Note: When we recorded this episode the panelist Myka used a different name. While the transcript has been updated to reflect their current name the audio recording reflects that history.

Patty Krawec

This is Ambe. And we're here for our conversation about comic books and graphic novels, or kind of whatever people want to call them. I was looking up for some good quotes on it. And I came across one where some somebody had said that the difference between graphic novels and comic books are the binding.

This is part of a yearlong project of mine where we're talking about Indigenous literature's and it started with a book I read that Daniel Heath Justice had written. And as I was kind of going through the months, and kind of creating the different categories that occurred to me, this is a valid category of literature. But it doesn't often get, it doesn't often get a lot of attention, Neil pointed out that Daniel was a contributor in one of the Moonshot volumes.

We've got Jay Odjick, who actually designed my avatar. If you see me on social media, and I look like a superhero Jay is why. That was a really interesting process that I had absolutely no idea. I was just like, make me look cool. And he's like, but I need to know this. And I need to know that. I was like, wow, that's, there's just so much information. I was like, I do, I jump into things all the time with no idea of what's actually required. So it was, it was an amazing process. And I really love her.

And so we've got Neil, who is probably my most frequent flyer with this, because he's just so cool and into everything. Lee Francis, who was actually one of the very first guests on my Medicine for the Resistance podcast that I co-host with Kerry Goring. And we were talking about Indigenous futurism. And that was just such a neat conversation. And someday, I hope to get to Indigenous ComiCon because that looks really cool. And then we've got Myka Foubert who, who is my cousin, but also a really cool person. And likes, likes, comic books, graphic novels, all that, all that artistic literature stuff.

So now what I'm gonna do, I'm just gonna kind of go around and ask each of you to give a better introduction than the one that I just gave a little bit about kind of how you connect with or do this, you know, this … kind of what it is about graphic novels and comic books. that got your attention and keeps you there. So we'll start with Jay

Jay Odjick 

So yeah, kwe-kwe, Jay Odjick n’dishnikaahz. Hello, my name is Jay Odjick . I'm an Anishinaaabe artist, writer, TV producer jack of all trades, master of absolutely none. And I've been reading comics since I was old enough to be able to read.  Even though I'm from the kidney got Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg community in Quebec, which was where my dad's from I was born in Rochester, New York. And because my dad, like a lot of guys from the rest, there wasn't a lot of work in the community. So a lot of guys left to work, construction, high steel jobs like that. So I was born in Rochester. And right off the street from where we lived was a comic book shop. And we didn't have a lot of money. But luckily for me, the comic shop had this kind of dubious practice of taking the comics that didn't sell and tearing off the covers and selling them for five cents. So as a kid without a lot of money, it was pretty great because you walk in with like 25 cents, walk out with a couple of comics, roll them up, stick them in your back pocket. Nowadays was a guy who makes comics for a living and I'm like, “How could you?” But at the time, it was absolutely awesome. So that's how I kind of got into it. And I fell in love with the idea I think of using pictures to tell stories. I really wanted to be able to tell stories, and that's what brought me to it and I fell in love with the medium in that way of doing it because it seemed like something we could do without needing, you know, a ton of camera and equipment, video equipment and things like that.

So I've been working in comics for longer than I care to mention on camera. I'm actually a lot older than I look I'd like to say, and I'm best known I would think for my original graphic novel called Kagagi, the Raven. That led into an animated series I was the executive producer and showrunner on called Kagagi The Raven, which aired in Canada, the United States and Australia. I drew two books with a Canadian author Robert Munch called Black Flies and Bear for Breakfast. And both of those I think are important because they were they were very commercially successful, but they featured all Native cast of characters and they were both set in First Nations communities. And it was a real trip for me to be able to go into any bookstore anywhere in Canada and find books with heroic looking Native children. And in addition to that we had Bear, which was these were published by Scholastic Canada. And we had Bear For Breakfast published in Anishinaabemowin. And I think that was a really important thing too, because up until then, they just published the books in English and French. And I said, Why don't we consider doing that an Indigenous language?

So that's something I'm going to try to push for and hope we can see more of is more books like that mainstream books published in Indigenous languages, I think Anishinaabemowin was just a start. And hopefully we can move into more in the future. And other than that, I've worked with Lee most recently, on his Kickstarter anthology project, edited by Beth Le Pensee called A Howl: Werewolf Anthology . And I've got a story in that that's really interesting. And we'll we'll talk about that more later. But yeah, that's me. And that's who I am.

Neil Ellis Orts

Ah, howdy. I'm Neil. I'm in Houston, Texas. I grew up reading comics. Archie was the gateway drug. The 1960s Batman TV series also a little bit. I am not Native, there's not a ounce of anything in my cells that is Native. So I'm the settler here who is just coming here to geek out about comics.

Myka Foubert

Hi!  I'm Myka. I grew up reading comic books, because they were easier for me to read, then those nasty paper books. As someone who is disabled, having something that was easier to read was great, because I read just as much as all the other kids did, if not more, I just read Calvin and Hobbes instead. Because that's, that's the comic book that was was my gateway drug. But that got me into superhero comics. Like that got me into Spider Man that got me into the X Men. I was a huge fan of the DC Comics for Bat Girl. I'm still a huge comic book and superhero nerd. But yeah, my interest in comics really stems from wanting to read as much as everybody else but not really having the ability to, and just the easiest form for me to consume literature was through graphic novels and stuff like that. And I still own graphic novels. I still read them as much as I can. Though, admittedly, being a university student, I have not really had the chance to read them, because I've been really busy with all the mandatory stuff that I have to read. But yeah, that's that's me.

Lee Francis IV

Hey, guw'aadzi! this is so exciting that we get to hang out again. So yeah, my name is Lea Francis, my family's from the Pueblo of Laguna on my dad's side. And the Pueblo of Missouri on my mom's side. So I was like to say that people get confused. They're like, there's a Pueblo of Missouri? And I was like, No, I'm just kidding. My mom's like, straight Anglo. Yeah, so my love of comics also stretches back to about as far back as I can read, my dad was a huge science fiction and fantasy fan. That's what our shelves were filled with. It got to the point where my dad literally had to look at the dates that things were published, because oftentimes, they would upgrade, you know, update the covers for like Science Fiction/Fantasy things. And if it was anytime before, he would like, he'd be like, it was anytime before like, 1986. He's like, I've read it. So that's how much like I come by my nerditry like it's genetic nerd, right, genetic, Indigenous nerd.

So, but most of the time, I spent my my, my worlds leading up until I started native realities in education. And I think that was really formative. I mean, I'll make the joke that the other joke I like to make, which is I got a PhD in education so that I could open a comic shop. You know, but essentially, I, when I started working in schools, because I loved comic books, what I would see on the shelves for my kids and I worked at home, so I worked at my home Rez Laguna/Acoma high school. That's where I, you know, almost a decade of my career there. When I’d look at the shelves, what you would see is essentially you'd see like a whole bunch of kids books, like, you know, and a lot of them would be non Native writers within you know, the kid’s, early kids literature, and this is probably you know, 20 years ago when I started teaching, so you'd have the stack of kids books and stuff like Paul Goble. Maybe there'd be a storyteller to like a local storyteller too.

But you know, not not really not a lot. And so and then and then on the same shelf, there would be just like this gap, because there was no YA. There certainly were, there was like maybe two comics that people could find out, and then would jump right into adult literature. And then you're reading Louise Erdrich. Right. And it was just like, Man, that's a huge thing to cover from reading a picture book, to jumping into Louise's work, right? And especially for me, because I didn't see any comics, and I think a lot of us have gotten into this as native creatives of like, you know, I didn't see anybody that looked like me. And even when there was a comic that came out or something, you know, at least in the mainstream, oftentimes, it would be, you know, my northern plains, brothers and sisters, right. So, head dress, horse riding, you know, just ripped. They're all jacked, they are, those guys are just yoked across the board, right? I mean, for real, you know, Plains, riding the horse, what I was, like, Yo, my people were short, and we, like grew corn. Uh, you know, I was like, I don't see my people all that much in this kind of stuff.

So I just started kicking around ideas, and I wasn't really doing anything. And it was 2014 I met Arigon Starr at a Native writers event, we just started laughing about, you know, like, we should have like a native comic code that we can stamp on books to give them like some authority. And, and a lot of it just took off from there. We started publishing out of my nonprofit at the time, because I was like, Well, you know, the comic people, let's arrange them and start getting stuff out the door. And I and then a lot of people hit us up on Facebook, they're like, this is great. You guys should publish more. And I was like, really should publish. So started publishing, and then just crazy way leads unto way.

You know, it started out like, you know, republishing and then 2016 I was like, we should all get together and have a Comic Con. Because there's not one for us. Like, usually we're, we're the what are we We're the we're the we're the token native at the Comic Con talking about Native stuff, right? It was like, I'd rather it be just a Comic Con for us. And we all get to hang out at party and play. And that's what I wanted to do. And then 2017 we opened Red Planet books and comics. Because I had so much stuff piled up from the Comic Con in my house, my wife was starting to get a little crazy. She's like, this is gotta get out of the hallway. So I was like, alright, we should open an office or something, right? And we opened a shop instead. And now we're the only native comic shop in the world where the largest distributor of native comics, we still publish. We're doing Howl with Jay and a whole bunch of other Native writers got a water protectors comic coming up. We just, I mean, I'll talk more. We just got the license from Tim Truman, we’re his,we’re his publisher for scout for his reproduction fn Scout. So if anybody knows that's probably the original native comic, like single superhero comic that came out in the mid 80s. So yeah, I mean, that's, that's kind of this. This all revolves around my life. I love comics, nerds, games, toys, collectibles. I do RPGs , I do comics. I mean, it's just it's writing and trying to get more of the stuff out there on the shelves for our kids. You know, any way that I can?

Patty

So Neil, you had mentioned a couple of Indigenous comic book characters whose names have fallen out of my brain because I didn't write them down. And what Lee was just saying just made me think of like, representation like how, how were we there back when we were younger? And I mean, I was just reading Archie comics when I was a kid. So there was like, no Indigenous content at all unless it was a Halloween issue.

Neil

Well, the two series that I I followed a little bit, well, one I followed completely, I kind of fell in and out of the earliest one I remember was called Turok, Son of Stone, which was a Indian and dinosaur story that Turok in his young Ward, Andar because they always had a young sidekick. Got lost in this last world with dinosaurs and cavemen and, and the whole story was them trying to find their way out. This was published originally by Dell comics, and then later by Gold Key. And so I mean, it wasn't really a Indigenous setting. It was Indigenous characters lost in a lost world kind of thing.

