity, their ability to semantically invert a word
and change the meaning. In fact, changing “bad” to mean good or “savage”
to mean something different is hella savage!
I’m not saying that words don’t have power, and that they can’t also be
harmful. Black people have not fully wrested the term “savage”
from its white supremacist roots, and probably never will. But they have
done a little damage. And depending on who says it, the word is not created
equal. For instance, there are probably some young white folks who use the
word “savage” among their POC peer groups—I say, have at it. But I
wouldn’t go around calling Black or Indigenous people a savage, peer or no
peer. You may slip up and use it, but your peer may then turn into a
“savage,” slip up themselves and accidentally show you some tough love.
While not everything should be compared, I think solidarity can happen,
and has happened in the realm of popular culture.
BLACK PEOPLE CHALLENGING MASCOTS IN THE PUBLIC
SPHERE
Black Americans have found many ways to challenge anti-Indigenous
racism in the media. For instance, on May 20, 2000, Rev. Dr. Bernice
Jackson, a former executive director of the Civil Rights Journal of the
United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, penned an op-ed in
the Pittsburgh Courier regarding the need to eliminate the Cleveland
Indians’ Chief Wahoo symbol. She had been protesting with Indigenous
peoples outside the Cleveland Indians stadium for at least a decade before