(RNS) — It’s ironic that as we celebrate 250 years of America as a nation, we are deeply grappling with who we are.
Everywhere, people are crying out that democracy feels as if it’s eroding, and that’s a scary reality. On the other hand, if you’re Indigenous, you know that our democracy was rocky from the start.
Earlier this month, leaders of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota said four unhoused, tribally enrolled citizens were detained during a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in Minneapolis; they reported that one man had been released and three were kept in ICE custody at Fort Snelling (federals officials say they have no record of detaining the Oglala Sioux citizens). Tribal leaders in Minnesota have reported numerous instances of Native community members being stopped and questioned by ICE, seemingly in acts of racial profiling. Several tribes in the state have warned their citizens to carry their tribal ID with them in case of being stopped by ICE.
Around the country, Indigenous activists and allies are taking to the streets to call for the removal of ICE from cities like Minneapolis after several deaths at the hands of ICE agents.
When it comes to fighting against a government steeped in colonialism, none of this is new for Indigenous peoples. In fact, ideas of democracy were inspired by Indigenous peoples in the first place.
We have been policed for as long as settlers have been on this land, and the institutions we revere are the same ones that have stripped us of our citizenship and punished us for our cultures, from boarding schools to forced removals. Even now, the Trump administration is moving to limit state and tribal authority over blocking pipelines on their lands, on top of openly hoping to revive oil pipelines like Keystone XL running from Canada to Texas.
Indigenous leaders participate in a protest march and rally on March 10, 2017, in Washington, D.C., in opposition to the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines. (Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
And the further establishment and overarching power of ICE agents is a continuation of the origins of these policing policies, grounded in that same colonial violence.
So, as we live through these apocalyptic times, it’s imperative that Indigenous wisdom is heard, that our communities are uplifted and that our resistance is supported. Choctaw author Steven Charleston writes about the reality of apocalypse for Indigenous peoples in his book “We Survived the End of the World.”
“Pandemics, environmental destruction, corrupt governments, war, and natural disasters: my ancestors have been through it all before. They have survived, and they have returned to the land of the living. They bring a message of hope and transformation. They offer a vision of healing and restoration. They have something to tell us about how apocalypse works.”
For 250 years we’ve had some sort of idea of how this nation would work, the rules we’d follow, the Founding Fathers’ ideas for what would be allowed and what wouldn’t. We have a Constitution that guides our democracy for a reason, and yet the Trump administration has worked around those rules over and over again, terrorizing anyone who attempts to defy them. In states like Texas and Minnesota, we are seeing escalations of violence at the hands of ICE, and it will only increase from here as millions across the country demand a stop to it.
Peggy Flanagan, lieutenant governor of Minnesota and member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, shared about the state of violence in Minnesota toward Indigenous peoples with Indian Country Today:
“Native people have been here since time immemorial – there’s no one that has been a citizen of this country longer than us. The obvious racial profiling happening to our community is disgraceful. My heart breaks to hear about what’s happening and it pisses me off. ICE is doing nothing but making our communities less safe. They need to get out of Minnesota and leave us alone. To Indian Country – take care of each other, protect each other, and continue to have each other’s backs. I’m with you. This won’t be the last you hear from me on this.”
Ask anyone whose people have been denied a voice in the history-telling of the United States, and it becomes very clear that in order to heal and repair, truth-telling must happen; it’s why truth and reconciliation commissions are created, so victims can tell their stories and know justice on some level.
In the United States, we’re still grappling with the history we want to tell. We are afraid to talk about the history of slave patrols across the country, or Indian boarding schools and forced removals.
When it comes to Indigenous history, we know the history and brutality of policing well; our families have lived through forced removals and government-sanctioned violence for generations. Our relatives go missing and are murdered, and no one investigates it, and the constant battle between being ignored and being targeted is at the root of the insidious settler colonialism that plagues this nation.
The Minnesota Journal of Law and Inequality shares some of the history of policing Native peoples: “The United States Army used to round up Indians and confine them to reservations, with White officials free to enter reservations and impose their own vision of justice on the inhabitants.”
Of our Anishinaabe Seven Grandfather Teachings, I think of honesty, respect and love, three teachings we need to desperately hold onto and practice right now as we care for our immigrant neighbors and those who are being targeted by ICE agents across the country and this administration.
Our government hasn’t really ever been one to stand up tall for Indigenous peoples and their allies, but this is a time in which we need activists, politicians and reporters to speak up, not just on behalf of Indigenous peoples, but on behalf of all people who are being targeted by the Trump administration and its use of police brutality.
As Indigenous peoples, we know this story well. We’ve lived it, and as we mark 250 years of America as an institution and beyond, we need to pay attention to the truth of our history and ask who we really hope to be as a nation moving forward.