And I, as I was thinking about this, the similarity between this and the next one was called Arak , which was created by Roy Thomas, who did a lot of Marvel, he brought Conan into comics. He created this for DC Comics, and Arak was a Indigenous young boy his tribe is decimated by another tribe. It's made, he made up a tribe. And is set adrift at sea is picked up by Vikings and taken to Europe. So he's another kind of fish out of water story. Not an Indigenous setting, but Indigenous central character. So those are characters that I kind of grew up reading. Well, by the time Arak came out, I was well into high school, so. But as a young person, reading those books, and I was reading something really different. Of course, it's all by white creators, as far as I know, but I mean, respectfully, that and of course, previous to that there's, you know, all kinds of Western books. And you have the character Scalp Hunter, which was a white guy raised by Indians. I think there's more than one of those kinds of characters in the back in the in the canon. Of course, there was a time when Lone Ranger was a big, big franchise, Tonto had his own comic for a while, but I don't think I read any of those. But this thing, this is all very mainstream. sort of generic Hollywood, Indian.

Patty

Are those familiar to you, Jay? I think you and Lee, were both kind of nodding along at different places. Were those familiar to you?

Jay

Yeah, for sure. Sure, Turok more so than the others. I remember Arak from when I was just a little kid. But I remember Turok because there was some cross media stuff that was done, there was a video game, I believe, for the Nintendo 64 or something. It was a pretty popular game. So for, Scalp Hunter and things like that go I remember those. And the first one, that really first Indigenous character that was created by non Indigenous people that I remember really prominently was in a book called Alpha Flight by John Byrne, there was this character called Shaman. And it was, you know, the tropes we've come to know and expect as it comes to the native people. The mystical native guy, and I don't know about any of you know, the rest of our guests, but I don't actually have mystical powers. I'm sorry, I hate to disappoint for anybody who's tuning in who was expecting me to do some sort of magic, but not not in my repertoire.

So we saw that a lot. And as well, with Shaman, it was really funny. Because the thing I always say is, whenever you get a native character, in these from these corporate companies, their identity as a hero tends to be their Indigeneity. So we can't have a guy who's just like a crimefighter, like a daredevil or somebody like that he has to be, you know, like Red Wolf or something of that nature. So the way I the way I was explained, it is like, if there's a fire in Gotham, city and apartment building on fire, people aren't like, oh, no, the the buildings on fire, we're all gonna die. Wait, we're saved. That's white Batman. He's just Batman. Whereas when you look at like, African American characters, every one of them has the word Black in their title. So it's like Black Vulcan, Black Panther. You know, they all get that. And it's kind of been the same in a way for us where, you know, every character kind of has that thing hung on it. And you will never get to see just the native character who just a cool native character, it has to be about that. At the same time, the costume has to have all of the stereotypes and tropes of the past. So we don't see guys in modern superhero costumes, we see people still wearing leather and buckskin.

Now looking at like Lee, and everyone else here, we're not wearing leather and bucksin, and I'm wearing T shirts, some jeans and some shoes, like some Jordans I paid way too much for. So I always kind of wondered as a kid why these things were the way they were. I mean, we've seen it. It's something that's played out numerous times. And that was a part of the reason why I created Kagagi the way I did, because I wanted to create a character who moved away from the stereotypes who just look like a visually cool character that any kid could look at, oh, that looks interesting. I want to check that out, and almost suckering them into reading and if they weren't native, because it was a costume design that I felt could stand next to Batman or Wolverine and didn't scream like this is a stereotype where he's wearing clothing that that's been out dated for 100 years or something.

So I think that's one of the big things with modern Indigenous comics is we're starting to see from Indigenous creators moves away from those types of things, but yeah, and as far Scout goes. Scout was the first time I saw an actual native character who I thought was cool. And I remember, we used to go to the store that would take these like kind of mystery bags, or they take a bag and you couldn't see what was in it. And you get a stack of comics for like five bucks or something. And you just hoped there was something decent in it. And my brother and I picked up a couple of these and got home a normal book with this Scout. And we're like, oh, he's native like, and it was the first time I saw something, where it wasn't that stereotype where the character, you know, again, with all due respect to characters like Shaman, and the people who created them, a lot of those characters spoken at very, like, many moons ago, my people and I'd be like, Hey, Dad, can you you know, tell me something you did a long time ago. And he'd be like, Yeah, way back in the day. And I'm like, Yeah, that's it. We don't talk like that. So it really you know, there were there were a lot of times when I saw characters who really reflected who we are. In the modern era, I will say, I think that's the best way I can put it

patty krawec 

Yeah, I call that cigar store Indian, when they when they talk when they when they talk like that. But we all know people who put on that rez voice when they get in front of white people. We all know those people. A long time ago, I wrote an article that got published by a Canadian magazine and they sent a photographer out to take my picture for the magazine and I wore this purple dress that I had worn all the powers that I had gone because I liked the skirt twirled and and so she says like, where are your traditional clothes? I was like, What are you talking about? And she says your you know, your traditional clothes, like she said, louder and slower as if that would help me understand it better. And I was just like, What are you .. I don't have .. so I let her remake me into to kind of cobbled together and you know, there's a picture of Ben. He's wearing like a feather. It's like a hairpiece, but he's wearing it like a medallion. It's just It's horrible. I mean, from the magazine’s standpoint, I'm sure it looks great. You wanted beads and buckskin and when I was complaining about this on a message board that I belong to this one guy, you know, Oglala Lakota and at the time I was just reconnecting right so he was like a rock star Indian for me. Yeah, exactly. Lee’s making like a stoic Indian face and he says yeah, well my traditional clothes are jeans and a white t shirt so it'd be so much better.

But Myka, you read some read some of Kagagi? Right You were saying that you weren't able to get all the way through it because of that whole university thing

Myka

Yeah University has been really the knocking me on my ass but yeah if I was working my way through it and I'm when I have downtime I I've been reading it on the bus trying to get there and I was blown away I was like this is awesome. I want more I could not like I had to keep putting it down because of like I need to make sure I'm on the right I'm getting off the bus at the right spot. I don't want to be stuck on the bus I have to go to class. But yeah, it I was I really liked it because it, It really played into the superhero stereotypes but not the this is like this is native stereotype it played into the this was a superhero trope, the transformation scene, I was so excited when he finally for the first time transformed into the raven and I was like this is awesome. This is great.

This is this really scratches that superhero itch because growing up reading superhero comics watching Iron Man watching Thor being a huge Marvel and DC fan. There's just tropes that you expect to see in superhero comic things. And one of them is like have a cool costume. Have you know a cool transformation moment, have a cool name, have some cool powers. And this checked off all of the boxes that I had going into it and I was pleased as punch reading it and I'm super excited to continue reading it. I'm excited to watch the animated series especially because like streams here and in Australia, my significant other is Australian. So I'm gonna force him to watch it with me because he doesn't get a choice anymore.

But I was super excited and especially because I read it because I knew that Jay was going to be on the on the panel and I was like, Oh, I'll read this, you know, to be able to like these are my thoughts and I was like this is awesome. And it made me so nervous that I was going to be here and had to have to talk about it in front of the guy who made it. So you put me on the spot here but but yeah, it it really like I was I mentioned or earlier me and me and Patty were talking about the an episode of The X Files in which they're on the rez. And one of the things that you see a lot in shows Around that time and in the X Files was definitely guilty for doing this, but people of color showing up and being the magical fixers, but they're magical people of color powers doing magical things. And I just something it struck me as something was off as I was just trying to enjoy the episode when there was just a few too many cinematically timed, like Eagle noises. And I was like, you know, I'm starting to think that yeah, I'm starting to think that there's something a little, you know, pizzazzy about this. And they're not exactly, you know, doing what they should. But, I mean, I would be if I could remake The X Files I had totally, that was, that'd be one of the episodes I want to redo. And I'd want to redo it right. Because there was just a couple couple issues with that, like they they made up a tribe. There was a whole there's a whole thing about Indigenous people and werewolves. Which I'm super excited to, to read Lee’s stuff about, because it's definitely an interesting trope. But why is it always Indigenous people that are werewolves? Like good, is, I'm sure they can be more than werewolves guys. But yeah, I'm super looking forward to that stuff. But I don't know what else to say.

Patty

I think it was that one. It's about the shapeshifters there in the Pacific West and it's the shapeshifter. It's the shapeshifter episode that I think Metis in Space actually watched and talked about if I'm if I'm remembering correctly. Yeah, that's a really great episode. And then there's the whole Blessing Way arc, where that involves the ancient aliens and Mulder takes his like, traveled through the other world or whatever. It's just, it's just so terrible. But yeah, the magical Indians who exist for no reason, but to save the white guy is just …

Jay

I just thought, I just like to say a quick thanks to Rya for that that, honestly, is incredibly touching. And don't be nervous. You did a great job. And I'm really glad you enjoyed it. Because honestly, that's that's why I wanted to do it was because I don't think we ever got to see those things. The time when I created Kagagi. I know there's a lot more comics now created by Indigenous people with really cool Indigenous characters. But you made my, you made my day. And that's the reason why, why I worked on it. And thank you very much. And I hope you enjoyed the animated series. So Chi-Miigwech Thank you.

Myka

Yeah, I'm super excited for it. Like I one of the things that's always been weird to me, because I grew up in an area where there were I had family, of course, that that are Indigenous while I am not. And I had friends who are Indigenous while I'm not. And it was really bizarre that I could see kind of pieces of myself. Of course, there was there's a whole issue about disability representation and stuff like that in just about everything. But it was really weird that I couldn't see the people that I grew up with. I couldn't see my cousins I couldn't see aunts and uncles I couldn't see, even just the people I went to school with, it was always super weird to me that like there just wasn't that there. But it with being able to see stuff like this. It was awesome. Being able to go like finally I can show this like back to my friends like back home. And it'd be like, guys, check this out. Like if you haven't already like you guys have to see this. It's excellent that Yeah.

Patty

Myka brought up werewolves. And so that kind of brings me to Lee and your project because there's wolves werewolves, and these other ones that I don't know who they are. So can you talk a little bit about who they are?

Lee

Yeah, so Wolves, Werewolves and Rougarou, which is sort of the transformational, right. So that's that at, you know, Métis pronunciation. And I think it's very interesting. And I love that you brought that up, Myka as well, because it's actually not something where we said they would be native. We just put out the call. And we're just like, hey, we just want to write a book about werewolves. And everybody took like, we had so many people that just you know, Beth LePensée, you know, just kind of made this call out, and everybody just jumped on it, because I just think there's, I don't know what the attachment is. And I don't know, I know, Hollywood likes to make it something. But there's also something that I think we have internally, you know, maybe it's our connections to, you know, our ancestors, right. So to our wolf ancestors and to our you know, our clan relations.

