etings from e r G
by Mallory Culbert @mivcv, @culbert_mallory bit.ly/nevertoldus
N Ʉ M Ʉ N ɄɄ SOOKOBIT Ʉ "Comanche" Land
“Indigeneity” (in-dij-in-ay-it-ee) usually refers to an endangered cultural identity that is oppressed by European
colonization
embodiment
by
&
the
geographical
settlement place)
of
their
asserts
a
ancestral political
homeland.
right
to
Claiming
their
“indigeny”
homeland
and
(cultural
rejects
the
hegemonic (dominating) settler-colonial culture. Indigenous coexistence with the land is quite different from settler-colonial views on land ownership. By definition, “settler colonizers” systematically occupy, dominate, and destroy indigenous peoples in order to overthrow them, then they claim to be rightful inhabitants
of
that
land.
Settler
colonizers
impose
European
values
on
the
land
and
its
indigenous
peoples with the assumption that their white ethnic (read: moral) superiority is natural and undeniable. In addition to exploiting the natural environment for economic resources and the colonized peoples for labor, settler colonizers displace the inhabitants through settlements. Settler colonialism is a tool of the dominant culture to normalize continuous settler occupation of indigenous land.
In
contrast
to
settler
occupation,
indigenous
relationships
with
the
landscape
of
Turtle
Island
(now
called the united states) is similar to that of Medieval European monarchs to their nations: there is an inherent responsibility to care for the land and its people. The land is a conscious subject that feels and perceives,
rather
than
a
thing
or
object
to
own.
This
view
showcases
an
intimate
relationship
that
cannot be understood or properly interacted with within the institutions that they have formally defined. A settler-colonial relationship with the land is detached and unbalanced. This allows for mental and emotional
freedom
to
exploit
surroundings
and
culture.
For
example,
the
tobacco
used
in
spiritual
Ceremony pre-colonization is a far cry from the tobacco on the market today. Its origin in the united states economy was as a highly toxic cash crop grown by slaves–the complete opposite of a respectful offering during a spiritual experience. Now, many Indigenous peoples don’t have access to traditional tobacco, even though tobacco companies often use Native imagery to advertise their toxic products at a higher rate to people of color. Because of histories like these, it is important that we accurately understand what the harm is before we can begin to reduce it.
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"Osage" Ancestral Territory
Biopiracy is a tool of cultural and economic control enacted by colonizers
upon
peoples
who
are
recovering
from
being
colonized. Rather than connect to the earth through their own cultural
practices
biopirates
or
disconnect
re-establishing by
using
endangered
patents
to
control
species, access
to
naturally-occuring substances. These substances are then used to
develop
cosmetics.
commercial
Endangered
products
white
sage
like that
pharmaceuticals is
stolen
from
or
Native
lands is now sold at Sephora cosmetics. Until the passage of the American Indians Religious Freedom Act in 1978, white sage was considered illegal for Native folks to use. The demand created when
traditions
natural
supply.
quickly
being
like The
these
are
remaining
taken
away
commercialized
connections
from
future
to
depletes
the
cultures
are
our
generations
when
our
traditional medicines and drugs are sold for profit.
In 2021, this looks like big companies patenting psilocybin (which naturally
occurs
in
shrooms)
for
military-related
PTSD,
but
arresting civilians for self-medicating after the trauma of being incarcerated. It looks like clinical PTSD trials that only include cisgender, heterosexual white men when PTSD rates are higher among
Black,
Latinx,
and
Native
folks
because
of
involuntary
racial trauma. When the awful way we practice medicine in the united states gatekeeps access to stolen traditional medicines, those most in need of care cannot access it. This. Must. Change.
NEXTdistro
NÚU-AGHA-T Ʉ V Ʉ -P Ʉ̱ Traditional "Ute" Territory
Biopiracy
is
one
of
many
white-supremacy
maintaining
&
promoting
entitlement practices. Other practices of this sort include the joint efforts of cultural appropriation efforts, strategies, and schemes alongside cultural criminalization and separation from its source. The mass, coordinated, and forceful
displacement
colonial
violence
of
indigenous
separated
the
populations
people
and
so
by
and
their
through
culture
settler-
from
their
source: the land they are indigenous to. Political domination, through an expanded, forcefully imposed, and insincere bureaucracy–which only serves as
an
unneeded
barrier,
a
measure
of
separation,
between
indigenous
populations and the services and resources they need– a need created by governmental bureaucracy through the forceful separation of people and land.
The
separation
and
destruction
of
the
land
whose
memory
of
a
mutual
relationship of care and sustenance with those who inhabit her is a part of a settler-colonial engineered exclusion from its economy. The s-c narrative paints this very engineered impoverishment of indigenous populations and their land as a personal problem, as resultant from individual choice. The settler-colonial
narrative
about
indigeneity
discusses
a
traditional
or
‘primitive’ society, rather than exploited and intentionally impoverished.
Harm reduction efforts in indigenous communities must center Indigenous Knowledges deprivation united
and of
states
histories
resources
in and
indigenous
order
to
adequately
separation
policy.
Rather
address
from
the
source
than
only
the that
thinking
systematic has
been
about
what
happens after substance use, harm reduction efforts must also look to what inspires
using
in
people-centered
the
first
place.
practice...this
Harm
reduction
includes
a
community-driven,
centering
is
population-wide
structural inequities as the root of (inter)personal harms in the community.
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