Decolonization Fatigue
Today I'm grateful. Grateful yet exhausted.
I'm so grateful for all the work our First Nations community members and allies are doing to bring justice for residential school genocide. Yet, I'm so heartbroken for those #215 souls, for the estimated #104 more discovered in the last few days, for the elders who told us all these years yet their words fell on deaf white ears.
I'm so inspired by our Afro-Indigenous relatives and allies educating and holding relatives accountable for STILL excluding Black Natives and plus-sized Indigenous peoples from fashion and beauty campaigns which claim to represent us. Yet, I'm tired of seeing anti-Black comment after anti-Black comment by our own Indigenous people telling us that we don't matter, we don't belong, and that our Black Indigenous communities and tribes (like mine, Saponi and Nansemond, in the Southeast) don't even exist.
I share the passion with which our 2SLGBTQIA+ community members and allies fight against homophobic and transphobic vitriol which attacks our human relatives and our sacred waters by diverting attention away from 2SLGBTQIA+ mental health awareness and real water contamination on reservations and POC communities. Both of which kill our people everyday. I'm also beyond frustrated expecting certain "leaders"/influencers in our community to step up when they would prefer to protect cis-male heteronormative abuse of our relatives.
Today I'm tired. No. I'm exhausted.
So I'm going to do what my mother and aunties and grandma's taught me to do when we've done all we can for the time being, when we've fought and spread awareness but have exhausted our spiritual, mental, and physical energy. I am going to rest. I am going to return to Spirit. That may sound like the opposite of revolutionary. But these colonizers want us to burn out and fade away. So today, I choose rest.
I'll leave you with some poetry to keep the fire of revolution lit while I go stoke my own fire.
"Criminal Children "
Dedicated to the 215, 104, the rest who were lost in residential schools, those who survived the horrors, and all the other innocent children still in cages.
They’re at it again.
Putting brown children in cages
Gauging human worth based on imperialism and racism
Who would have thought?
That history would repeat itself?
That’s why we spoke so loud!
This isn’t just about
Politics: this policy that
This group complains then
That one
This is about the reality
The pain
Of little hands
Swollen and bruised
Inside steel cages
And iron handcuffs
That bind, imprison and separate us
Crying for their mothers
While we already have the answer
-Dominique Daye Hunter
"Still Indigenous as Fuck"
Dedicated to our Afro-Indigenous relatives and anyone who's ever been told their not "Indigenous enough."
Yeah, my hair is kinky and curly
Wavy and thick
Just like the Buffalo
And I’m still Indigenous as fuck
Yeah, my melanin is deep
Copper or mocha
Both grown from this land
And that’s why I’m Indigenous as fuck
My hair is red or blonde or blue
From boxed products of expression
Or from an ancient United Nations or from r*pe
And I’m still Indigenous as fuck
My accent is familiar
To plazas and mountains and reserves
To New Yorkers to Chicanx to a Southern drawl
And I’m still Indigenous as fuck
My complexion is blessed
With freckles like stars upon the reflection of ocean voyages
With intentional markings that tie me to kin and place
And you better know I’m Indigenous as fuck
My prayers are raised high
to the ancestors and divine ones
To Jesus or to Satan
And I’m still Indigenous as fuck
I know how to chop wood and skin deer
I can’t cook for shit so I tell stories instead
I think with my heart and feel with my head
And I’m still Indigenous as fuck
I honor the old ways
And adapt to the new
And none of that shit
Makes me less Indigenous than you
Cause I’m Indigenous as fuck
I thought you knew.
-Dominique Daye Hunter
"Hold On"
Dedicated to our 2SLGBTQIA+ relatives who we've lost and those who still suffer from depression and mental illness due to the homophobia and transphobia of colonization.
Hold on to what is good
Even if it’s a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe,
Even if, like a tree, you stand by yourself.
Hold on to what you must do,
Even if it’s a long journey from here.
Hold on to your life,
Even if it’s easier to let go.
-Dominique Daye Hunter
Photography:
Sweetmoon Photo