But it is something that's, you know, that that turned out to be just so fantastic of just the responses. And the range of stories, right, because what I think what Hollywood does is it does the same thing that Jay was talking about as it identifies the, the identity of of, you know, native existence also becomes this thing about, you know, this animalistic werewolfy existence right And so they all have to and they're all you know, it's all melodrama. It's all, you know, like everything, you know, it's just like we it's about the transformation and living in two worlds, you know, that kind of stuff. And the stories that we're getting are stories where it's just, it's just a thing. You know, Dale DeForest’s story is fantastic about just werewolf heavy, it's a werewolf heavy metal band. Right? That's it, you know, they just go on the road and tour as a heavy metal band. I have this one that it's basically a with a native werewolf family. That's like in the middle of this werewolf fight until they get Mom pissed off. And then mom is like, turns into the werewolf and is like stop it. All of you? You know, and then everybody chills out I was like, That, I think is in many ways is the beautiful parallel to what we were just talking about, right? It's the existence of indigeneity parallels, what how Hollywood and how pop media has hiked all of these things and found these interconnections for us. Whereas if you're just a werewolf, you're just trying to get by, you know, more often than not, you got to go to work. If you got like a werewolf society, you probably going to hang out with them, you know, more than likely, you're gonna sit there and just be like, all all the old werewolves are just all out there smoking cigarettes together, shooting the s**t, you know, the whole thing, right? They're just going to be doing that all day long. Just like, you know, just just like we normally do.

I also do want to give a big shout out to Jay as well. Because Jay is and I think, you know, everybody needs to know this. There are three people, three native folks that were publishing, prior to like the 2010s. Right? It was Tim Truman, it was John Proudstar. And it was Jay. And Jay was one of those guys because Kagagi I think 2004 When you first created it, and then it got picked up in 2010. Right? So there wasn't anything else but these cats, right? Maybe you saw it like you had I think I want to say you had like, I want to say there was like superheroes and there were like cartoons. So there was like cartoon styles like Mutton Man was out there. There was some really small indie stuff of people like trimline we're finding some of that stuff that's pulled around. But like, these aspirations of creating superheroes, like Jay was one of those dudes right at the beginning, that Arigon Starr hit like right after that she had done Super Indian, the radio play, and then she just started her. So those four people, as native peoples who are those are the Giants, those who like man I love being on here with you, is these are the giants that I stand on their shoulders, right, like, so any room that I'm in, I was like, Yo, I always throw it out, because whatever I do has to do with any of this stuff, right?

And, and even when I see it right now, it's the last thing I'll say, for this moment is that like, when I see Marvel coming in, you know, columbussing native comics, you know, as if, as if they finally discovered that there's native comic book artists out there, right. Marvel's just like, look, look at our Indigenous voices. And I was like, Listen, I got a lot of friends who are drawing and doing art around that right now Jim Terry's in there, you know, ..  has been doing art for that. Like, these are friends like these, you know, these truly people I hang out with what it's like all sudden, you know, they make such a hype, like they finally deserve this kind of credit. When I have to point to folks like Jay and John, and Arigon, and Tim and I'm saying 40 years, we've been making comics, we've been superhero comics, not just like native stuff. 40 years, we've been doing this. Now. It didn't just happen in 2020. So I think that's one thing that I always got a shout out to all these folks, especially when we're making this and so glad Jay is making Howl with me too.

Jay

And then I'll say something about Thank you, Lee. That's really, really amazing. I'm really touched man. One of the things that I think I would like to mention, because I think it is really important is there were certain other anthologies that I had taken part in, specifically the Moonshot anthologies where I was given direction. I was on one of them. I was actually I'm not gonna say told but asked, Do you have a Windigo story? And I was like, Yes, I do. It's called Kagagi. I did it f*****g 20 years ago, like it's been done. But they had asked me for that, and I didn't take part. That's the reason why it wasn't in. I believe the second one. There were a number of rules that were given to me on that. It was like, nothing political, which I thought was kind of crazy because I mean realistically, a lot of what a lot of us are doing is allegory for political and social issues that our people face. And it's an important issue for us. So without getting too further into it with Howl, there was literally no directives given beyond that it had to be Indigenous, and it had to be werewolf related.

And just to show you how far some of us have taken that, my story and it is not even really a comic, it's a 10 page werewolf Love Song, told in poetry with painted art. And I was so nervous that email Leeeand Beth and be like, so here's what I want to do. It's something I don't because I'm always nervous when it comes to me that anthologies that I'm doing something that somebody else is doing. So it was really about two things. It was about trying to do something, and make sure I wasn't stepping on anyone else's toes. And number two, it was playing with that idea of the werewolf as this, you know, again, the tropes of it, playing into prejudices towards our peoples, and so far as us being primitive and savage and these things. And I said, No, I'm gonna try and make the most beautiful love story and poem that I can and tell something beautiful with it. And I was able to find the exact right artist for it. Her name was Crystal Cox, she's absolutely phenomenal seriously. And I couldn't be more happy. And there was not a single thing I was asked to change on this by by editorial or publishing it, we were just allowed to do what we wanted. And that to me as a creator is, that's the magic. You know, that's the most important thing.

So I think you're gonna find a wealth of different werewolf stories. And it's not just going to be the same kind of tropes that we've seen Hollywood committed in the past. I can speaking from what I've seen, and then from what I did, for sure, I, I definitely tried to move away from that. So, you know, I think if you're interested, check it out. Because there's some pretty wild stuff. And it's definitely pushing the boundaries of what comics can be, I think, and visual storytelling as a whole.

Patty

Werewolf love stories. I am so curious now. I mean, you were talking about monsters and kind of the way because that's Jay had has also been on Medicine for the Resistance. And you know, we were talking we were talking about monsters, and you know, talking about werewolves. And we were talking particularly about the wendigo and that story. And we've always heard that as kind of this cautionary parallel with colonialism. And and I wrote about this in the newsletter for anybody who got it. But it really isn't, and it's starting to trouble me to see it that way. To see it as kind of this parallel with you know, we call politicians wendigoes you know, we call capitalists you know, we, you know, we call them when wendigo, and there's Wendigo Catering up in Sioux Lookout. So as far as saying its name repeatedly and calling it into being I think that ship has sailed.

But our conversation that we had with you, Jay about that about it, because in some versions in the legend that you had grown up with, the original creature isn't killed, the ones that he turns are, but you don't kill the original monster because then what? Then what happens to the hero and that was something that you explored in Kagagi. And then or you wanted to explore sorry, as the animated series went on. But what do you do then when you've killed all the monsters what’s the hero left with?

And then as I was reading the graphic novels, what I was reading was This Place . And there's there's a Windigo story in here. But it's true. It's the story of because this is a history book. So it's not fantasy. These are histories, Indigenous histories that are being retold in graphic format. And and then that led me to the book about the last one wendigo killer Jack Fiddler, who was actually arrested and executed by the RCMP in Canada in the early 1900s. Because we can't kill people that are threats to our communities. But the RCMP can kill us. Because that makes a lot of sense. And it occurred to me that for Indigenous people, these creatures are real. These creatures are real. They're, there's something that possessed us that threatened our communities. They weren't metaphors for anything. They were real. They were part of our world. And Europe, we didn't infect Europe with this windigo thing. They had their own monsters that they brought here. And so I'm really troubled now by that by that comparison with capitalism. But then the way I'm tying this into the whole werewolf thing is when you have stories written by people for whom these things are real. You get much different stories. You get much different stories with much different outcomes, much different goals, and I just think you get much better stories.

Myka

I don't have anything to back this up but because this is just from the top of my head logically what would make sense for the reason why we associate werewolves and natives is because it goes way back to that colonialism of savagery. What is more scary than a scary wolf creature that is going to savagely rip off rip out your your innards and throw them everywhere, right. I don't know what werewolves do. But it ties it ties back to that it is a trope that, you know, exists because people say, you know, not very nice things.

Neil

So I don't know anything about werewolves history? Is that an Indigenous creature? I mean, I, in all the movies that I ever took notice of it some white guy transforming. So where does that connection get made? I'm not aware of that connection is I guess, is what I'm saying. And I had sort of assumed it was a European legend.

Jay

I, unless I'm mistaken, I think a lot of it comes from France, right?

Lee

Yeah.

Jay

Yeah, that's my understanding is a lot of

Lee

Yeah.

And a lot of their stuff was based around wolves being used as, like this fear of, you know, it's the romanticism so it was a lot of Gothic, it really tied into the Gothic writing, as wolves being dangerous while they were doing the big wolf purges, you know, through their areas. I think, what is it? HBO, Wolf Walker's fantastic animated show? They do a flip of it, and it takes place all in occupied Ireland. Right. So and the werewolves are, you know, the wolf walkers are the Irish, essentially. Right? And the English are the ones that are basically murdering any wolf they can find. Because they, you know, to bring them under heels. Fantastic. Fantastic.

I mean, like, you know, with our relatives, right, I watched this and it was like, Dang, this is so similar, right? Like, you're just like, Wow, is this totally colonization? I think for us, I mean, as far as I can tell, and I haven't done a huge amount of story anthropology or story archaeology on this, but we don't have a lot of like we have, well, not in the way that it's done. In these types of stories we have  wolf relatives, we have wolf stories, we have people that do become wolves, but then don't then they just kind of pop in and out like it doesn't. It's not a thing. It's not this struggle with the internal nature of it. It's just a, it's just what happens. And that's the thing about if you look at any of our stories, it's like, that's a thing. It just happens. You know, it's it's a gig. So, like, That's it, and I think we found somebody looked it up. So you should jump in and run that out right now.

Myka

Okay. I just gave it a quick google and basically the earliest known surviving example of a mantle of transformation, and I am quoting here, is found in The Epic of Gilgamesh from around 2100 BCE. However, the werewolf as we know now know it first appeared in ancient Greece and Rome and ethnographic poetic and philosophical texts

Jay 

When it comes to like the popular werewolf myths that we've seen especially like from Hollywood I think the original probably would have been like the old wolfman with Lon Chaney, Jr. or whatever. If I'm not mistaken, I think he he gets turned in France. And I think a lot of what we see as modern marvel fiction tends to come from France because their their term for the monster is Lugaroux, looming wolf in French. But if we look at it, I don't know why human like humanity, for the most part, especially in Europe has always been really taken with the idea of the wolf, even though there's a million different kinds of animals out there. When you mentioned Rome. It made me think of the idea of the founders of Rome were raised by wolves, Romulus and Remus. It's never bears for some crazy reason. I'd hate to see the human who was reared by skunks, for example, but we're always gonna get both so I don't know what it is. It has something to do I think with humanity's preoccupation with the wolf, maybe because it's a social animal. I'm not sure but it's a really, really strange thing. It always tends to be wolves. It's never raccoons or porcupines. It's always gonna be wolves, I don't know why.

Patty

So just to be completely weird. I wonder if Stephenie Meyer and the Twilight series are responsible for this big Indigenous werewolf connection? Because she had her shapeshifters who were they thought they were werewolves, and it turned out they were just shapeshifters.

Jay, what are you working on now?

