Evasions #2 Thoughts and Questions
The idea for this cartoon originated from multiple online posts where amer-european settlers voiced their acknowledgement of being settlers on stolen Native lands, but then immediately turned the conversation into why they should have a future on these lands. The cartoon is also influenced by actual responses of Native people to settler’s exploring their future on stolen lands. What reactions does it bring up in you?
- Can we imagine a future North America without settlers present? If not, why?
- What is the role of settlers, if any, in determining their future on stolen Native lands?
- If reconciliation with Indigenous peoples is possible, what do you imagine it looks like?
- Are your actions consistent with Indigenous requests regarding decolonization and solidarity? Why or why not?
- What actions do amer-european settlers need to take in order to make reconciliation even possible with Indigenous peoples?
- How do we hold each other accountable with compassion when our attitudes and actions perpetuate colonization?
From Unsettling Minnesota’s Points of Unity:
We acknowledge that settlers are not entitled to live on this land. We accept that decolonization means the revitalization of indigenous sovereignty, and an end to settler domination of life, lands, and peoples in all territories of the so-called “Americas.” All decisions regarding human interaction with this land base, including who lives on it, are rightfully those of the indigenous nations.
As settlers and non-native people (by which we mean non-indigenous to this hemisphere) acting in solidarity, it is our responsibility to proactively challenge and dismantle colonialist thought and behavior in the communities we identify ourselves to be part of. As people within communities that maintain and benefit from colonization, we are intimately positioned to do this work.
Find more excellent guidelines for allyship and solidarity at Unsettling America.
Awakening the Horse People 
Settlers exist because settler law exists. Decolonization calls for the restoration of Indigenous governance, not ethnic cleansing.
I can imaging a future without settlers, because Indigenous governance can create a Stateless society where colonial law is abolished. All inhabitants would then be “beholden to the Indigenous laws and epistemologies of the lands” where they live.
This does not imply adoption of immigrants into Indigenous nations. It does, however, imply new nation-to-nation treaties in some form or another. And I’m not including Canada or the US in this equation. We Peoples are not nation-states.
I cannot imagine all European, African, and Asian immigrants vacating Turtle Island. Advocating this is deeply violent, deeply racist, and misses the point of so much decolonial struggle that has taken place.
Settlers have every right to determine their own futures as sovereign individuals. Settlers have a moral obligation to return stolen land and dismantle colonial systems of law. Following this, those who would deport immigrant peoples can join the moral ranks of the racist European New Right and the Zionists.
Reconciliation on a personal level is possible. Reconciliation on an institutional level is a farce. Settlers need to take the responsibility of dismantling the power structures that claim to represent them, but in fact exploit them and their colonized neighbors.
This creates a window into the “tangible unknown.” Yes, a future for everyone, regardless of how displaced they are. This requires moving beyond “solidarity” and “allyship” to build real human relationships which defy the segregation and racialization which have been constructed by colonial mentalities and institutional structures.
I would contend that it is not “colonial” to accept that non-Indigenous humans will live on Turtle Island far into the future. Many Indigenous epistemologies accept this, and the demographic realities we live in have not been a surprise to the Traditional Knowledge keepers here. And it is even known that Europeans will have an active roll to play in the creation of something new after the colonial States rise and fall.
I see two options: immediately go back to Europe, find your ancestors, and refuse to be moved. Or immediately commit to the place on Turtle Island that is home to you, build real relationships with the living, and refuse to be moved.
The flood is coming regardless….
The flood is coming, and you may see me in the middle, celebrating!
i am an indigenous (not Indigenous) human being and mutt descendant of various tribes of europe and who knows what else.
i stand, putting my life on the line, now, for over 25 years, in solidarity with the way of the pre-colonized and waking-up-to-our-shared-colonizations.
i am one, and yet i represent many nations of people in my heart! i self-awaken, creating culture from diverse cultures. i am of the pipsqueak lodge (as gifted to me by a viking elder). i bridge between, intuitively supporting when i think i can. i question rigid hierarchies, and yet i honor those who can remember and still live within ancient wizdms!
When i see you at pow wows, where i am visiting as a solo orrioR, dancing and sharing my skills, i will look forward to our bests in perfectly imperfect process!
This is not “disrespectful” this is radical’s radical’s radical respect! A-hoH!
You may well not be familiar with this sort of thing, since some of it comes from bears i have been around, some of it from meeting with a wolf, and so many other amazing encounters and sharings with paradigms beyond devoutly Normal planted in our collective heads.
i look forward to meeting you all on the magick path of life and living!
(now, what if YOU are evading things as you claim i am evading????)
Whether or not my fellow unsettlers “get” my heart or not, is not my priority; depth-charging this world, is! A-heY!
Let me say, the squirrel people have given me a new paradigm as a gift. i will tell you the story of that sometime when we see each other on these paths we’re on. a-hoH! (i will also shortly be joining on facebook, for what that might be worth)