Jay

Right now. Holy cow. So I don't sleep a lot these days. I was really, the I was more excited about Aa Howl than anything just because it was such a departure for me because, again, I'd worked in television. And I'd worked in, in comics and children's books, you know, and it was something different to do something that was essentially long form poetry. The story is called Moonlight Somata. It's a play on Moonlight Sonata. Somata means bodies. So it's called the song of bodies in moonlight. And it's about two people who come together. And I don't want to give it away. But I think it came together really well. Other than that, I have a couple of children's book projects I'm looking at that I'd be writing myself. I was teaching a course on writing at the University of Ottawa, for comics, as well as screenwriting. And I had to step away because I just have too much stuff going on to be able to devote to that.

The big thing I suppose the two big ones would be, I've got a graphic novel at Scholastic called I Am Thunder, that's essentially about myself as a kid and how I came to comics and create comics. So it covers what we were talking about insofar as not seeing ourselves reflected in media. And why I decided to try and do what I did with Kagagi. Because I was pretty young when I got into it.

And one of the things that's important to note with Kagagi was, I did three self published black and white, pretty crappy comics that I was doing out of out of my basement. And then I brought it to this company called Arcana, which was at the time, maybe one of Canada's, if not the biggest publisher of comics, but you know, up there, because I wanted the book to be able to be carried through Diamond, even though that seems to be going away or the dinosaur right now. But yeah, I wanted the book to be available in any in any comic book shop. And that's something I'm very proud of that you could go into any comic book shop in North America and order a copy of Kagagi.

So, I am Thunder is about a kid much like me, it's really based on my life as a child and how I came to comics and the things that we go through as Native people coming into a world that I think a lot of people in corporations still believe is not our place. And I think it's important that we discuss those things.

And then more recently, I'm working with a production company here in Canada to create a feature film, it's it's, it's not animated. It's a live action feature that I'm describing as kind of a gritty crime drama. And it's really about how people, especially native people are put into certain boxes, and how much leeway we have to get out of them. And I thought that applies to what we're talking about here. And so far as what society expects Indigenous people to be, and the fight we've got to go through to escape those boxes, if we can, sometimes we can, I think sometimes we can't do. So for the first time. I've never really talked about it that way. But it's called Brawl. And we've got a Telefilm grant. So the film is being written right now. And it was it was we had some setbacks with it just because of COVID. And a pandemic, where I was writing this thing going, can we shoot crowds? Like I don't know, can we put a bunch of people in a warehouse? Can we shoot in a bar? So it was a really weird thing. And it's taken a little longer than I'm used to just because I've been able to adjust as things have opened up. And we've been able to do more things in that nature. At the same time. You know, you're worried about like insurance costs for this stuff, because it's a it's an entirely new world. So it was, it's a tremendous opportunity. I'm very blessed. But at the same time, there were a lot of challenges that came with creating a feature film and in the era of the COVID-19. So it's been a trip, but it is it's going to be set largely in the Indigenous community has a native main characters, a lot of native characters in it. And that's really what it's about. So between the kids book projects, the stuff that I did with A Howl, which was a real trip, but I really dove into it. And the graphic novel, that's a 200 page book. So it's a mammoth, gigantic book. And the film, I've been super busy and I feel bad, because whenever we talk about the work that other people are doing, other Indigenous creators are doing, I'm not overly familiar at this point, because I don't get a lot of time to read anything or watch anything. So I've just been pretty much a slave to the to the keyboard. I haven't really been present on social media all that much.

Patty

Actually, makes me think of something. And it's a question that I'll kind of pose to each of you and I'm gonna, I’ll start with Lee. And then just kind of go around and, you know, go around the circle. And think about those boxes. You said, Well, you talked about Indigenous people, you know, kind of being put into put into boxes. And then that made that makes me what what is it about comics? Do they offer a way of for us to get out of those boxes that maybe other media don't offer? And I want to think and and now I'm thinking particularly about representation, so not necessarily Indigenous representation, but we all you know, Neil and Myka, you both are part of groups too, that don't always have great representation in media. I'll start with Lee. How this particular medium allows us to break out of boxes in a way that other mediums maybe don’t.

Lee

Yeah, I think that's, I mean, that's a great way to frame it too, because I think it's, it allows the imagination to go beyond what we've been told we have to be when you can portray yourself, you know, like, the hardest part with filming, I mean, you know, Jay, just talking about it, right, like, you got the insurance and you've got a production company, and how many, and they gotta get money back. But when you when you're just writing and making comics, the sky is truly the limit, like, all you got to do is find either, and I don't draw very well, but maybe find a friend. Or maybe just go ahead and do what you're going to put out there in the world anyway, and eventually get better. Because you can, you can write whatever story you want to write in. And that's you're not, you don't have to conform to the way that pop media has insisted.

Now, I think there's still residuals in what we're all trying to struggle through, right, that pop culture media has done through a great propaganda job. But I don't think we have to conform to that. So when I want a write a story, you know, so my comics Six Killer, right, so it's, you know, I started out wanting to write a response to, you know, the Violence Against Women Act. And well, I'll even say the step before that is I started out to write Alice in Wonderland, Native Alice in Wonderland. And I originally was going to be working with Roy Boney Jr. And so we're going to set it in Cherokee country, because that was like, well, that's cool, because there's a lot of cool parallels we got rabbit, you got, you know, Sequoia is the Mad Hatter. Like, you can do some really cool stuff with this. And then VAWA comes out. And native women aren't included. And I was like, I was really I was upset, I was hurt, you know. And so I was just like, well, you know, what I can I can post about it, you know, and join in the chorus, which I did. But I was like, let me write this. And you know, what I wanted to write, I wanted to write Kill Bill, I wanted to write a woman that was seeking revenge for the murder of her sister and mowing down anyone that got in her way. Right? And that doesn't make the best adult drama. So there's more to it. There's more complications, of course. But that's what I wanted to do. I was like, You know what, the stop this kind of thing puts put the fear of God into people messin around there, you get, you're gonna have a boogeyman right there boogey woman, if you will, who's going to come who's going to come get yet, you know, for messing with Native women.

So I think the things that I've looked at is that the sky's the limit for what I can write and how we write it. I talk a lot about that. I think what comics allow us to do is to get out of dwelling and fetishizing tragedy. And I was talking about it today with some other folks is that will pop culture and American culture, which dominates everything, you know, has forced us to do is that it's it forces us to relive and fetishize in our tragedy. So what they portray is dead and dying Indians constantly, right? I think what comics allow us is that we get to be living, live, powerful, and powered, amazing characters and beings, not at any one's whims, on our own terms, how we want to tell the stories in whatever fashion, we're going to do it. So I think that's, that's why I love this media more than anything, because I also I'm not beholden to a production company, I just get to draw and write whatever I want. If it gets picked up and gets picked up, if not, I got a lot of good friends. Well, and I run a bookstore, so I'll just throw it on my own shelves, right. So, you know, that's how it can play out.

Patty

When you say it about drawing pictures that made me think of zines, and how popular you know, zines can be just yeah, I've got a story. I'm gonna draw it, I'm gonna tell it. And, um, you know, I'm gonna get it out there. So, Myka, we you talked about being an disability activist and the graphic novels, you know, the graphic format really helped you in that way. So, so, okay, well, that but also, you know, seeing yourself or putting yourself out there.

Myka

So, there is, you know, representation for me is really weird because there is when it comes to like mental health with like, specific mental health issues that I deal with myself. There is really no good representation for people with borderline which is something I myself struggle with. And that is the I don't see that in media. There isn't a good outlet for that. And the people that I do see on social media, talking about their mental health talking about stuff like that. They get so much hate and horrible things said to them about like you're faking it, stuff like that, that it's just I could would not put myself out there like that I could not be there to tell my story and how I feel about things. So that is, you know, that's, that's, I hope someone else is strong enough to do it.

But that's something that I myself would really struggle to do as far as something like autism or Asperger's go, because that's something that me and my siblings also deal and struggle with. I was talking to my father about this recently, and my father is this, you know, straight white guy who is neurotypical, and you know, he's he's just a normal guy. So representation for him is fine. But we had to talk about like, Sheldon Cooper versus Dr. Temperance Brennan, who was a better representation for someone who doesn't understand social practices and social norms. And Dr. Temperance Brennan was the winner here, because there's quite a few things wrong with the Big Bang Theory. Which is unfortunate, because it's, it's entertaining, and then you kind of look at it for a little bit longer to go, Wait a minute, this is not great. That's kind of really sexist, what they're doing. But that's past the point.

But yeah, maybe comic books and and stuff like that is the route that I need to take. Maybe I need to get into making comics or in writing stories and stuff like that. So that there is representation for people who struggle with disability, because I would have given you know, anything to see more things about kids who didn't understand what you know, was going on with their friends on the playground, like, I felt very alone as a kid and still kind of do as an adult. And just, if I could give, you know the power back to people who are disabled and have more representation for stuff like that, like we barely see stuff with people in wheelchairs, we barely see stuff for people who are hard of hearing or deaf. And like that is or we still are fighting tooth and nail to get like LGBTQ plus representation. Which is also something that I'm a part of, it's just, I maybe comics is the route that people need to be taking. Is is my thought maybe that's what that's the next step. Because clearly, television isn't working out great for us. Clearly, YouTube and social media isn't working out great for us. So maybe comics is the next best step.

Patty

When you were talking about mental health, and there's not great representation, I mean, all the villains, right, like villains are all the, that's where all the mental health sits, you know, the mental health disorders are is that those those are the villains, those are all, you know, those are almost always the bad guys. You know, so that's, it'll be nice to see a hero for you know, what's termed a mental health, you know, what's termed a mental health disorder is actually what winds up making things work, you know, maybe that's their superpower is that they can, you know, shut things off at certain times, or see the world in a slightly different way that allows them to, you know, to move things forward in a way that I can't because I don't, you know, I experienced the world and, you know, kind of the way everybody else does I don't have that other other other way of looking at it.

So Neil,

Neil

what comes to mind when you bring it up? Is that comics is one of the few mediums where you where there's, oh, there's long been an independent history, going back to the underground comics of the 60s and 70s to the sort of the independent explosion of the 80s with Black and white comics first and then small press. And you mentioned zines. Zines is another place that that sort of begins and so it's, I mean, you have DC, Marvel, Archie, some extent Dark Horse, and Image and a few others that are the big time, but in the world of media, big time comics is still pretty small. And I think that somehow makes it easier to be an even smaller fish in that pond somehow. And people start making their own comics and, and, and represent themselves I I'm spitballing here I don't know I'm saying but it seems like there's a lot that is. All you need is paper and pens. You know, it's not an expensive thing.

There's also a way to make comics. I don't know how much you want to get into theory. But there's, I think you can tell stories differently in comics. And I think sometimes people with less media representation have maybe more complicated stories and have layers that I think comics do really well. I think about it, Alison Bechdel’s  Fun Home, which is my gold standard for comics, she has so many layers going on, sometimes in a single panel, where she's the panelist, the picture is depicting something maybe in the present, there's one caption that is doing something in the past, and then the dialogue is doing something else, there's like three different narratives going on. And because it's comics, you can slow down and absorb it, whereas in a movie, that would all be gone in a second. I think comics allows complications, even though we think of it as a very simple, you know, bam, pow medium, there are subtleties available to comics creators, I don't think are necessarily available in other media. And there's an accepted pathway to do doing them independently. Whereas self publishing, as a novelist is still sort of I don't want to say sketchy, but it's not as respected. It's not as it's not as an accepted way to, to get yourself published. But in comics, make it yourself. And there are ways to get that, out, that I don't think there's, in the same way that other media has. Dispute me, I may be wrong,

Patty

No, I think as you were talking what made but that made me think is for people, you know, people who kind of live in kind of the mainstream world. And that's, you know, see their representation every every where they go, they develop a kind of shorthand, you know, so they don't have to tell like the whole story, because they can, you know, Darmok and Jalad at Talaga, and everybody knows what they mean. Whereas, for people who live on the fringe, like Indigenous stories, you know, like, we're stories like disability stories, you need to explain more, you need to explain more, you can't just kind of throw out a quick phrase, and everybody knows what you're talking about. So like, that's what me you made me think when you were talking was comic books, graphics, you know, telling stories in these ways. Those layers allow you to explain what could otherwise be, you know, what might otherwise be, you know, put off and in shorthand, it could, you know, you'd see the walls fall, you know, you'd see kind of the story that lays behind the phrase. And so that's kind of what I was thinking about, we have a comment from the chat, Dynamic Dan says: great name. Comics are truly a diverse medium, he made a comic, they made a comic and an unfinished one, for their final project in high school for art. And this podcast is just helped reinforced in their mind the independence and possibility available exclusively to things like comics,

Jay You'll get the last word on this particular question.

Jay Odjick 

Nice. I so I have a lot of thoughts about a lot of I think Lee and I are on the same page. And a lot of regards, but if I could just expand on on it a little bit. I think one of the big differences right now is like I think with Kagagi, it was an interesting thing, because it started out being completely just, I was the only person who had any say in it, I was self publishing. And then I took it to a publisher, and all of a sudden, there were no concessions needed to be made. And so far as how those things work, it's just the reality of a lot of publishing deals. And then we took it into animation and all of a sudden, we have to worry about a television network and advertisers and financers and that's just the nature of the corporate beast and the nature of entertainment industry as a whole I think.

And today the differences from when I started doing comics because again, I'm I'm getting old, but when I started out there were no such thing as YouTube tutorials you needed to be able to find the right equipment and things and it's very expensive to draw comics. Those Bristol boards that are 11 by 17 are like a buck a pull here in Canada and they're hard to find and inking pens are expensive and and today, you can just get an iPad or something and draw on that and create your own comics. And there's literally nothing between you the creation of your comics, the distribution and sale of your comics, you can promote them, you can do all those things that in when I was a kid, were just not possible because I remember coming across the first creator owned book I ever heard of, I think was Dave Stevens, the Rocketeer to date myself just a little bit. And then of course, we had the advent of the Image Comics when the Image founders all left Marvel and went and did their own thing. And more than anything else, I think with the Kagagi animated series, we're kind of ahead of our time.

And I wanted to touch on this because it's something again, as we had mentioned, with, with Marvel now discovering very columbusly, discovering Indigenous creators, more than anything else with regard to the animated series, I'm proud that, because we were on basic cable in Canada, so we were available and 11 million homes in Canada every every Sunday morning, which was fantastic. And I'm really glad if a lot of native kids got to see a superhero that they could call their who they thought was cool, but that means the world to me.

Secondarily, the thing I'm most proud of is that no matter what happens Disney, when Disney does get around to making an additional superhero show, they're not going to be able to say we did that they did it first. Just like everything else in North America, just like everything else in Turtle Island, we did it first. And nothing can ever take that away. And that's to me, something that all of us can share. It's not just about me are the people who worked on the show, none of that would be possible. If people didn't support Kagagi if people didn't buy the comic, there never would have been a show.

When you look at what happened with Black Flies, that book was scheduled to come out through Scholastic’s book for a program a full year later than it actually came out. The release date was moved by a year because of the demand of Indigenous people and non Indigenous people in Canada, writing to Chapters to Amazon, all the major book chains saying we want this book right now. And I told people at the time, everyone who wrote those letters, everyone who DM’d those companies, everybody here made that happen. And we literally moved mountains, we made one of the biggest publishers on our planet, shift a release date for a book by a calendar year that shows right now the market is out there, the demand is out there.

So for people like Myka, if I can help in any way, and you're thinking about getting into comics, give me a holler. Because there's honestly never been a better time and so far is not only the technical ability to make it happen, but the way for you to reach your audience the way for you to promote your book. And the way for you to get it out. There are people like Lee, who can help you to not only get the book made, but get it into the hands of people and get it out on a bookshelf. So that, to me is the biggest thing. Whereas if you wanted to get into producing a film or something, you need to own a production company. That's just the reality of how you apply for grants in this country.

So you can just go out and get yourself up, you know, whatever you want. And for people who are saying, okay, but I can't draw, the web comic are stick people legit. I mean, we've seen it. We've seen web comics that are literally just stick people that do millions of people, when it comes down to at the end of the day is simple. You can't I learn this as a kid. My hero was Todd McFarlane, and I sat around when I was 13 or 14 trying to draw exactly like Todd, what I came to realize at some point is you can't do it because you're not him. And you're never going to be those people who you look up to and you admire. The beauty of being us that you have a unique voice, that you have a unique perspective on the world that no one else has. And if you use that and you sing with your own voice, no one will ever be as good as you at that you will be the absolute best and you will be untouchable. Use your voice, sing your songs, tell your stories, do it your way, and you will find an audience because at the end of the day, that's all we're looking for.

The reason why what when you look at comic books, okay, graphic novel is just a term that was created because the term comic had been stigmatized. I was so glad when Myka spoke. And the first thing she said was Calvin and Hobbes, because that's a comic. It's a goddamn comic. Just like Kagagi a goddamn comic just like Watchmen is a goddamn comic. It's all comics, no matter what we choose to call it. We can call it graphic novels, we can call them trade paperbacks, we can call them comic books, f*****g doesn't matter. It's pictures and words. That's what it is. That's comics. So no matter what we call them, they are what they are. All we have to remember is not to stigmatize certain things and think that one thing is worth more than any other. It's all the same. It's pictures, and it's stories. And that's what we're all looking for.

We're all looking for something new. If we look at what happened with comics, things changed around the mid 80s, late 80s When DC Comics started bringing in a bunch of English writers. You had the Alan Moore's you had the Grant Morrison's you had, you know, all these people come in with a different take on superheroes completely changed the industry, what I believe we're headed for now is the same thing is going to happen with Indigenous writers. Because we have fresh takes on things, we have fresh ideas, and we're coming. And for an industry that worked really long and hard to keep us out of it for decades, the doors are open, and we're coming. You can you can slow it down, you can delay it, but it's gonna happen. And that, to me is the most exciting thing. And I'll, I'll end on that note. We're about to see, I think, a real overhaul in this industry in so far as Indigeous creators and Indigenous presence.

Patty

I’m feeling inspired. Holy heck, that's. Thank you, Jay. I was Wow. But Lee could be and Jay gave me kind of, you know, a really great segue into it. Are we in a moment now? I feel like Indigenous people broadly speaking, and a whole lot of in a whole lot of places. I feel like we're in a moment. I feel like we are in, you know, a place of opportunity right now. What do you think?

Lee

Yeah, I think it's, and it's that I think you're right, it's the opportunity, and it's gonna take that it's gonna take keeping the thumb, it's, you know, it's that pressure point, right? You've gotten and not letting? I mean, I'll say not letting them get away with saying that, like, you can only get like one or two writers in this space, right? Because right now they're starting, what they do is they say, like, we're all about opening up diversity and all the rest, and then they start to narrow that down, right. And then it's only a few that get selected at that point. And only a couple that start to like, build the sort of weed they'll sort of winnow that out as their diversity stuff. But I've seen it, because we saw that happen with you know, that's, that's the Sherman Alexie era, right? Like they were the early 90s was this great boom of Native writers, writing poetry, writing, you know, like, novels, short fiction. And you saw that crest. And, you know, as we know, Sherman took up a lot of the air. But they also the industry was more than happy to accommodate. And they were very happy to accommodate around just a small select group of Native writers that they would champion. And those became part of the canon.

So the opportunity is there. And right now, it's kind of up to us, right? In this part me in the industry to do the best I can, as a publisher, as a bookseller. To keep pushing any chance I can, like with American Booksellers Association, or American Library Association, say like, this is going you can't stop. You have to carry these comics. I'm gonna make you carry these comics, you asked me for a book list, it's going to be these comics, it's going to be wherever I can find them. It's gonna be talking to whoever I can to get licenses to get things out back into print, you know, because a lot of times, they just let stuff go. They're like, Oh, it's fine. You know, whatever, right? I mean, you saw, that's one of the conversations, I met Tim Truman at Indigenous ComiCon and struck up a relationship. Scout went into print, they had a few through Diamond. And then they just kind of let it lapse in terms of the reprints. And I talked to him, I was like, so who has the rights because there's a generation of kids who have never read this, it it should always be in circulation. You know, that's, that's how we want to be able to see all this stuff, right, and to continue to push this stuff forward as much as we can. So I think I think we're at that moment, we're at that, that precipice and it's up to all of us to keep making more.

That's the other part. I say, I was like, don't give him a chance to just I got everyone's like, well, native creatives. I was like, I got tons of people I know. Right? And I'm finding more we just got this whole new chunk of people. For Howl, right? Like, I was shocked how many cool awesome artists doing of Native artists doing amazing things that I kind of knew of peripherally from like Instagram, or from something right. They’re \nNow drawing comics, right now they've got a portfolio. So Myka, same thing, we'll toss that I'll toss it out there like Jay, make that comic, right? We got two good writers in the house, that that will totally help out and find illustrators and do whatever you need to do. Because I think that's the part the opportunity is here. But now we have to keep pushing in every single nook and cranny not just comics, but autobiographical.

So you got Jim Terry's you got Jays coming out, right. So you got two autobiographical comic based anthology, graphic novels, right? Those are going to be you know, those are out on deck. You've got you know, like these niche ones you starting to see more horror coming out, right, we need we need horror genre. We need romance like it is a whole era area of writing that's just not being covered of romance and chick-lit. Right. And I don't mean to degrade it right?  I mean, there's a lot of people that like it, right, I was like, we need to take back our werewolves and we need to redo you know, these these spaces and do our grand romances graphic novel style or whatever, right?

So I think that's, that's where we are, this is, this is the moment and now it's got to be it's, I mean, now we just have to turbocharge it and get and not and not fall into the lull again, because that's what happened in the 90s. Moving into the early 2000s, is, there was just this kind of crest, and everybody really started to focus kind of on literature. So you got a lot of amazing poets that came out during that time and a lot of amazing, you know, novel writers, and all of these other little areas, kind of were not focused on by the institutions, by the publishers by the, you know, the small handful of, you know, colleges and whatnot. So now we're at that space. And you know what, everybody's gotta keep doing this. And especially in the field we're doing, I got shelves, I'm waiting to desperately just fill an entire bookshelf of native comics, people ask me that, like, Well, why do you carry all these things? So I was like, well, native nerds, we still like our ..  I still like spider man, I still want to see Spider Man, I still want to see you know, I'll see a little bit a little bit of Iron Man, you know, it's Batman, white Batman. That's what I'm calling it from now on. So I still want to see white Batman up in here. You No. But I also want to get to a day when somebody asks, and I have one shop that is literally just shelves of native comics and nothing else. That's where I want to be. So that's where I say I was like, that's it's not only a challenge, it's a it's a moment and opportunity and challenge.

Patty

I think a lot of novels that came out in the 90s were also particular kind of novels, right? Like they had a particular kind of resolution at the end, some kind of happy ending, like I think of Tommy Orange’s book that came out just a couple of years ago, that did not have a happy ending. And I'm sorry if I'm spoiling that, for people that are listening. The ending is kind of telegraphed well, through the book. And

that's important.

The lack of happy endings is important because we don't always get that happy ending. Sometimes the ending Yeah, and then we just, we just we deal with that. And that's okay. That's, you know, I was just talking with somebody else about another book where there's no happy ending, and that lack of a happy ending forces us to think about social realities, because we always want like even even in the book that I'm writing that the happy ending, like the last chapter, which is about solidarity, I'm telling the story about how hoof clan abandoned the Anishinabeg because they were acting stupid, and off into the woods and left us on our own. That's my happy ending. The Indigenous people should all kind of abandon everybody and go and do our own thing. The heck with y'all. Happy ending my publishers looking for those.

Lee

Just a quick end. And I'll just say, I don't think I mean, the thing is what we're looking, I think it's a difference between a a satisfying ending or content ending and a Disney ending, right? The Disney ending is it's all tied in a nice little bow. And we get the outro that like, and years later, Lee went on to, you know, marry his girlfriend and drive the fancy car that he always wanted to through the whole movie, or the book, right? But I always put it I was just like, Listen, you know what my happy ending is? We're still here. You didn't kill us all off? Yeah, that's a happy ending, right? Like, there's a lot of things that happen, and it doesn't. I'm gonna point out tragedy, but I'm still here. My family made it through by luck, by whatever. You did the best you could. That's a happy ending to me. I'm still moving on.

Patty

So yeah, well, I think that's true of all of our various representations. Right? We're still here. The you know, despite this, you know, kind of despite the best efforts of a mainstream society that wants to make us all the same. We're still here.

Neal, what do you think and we're just kind of winding up last thoughts. We got six minutes.

Neil

I like comics.

Does does does Tim Truman have Indigenous background? Does anybody know?

Lee

He does as a matter of fact, he does not directly claim it because that's not how he grew up. But he does have I've seen I've seen his receipts. He does have Cherokee Indigenous if I recall. So true, true, true clan, true grandma. So you know, and again, he doesn't it's not something he banks on or cashes in on so it's usually like, you know, it's not something he draws out too much. But you know, he doesn't live it so he doesn't he doesn't claim it, which I think is really kind of awesome too in a lot of these conversations that we have so it's not lived for him but he knows who his people are

Neil

all kinds of I mean, his final thoughts. I don't have final thoughts. I have continuing thoughts and y'all gave me a lot of stuff to look up now.

Myka

I'm honestly just my head is just full of ideas. I mean, I have I've comics I gotta finish reading now, I got I, in my spare time, whenever I'm bored I myself write a bit of a psychological thriller that I've been working on for a couple of years now. I don't know what I'm ever going to do with it, maybe maybe it'll just stay in my Google Docs forever and ever. But it's it's, I don't know, storytelling is is great. And I think it's something that everybody can do. And that's kind of my my final. My final take on it is storytelling is for everybody. And everybody should have equal platform to do it

Everyone:

All right. So thank you guys so much. This was a good conversation. Great conversation. You gave me loads to think about. Thank you so much. All right. Bye bye. Thanks, everybody. Bye, everybody.

Ambe Refusing Patriarchy

I’m re-releasing this episode for a couple of reasons, the transcript is finally finished and the anti-trans directive in Texas has made parenting a trans child reportable. People have said that it is only the medical interventions that are reportable, but that’s not how mandated reporting works. Mandated reporting does not require you to know that abuse is taking place, it only requires a good faith belief or suspicion. And having framed medical interventions for trans children as child abuse, if the child you knew as Emma is now Ethan that’s all you need.

And if you aren’t in Texas, you should consider how your state or province is watching this. How they define abuse and neglect in such malleable ways that allow for bigotry to result in reports to Child Welfare and to police. These reports, and the mandating of these reports, is violence.

In this episode you will hear from Black, White, and Indigenous people. They are queer and straight, cis and trans. They are all talking about the various ways in which they refuse patriarchy and assert space, but also about the cost of that refusal. The violence, both emotional and physical, that happens and the concerns about how they are able to show up in places where they should feel safe.

This is an important consideration for those of us who consider ourselves to be friends, allies, or accomplices. Are we willing to let them carry the entire burden of that cost just because it isn’t “our fight?” If they are our friends, it is our fight.

You're listening to Aambe: a year of Indigenous Reading

All right, so we are going to be talking about refusing the patriarchy today. Um, I started off thinking about Mother's Day, and thinking about mothers, and then thinking about, well, what does it mean to live in this world as a mother, when you don't necessarily fit that mold. Because lots of people take on mothering roles, right, without necessarily, you know, kind of being what we might think of as a conventional mother. You know, so lots of people taking on mothering roles, lots of people living outside of what we, you know, we would think of as a gender binary, you know, and so I'm, and we often talk that way about, you know, women and LGBTQ people, like we're all kind of lumped together into one group. And so then I started doing that, and I'm not sure that that's really okay, either.

Then I started thinking, Okay, well, how are we all navigating the patriarchy, we're all kind of working our way through it. And then I didn't really like that, because that sounded too much like patriarchy is legitimately in charge of everything, and it really isn't. So, then I thought, okay, we're resisting the patriarchy. And still, that sounded wrong. That sounded like, they're still this big authority. And then I remembered a conversation I had with Brianna, Urena Revelo. We've had her on the pod a couple of times. And she talks about refusal and the politics of refusal. And that's how I landed on refusing the patriarchy.

Because we are going to live our own lives, and our own terms, as mothers, as not mothers, as people who provide care in our communities. We're going to do that on our own terms, and the patriarchy can just do whatever it needs to do. So, yes, we’re smashing the patriarchy. Ernestine ended the Memoir conversation: “Decolonize and smash the patriarchy.”

So I'm gonna kind of go around and have everybody introduce themselves, and we're gonna start with Jenssa because she's, gonna leave us shortly to manage a chat room, which will probably be quiet today, because I completely forgot that this was this week. I thought it was next week. Oops. Thanks, Nick. Nick sent me a message yesterday, saying, hey, so there a link. How's this gonna work? And I'm like, holy ** that’s tomorrow. But that's okay. It will live forever on twitch and be released as a podcast. Everybody had a chance to hear our genius.

So Jenessa

Jenessa:

It's just gonna be me talking to myself in the chat room. That's great. So I am Jenessa. Hello. I feel like I should have like a fun fact. Every time I come on here, because I come on here. Every, every, every month. And I'm like, Hi, I'm Jenessa This is the book goodbye. I don't have a fun fact right now. But anyway. Oh, I met Patty on Twitter. Fun fact. I feel like a lot of you probably did, too. I read Tanya Tagaq book, Split Tooth. And it was it was really good. It was really hard to read. I remember I got it. And I was like, super pumped. And I told Patty, I got it. And she's like, Yeah, it'll be a heavy one. I was like, Okay. And it was it was really heavy.

But it was it was really good. It was beautifully written. I'm really happy that I was able to read it. And some of the things that I was sort of, I guess, thinking about when I was reading it. Well, one thing is I feel like I need to reread it again to like fully like grasp. Like, I feel like there's some really deep themes in here that kind of maybe went over my head a little bit on the first read. But one of the things that I thought was like interesting was, well, there's two things. She has a poem in here that's written in her language. And I think it's really cool and powerful that she doesn't give, there's no translation for it. It's just there. And I'm like, that's, I was like, Oh, that's really neat. It's kind of like, I feel like when I read a book, I just want everything to be like, given to me, which is very selfish. Like I kind of center myself a little bit when I'm reading a book and I was like, oh, it's it's like, it's not about me. They're not giving me the translation. This is just here. It's beautiful.

And, and then the main character in the book is, she becomes a mother. She's a girl who becomes a mother. And I remember I was reading through it and I actually went back and like reread, because I was like, who's the father? She never says who the father is. And I don't know why. But for some reason that was really unsettling for me. And I was like, why is why is this so why is this such a big deal for me? Why do I need to like know who the dad is? Like, it's like, Oh, yeah. Anyway, those are just two, two thoughts that I sort of had about the book. But I was like, I don't need to know everything. I don't need to know who the dad is, and why I don't even know why that's why that's such a big why why? Why is that important for me? Yeah, okay, I've talked enough. There's a lot of you here, and I'm sure you'll have many more cool and exciting things to say, here.

Patty: Hey, Angela.

Angela:

Hi, this is new. I've never done anything like this before. But I've been on her show before. So I'm really, really pleased. I read everybody's bio. So I'm very excited about all of you. Getting to hear from all of you. The book that I have been reading, and it's called um How We Fight, White Supremacy. And I've been reading it on and off for a year. And be for two reasons. I've been reading a lot of other books, but I keep coming back to this book, because it's written from all Black writers from the United States. And they're just connecting points for me, and how I live my life and raising my son on my own who's Black Indigenous, and feeling isolated. And probably from my upbringing being raised in a white family to being here and not having a community. So I have felt in particularly this last year, that real need for community and this book has given me that.

It there are there's points where I laugh, there's points where I cry. When this woman was describing her experience with a coach calling her Aunt Jemima, you know, I went back to my childhood and my white mother dressed me as Aunt Jemima for Halloween and just, you know, and feeling like, Okay, I'm not like the only one. And I think that with everything that's been going on this year and watching my son have some not great experiences with the police here in Vancouver. It's just allowed me to land in a place where a Black voice, it's Black art, like there's a really great comic strip in there, there's, you know, it talks about an all Black store that sells Black dolls, which I think and I had my first Black doll until I was like five or until I was 10 didn't even know they existed.

And talking also about the connection of Black hair. From from an African standpoint where it was really you know, hair defined what tribe you came from, it defined status, it was a way a means of communication. And, you know, I held the inceptions of hair that I've had from you know, my Tina Turner look to, you know, now dreads and Grace Jones for a while and that I'm really dating myself, there. So, all of that. It really explored that idea of identity and then watching my son who's you know, had the big afro and has cornrows and trying to figure out his Black Indigenous identity through his hair and those connecting points. So I just keep going back to this book. For those reasons. I read it and keep reading it and keep reading it and it was just a lovely gift from somebody that really felt would be good for me and so I appreciate when people give you books because it's it really is an act of love.

Patty:

Well, gifts are the best gifts

Sean

Tansi everyone. [Cree introduction] So I'm Sean Kinsella. And I just introduced my clan, which is Migizi. I'm also you can't really see my hair, but I'm wearing little migizi earrings on tonight. And that's my adopted Ojibwe clan. Because I'm actually plains Cree and Soto and Metis. And we didn't necessarily have clans in the same way, although I hear whisperings that when we're speaking about the sort of refusing patriarchy that, you know, there's like some some oral histories there about clans we may or may not have had. But I've been on this territory, which is sort of around .. and I was born in Toronto, my whole life. And so over time, I've developed relationships with folks here and, and developed enough that that was honored with an adoption. So that's important, I think, to introduce myself, because it tells you who I stand with on this territory. And it tells you a little bit about who my family are.

My family is also folks who signed and relatives who signed Treaties four, six and eight. So that gives you some geographical representation, you know, where those treaties are just around sort of the Plains and the Battle River Cree, as well.

So that the I've sort of read two books on this list, Half Breed, which is a seminal Metis work. And, and The Two Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby. Both of them, I think are, you know, speaking of Split Tooth, so just sort of like an aside, I am also still reading Split Tooth, but Split Tooth is one of those books that is so beautiful, that I can't bear to finish it. And similarly, I know he's been on this program before, there's a fantasy trilogy by Daniel Heath Justice as well, that is the same that I just I read it so slow, because I don't want it to end because as a work, it's just so beautiful, and something that when I was younger, I really wished that I had more access to you in terms of that kind of literature and that kind of thinking and world building really.

So I think within both Half Breed and Ma-Ne’s book, you know, they are difficult reads, they are folks who have experienced a tremendous amount of violence, due to patriarchy, and finding a place in the world. In a world that doesn't want them to exist, you know, and so for road allowance people, you know, for, for folks who have that history, and that's a pretty hidden history, like a lot of people, I think, when they read Half Breed, and Maria Campbell's work, you know, I mean, that's maybe the first time that they've ever even heard of the fact that, that that was a thing, that that was a policy, and then it hopefully makes you dig into some of the history there around what created sort of road allowance people and why, Metis, and you know, in our bigger kinship structure of like Metis Soto Cree, people were removed from our territories. So that's a piece of it.

And I remember, I work at Centennial College, and I was part of a textbook that we put together like an Open Source Textbook. And one of the chapters that I wrote was a Two Spirit chapter. And we had the privilege of interviewing Ma-Ne as part of that chapter. And so I remember, you know, part of that interview was her really defining Two Spirit, which was really cool to be in the room for because I had read the book, right, so I'm like, Oh, this is really neat to see how that reflects. But I remember Ma-Ne’s words of just that have always stuck with me of, of her grandmother, you know, telling, telling her that, you know, this, this idea of being Two Spirited of not fitting into those very easy boxes and binaries, that, that it's going to be hard, it's going to be a hard life.

And I think about particularly for myself, am I introduce myself, I told you that I was a agueo, which is a Cree way of saying sort of, one who kind of sits between those genders. You know, I can empathize with that idea that it is a hard, it is a hard life. And so I think it was really important for me, you know, and I also like, know Ma-Ne, from sort of, like, circles and sort of like in the Two Spirit community in Toronto, when she comes down to visit with us.

So, you know, I think that as a representation is critically important. And as a book was, was really important, you know, and I think it's also recognizing to you that, you know, there aren't a lot of there aren't a lot of Two Spirit elders around or people who are talking about about that in that way. And I think so. So I think Ma-Ne is such a treasure and then I also think, you know, that what Ma-Ne talks about in your book because I know a little about about a her is a person like those things also have an ended, right. So it's not like the book ended and it's like a happy ending. It's also like, you know, Ma-Ne is a person who right now actually needs community support around that. medical stuff and we're seeing calls that go up for that. So I think, you know, it's also I think I think about, it's this interesting thing of getting to read these amazing Indigenous authors who are such pillars in our community, but then also recognizing that they're humans, you know, and they’re people who, who also have experienced a lot of a lot of, you know, refusal of patriarchy in lots of different ways. So, that's what I'll say about those for now. But yeah, those are, those are very, very powerful books.

Patty:

I haven't read, I haven't read Ma-Ne’s book yet. I shouldn't have to thank Nick for putting that one on the list. Nick is here because they kept recommending books. For the list that it was great because they recommended really good books, the recommended Ma-Ne’s book, and also Reproductive Justice, which is not written by an Indigenous woman, but is written by somebody who spent a lot of time on the Pine Ridge Reservation building relationships initially going to you know, uh, you know, to be a helper, the way a lot of church and academic university and college groups will go to be helpers, and she wound up forming relationships and going back again, and and again and again. And using her position and she actually she, you know, she is connected to them now, because her child is, the father of her child is from Pine Ridge. So, you know, she even has that connection there now. So she wrote this really good book called Reproductive Justice, which was the one that I read most recently. But yeah, so many Ma-Ne Chacaby's book is on my list. I'm really glad that you read that and can talk about it. So Nick, why don't you introduce yourself and talk about the books you read or partly red?

Nick:

Hey, my name is Nick, I use they them pronouns. And I am a white Jewish settler on Karankawa, Coahuiltecan, Atakapa-Ishak, and Sana land, which is Houston, Texas, and I am non binary, transgender, and I use they them pronouns, and I'm also bisexual, and in a queer marriage. So that's kind of where I, that's kind of where I come from, and where I, you know, my position in life, and a lot of the work I do is actually around abortion access specifically for transgender people, but just abortion access in general in Houston because it can be kind of hard to access.

So that's kind of my connection to like refusing patriarchy, I read, Split Tooth, and I read part of Reproductive Justice. And what was interesting about reading them together, is that as Patty talked about reading books in conversation with one another, I kind of accidentally did that, because I was just kind of switching back and forth, because I have ADHD. And it actually ended up dovetailing really, really well. Because at the end of the Split Tooth near the end, you have the birth scene, which I thought was one of a just a really hauntingly beautifully written scene. And like that scene, like several scenes, but that scene in particular, like, I just could see it, you know, and like, so her birthing experience, like she called the shots, right, like she made a birthing experience for herself. That was, you know, that was right for her and for her children. And, you know, it was kind of the spiritual, traditional, you know, the spiritual traditional birthing experience she wanted. And she had both the emotional and familial support, but she also had like this supernatural support of like, the Northern Lights and like the supernatural element there.

And I contrasted that with, I read the chapter in Reproductive Justice, about people talking about their birthing experiences. And, you know, like, people had different things to say. But, you know, one, one kind of theme was deprivation, with the Indian Health Service, cutting costs and frankly, cutting corners with what they weren't offering, like they weren't offering epidurals at their hospital. And so they didn't have all of the options and the the very nearest hospital didn't even have the ability to do a C section. Um, so you've got this you've got this issue where like, people are being prevented from doing the birthing experience that would be absolutely best for them by this government entity that, you know, this settler colonial government, that this kind of ongoing, you know, ongoing colonization and ongoing oppression.

So, reading those two things in conversation with one another were were it was actually really powerful. Um, and now, one thing in that chapter in Reproductive Justice that I want to say is that a lot of people, like had some positive things to say about their birthing experience as well, it wasn't all negative. A lot of them referenced here, a lot of the people interviewed did feel like they got what they needed. But it's just the background of knowing, the background of knowing that they are prevented from, from some things that would be really beneficial to them.

21:03

So So reading those two things together was really cool. Going back to Split Tooth. So normally, I don't mind marking up books, but I actually put sticky notes in this instead, which I do sticky notes on books that I mark up as well. But I put sticky notes on here, because I want other people to read this. And I don't want my thoughts to be on the page for them to like, Oh, Nick thinks this is important. I'm going to focus on this thing that they underlined, I want people to approach this book for what it is on their own terms and kind of get what it from it what they need to. And I will probably reread this book, it was a very difficult read, because of some of the violence that the narrator goes through. And that is difficult to read. But it's just it's just such a beautiful book. And I've read a lot of books in my life and I don't think I've ever read anything quite like this. So I would definitely I would definitely recommend it.

Patty

Yeah, that's crucial. There's a lot of very difficult, tragic stuff in Split Tooth, and yet just so poetically written that she just keeps pulling you along. It's a lovely book. And Tate who is the author of one of the essays in the book Fierce, and actually, I loved that essay so much because you go back to two beginnings, and the woman actually that I met on Pine Ridge, who took me to Wounded Knee. Her name is Pte San Win. So that's just kind of cool. If you could introduce, talk a little bit about yourself in that essay and whatever else you want,

Tate

sir, thanks for having me on. appreciate being here. [Introduction in Lakota] I introduce myself in Lakota. I am Mini Konju Lakota from Cheyenne River Sioux tribe in South Dakota, where I'm a citizen. But I live here in sunny Phoenix, where it's 100 something today I’ve been outside. I work for a local tribal school district. So we were out and about today, the last day of school and but in my spare time, I consider myself a storyteller. I should also note my pronouns are they them.

But as we talk about some of this like disrupting of patriarchy, things like that I they them pronouns have been around for a while, but I've been, as I learned more about my Lakota foundations I have been reclaiming a lot of the feminine aspects that I kind of pushed aside for a long time as sort of like, trying to disrupt some of those cis heteronormative notions lots of folks have, and sort of claiming the two spirits and then saying, you know, “no femininity.” But like I said, as I been learning more about my Lakota foundations, been sort of coming back to my caretaker role as ina or mother, and have really loved that part of myself as I'm getting to know it better and better, especially as my own child is coming to understand their own identity, and recently came out as trans non binary, and how femininity sort of in sort of inspires I guess, a lot of those decisions we've made in our family about queerness and, and learning about Two Spiritedness. So, happy to be here. I apologize. I didn't read any of the books but you mentioned my essay.

So, I, I've been a newspaper journalist for geez going on 17 years now, I guess, I feel old I have to keep adding numbers, but been more of a freelancer the last decade or so. And then, in addition to that been writing actual things in books, which is really exciting. And one of those was the essay that was was in Fierce and that was 2018 published. And we won several awards, it was pretty cool, very intersectional collection of writings, mine focused on Pte San Win, who is known as a White Buffalo Calf Woman, I think it's a story that's often told, by even non Lakota people. I've even met someone down here in the Phoenix Valley talking about how their southwest traditions have a similar deity. So that's interesting. But to Pte San Win, White Buffalo Calf Woman is somebody who I guess, inspired a lot of any success I would have in my life, whether it was storytelling, or just like overcoming challenges was from sort of those foundations. She's known in Lakota spirituality world more for the gifts she gave to, like our ceremonies. So like, the sacred pipe is a big one that a lot of folks know her for. Also, like the tossing of the ball or puberty ceremonies, wiping of the tears, things like that were lessons that she gave us a couple generations ago.

But one thing that's often lost in those tales is sort of this innate matriarchal power that she's infused with. Her first foray into human world really is essentially smiting down, a warrior who is sent to sort of investigate who she is. She's naked. And he has impure thoughts. That's depending on the storyteller, it gets more detailed than that. But essentially, he's like, Oh, naked woman, let's get it. And she's like, F you and totally just like smites him. He's nothing but bones and dirt and bugs. And again, people embellish, it gets fun.

And it was a story I heard when I was a troubled teen, if you will, I had just come out as, I didn't have language like non binary, or Two Spirit. I just knew I liked girls in addition to boys, but if you like girls in Bismarck, North Dakota, you were a lesbian capital L. And they put you into a religious camp to go hate yourself. Anyway, so I was in a group home, and they decided because we had a lot of native kids in this group home that we were, we should have native, native culture outings, if you will. So they brought us to a sweat lodge, none of us had really ever been to one in this story of Pte San Win was told. And that part was sort of brought out to the to, as highlighted, right. So guys, make sure you respect women because they'll just kill you one day. Not the right message. But it was funny and it lasted with me. And it's sort of just always stuck with me throughout my life. So that sort of feminist Foundation, if you will, is what sort of that's that's, that's I brought that with me through through my entire life. And Split Tooth is on my book list. So that's, I'm excited to hear more about it. Get all the spoilers.

Patty:

I think it's gonna be on everybody's book list. I see a couple few people in the chat commenting on that as well that they're gonna have to add it to their list. It is it is an extraordinary book. Finally, Robin, Dr. Robin.

Robin:

Tansi [Cree introduction] Thank you so much for having me back into space Patty. As you can see, this time I actually got dressed and didn't show up in my jammies like I did last time. So I'm just so glad to be on this panel with all of you. Where do I start? I am Cree from northern Alberta. My family is actually from Treaty eight territory. So Sean, as soon as you said that I knew where we're going. I have connection in a few different communities in that territory. I am also connected through my children to the Six Nations of the Grand River. So that is also a very important part of our family. I am by day, an associate professor in the Center for Women in Gender Studies at Brock but I recently was appointed our Acting Vice Provost of Indigenous engagement and so on I'm so glad to be talking about this.

And Patty, I hope you don't mind. I mean, I've read so many of the books that we talked about earlier talking about. And you know, I spent a lot of time with The Beginning and The End of Rape by Sarah Deere, like, I've worked with Sarah and I could talk about that. But I've been when I came to this today was thinking about what it's like to refuse patriarchy and what the consequences look like for people. Because I've been experiencing that a lot lately. I wrote an article last April where I took a pretty big stand, and maybe talked about white male terrorism, and ended up having my life threatened having my kids’ life threatened, having my job threatened, you name it. And it's come back now to haunt me, as the Vice Provost. And I recently been targeted by Jonathan Kay for challenging colonial patriarchy.

So, I've been thinking a lot about that, and what it takes, and you know, at an individual level, because, you know, I've done this, I've been an activist longer than I've been an academic, I started working on violence against Indigenous women and girls, like 20 plus years ago now, because I, myself am a survivor of the violence, I was sexually exploited in my late teens in Vancouver. And so I've been fighting this a long time on the ground, first of all, and now I'm in this weird academic institutional setting, where there's these big structural changes, and I'm facing off like I this is like, it just feels like a game, a constant game.

And so when I was thinking about refusing patriarchy tonight, I was thinking about the consequences of that, which I think show up in the books. So when I think about Maria Campbell, and I think about her refusals of patriarchy at times and the consequences that comes with, its, you know, that's kind of what I've been thinking about a lot lately. And how do we, how do we resist that? And how do we do that together, so that we're not leaving people out by themselves to fight this horrible system that really does bite back in a big way, like I you know, and just vicious and cruel, and through technology and threatening every aspect of your life, like I never imagined that would ever happen to me.

And so I've been thinking about that a lot, and how this connects and how brave we have to be as people to stand, take a stand. And, you know, for me, it's all about my Cree teachings, which actually say, you have to.  Right?  That if you see something that's wrong, and it's going to affect not only your children, but everyone's children. And it's going to affect us in a bad way, you have to take a stand. And so I'm always stuck in this limbo going, I have to take a stand. But also, you know, I'm going to get death threats, I'm going to be at a security level. So that's kind of what I've been thinking about, and what that means for disrupting all these systems of oppression. Because I just see so much how this keeps us all apart. Right? And how we don't link these things together and don't make those connections and then don't fight together. And so that's, that's where my head is tonight and thinking about the topic. And so I think I'll stop there, because I'm really eager to hear what other people have to say. Thank you.

Patty:

Yeah, I mean, we briefly shared a troll on on Twitter, but he did not target me the way he the way he targeted you. I hope it has a good resolution, because it really, when you take a stand, you know, like you had said it kind of reverberates through all of these books in terms of you know, sticking up for yourself and standing. There's a price to pay. There's a price and sometimes that price lands on lands on other people lands on our children, it lands on other relatives, it lands on partners.

You know, I was just thinking, you know, there's, the three quotes that I pulled up from Sarah Deer, as I was looking for quotes coming up, where she talks about rape the lives of native women is not an epidemic of recent mysterious origin. It's a fundamental result of colonialism, a history of violence reaching back centuries. She says rape is a more fundamental threat to self determination of tribal nations than the drawbacks federal than than the drawbacks federal reform could ever be. You know, they trespassed her body like they trespass this land. She's quoting Ryan Redcorn in that,

And, you know, sexual violence and the violence that we are threatened with, because even when we're not, you know, deliberate,, you know, kind of overtly experiencing that transgression that, yes, all women, you know, and, you know, also, you know, also Two Spirited non binary people are also targeted in much the same way. The threat of that is all, that can be enough. Oh, we don't need to actually physically experience it, the threats that land in our email boxes that land in our Twitter DMs, you know, it's a very convenient way to threaten and, you know, so it was just I found her book really really extraordinary.

So what I know we've kind of talked about the books that we've read, but now that we've kind of heard what everybody has said, Is there anything in the you know, in the book that you read, or in what you've heard, that is striking you, as, you know, in maybe a different way, or that kind of surprised you something that was unexpected in in the book that you read, or what your, or, you know, the essay you wrote, as you approached to your essay and your thinking would go one way, you know, was it something that surprised you and what you read or what you. We’ll start with Sean, we're just gonna go clockwise around the new screen now that I've adjusted the size of my screen and rearranged you.

Sean

I don't think there was any, like, it was neat to see Ma-Ne’s story, I don't know that there was anything that surprised me in it. I think the I think the tenderness I think of her grandmother, I think, did. And I think in particular, like in the context of the story, and her life, her grandmother was a person who accepted her. And I will say, as a Two Spirit person, you know, that was actually quite heartwarming, because a lot of times, some of our most like, intimate rejections are from family members. And this was a grandmother and, and a knowledge keeper who, you know, just accepted Ma-Ne for who she was and how she was, and then tried to explain to her sort of like, what, what life was going to be like, and to prepare her.

And so, you know, I think so much of the rhetoric of traditional people is around a gender binary, so much of that rhetoric is around very cis normative, and, and, you know, mono normative pieces. So, you know, I think, something that that I really admire about Ma-Ne, and I think it goes into this sort of refusing patriarchy is just that, that she's a human who just lives her life and kind of refuses to do what other people say, and so carries on in the relationships that that she wants, and has a relationship with a variety of people and is like very clear about and frank about what that looks like, and sort of those relationships.

So I think that that was the thing that that that surprised me, and I think it reminded me, you know, because I think Ma-Ne is also someone who grew up with with folks who were quite isolated in the bush. So it reminds me of a little bit like how, you know, I think of folks in my own own family, like I have an ancestor whose name was a Ogimikwe, which translates basically, she was like a chief. And she was a self appointed Chief. So she just like, I want to be a leader now. And that's what she did. And her sons ended up being trading chiefs. And, you know, and I think there's this interesting sort of connection that I can talk about a little bit later to other other things that I'm thinking about. But I think, that notion of having relatives that accept you, of having a place, you know, I think, particularly for a Two Spirit narrative that that was not expected, because so many of the narratives that we have around Two Spirit identities, and I can think of other you know, even for lack of a better term, like younger, you know, Two Spirit authors that a theme often tends to be like rejection, and you have to create your own family, and, you know, no one on the reserves can accept you, like, no one a community can accept you.

And so, you know, I think it is actually why I think for those of us who are like older, not that I'm old, but older Two Spirit people why we have to radically accept youth, because you can see that really, and I don't think this is overestimate, like over stating the point, you know, I think Ma-Ne’s grandmother, like really saved her life. And I think that's the role that we have is a responsibility for for folks who were, you know, non binary and gender non conforming. And, you know, as I said earlier, agueo was how I, I identify, because really, like when we can play that role in someone's life, like it really is saving them. And so that's, I think, something that surprised me.

Patty:

Angela, I know you didn't read one of the books on the list, but you read a book, you know, that speaks to you in terms of relationships, and, and safety. And as you're talking, Sean, I was thinking about something that came up in the Reproductive Justice book where she's talking about, I think it was in that book, I’m getting things mixed up. Tell because we often talk about cultural competency and it being contrasted with cultural safety. And, you know, a place where we can exist safely as opposed to around the experts that are competent and how to deal with that. So, as you were talking, that was kind of what I was thinking about. Creating these places of safety where we can be and Angela, you've talked a little bit about that with your son trying to create this place of safety. So what surprises you or tugs at you about about the book that you read?

Angela:

Just, I didn't say much about myself in the beginning. So I'm just going to briefly do that, that I grew up in Ontario, Belleville, Ontario, and was adopted into a white family with four other black kids, my twin brother being one, and we were a product of being taken from our mother, who was a non landed immigrant. And were a part of a social experiment that was happening in Toronto, particularly in the 1960s. That carried over into the early 70s.

I'm now here in Vancouver, have been here for 22 years and have been had the pleasure of raising a beautiful boy who, who, who I see parallels in terms of our own struggle and isolation. So that has brought me to doing, I started out in human resources and now moving through, I studied addiction counseling and have decided I just want to write. So I think writing is an act of refusing the patriarchy. I really believe that and I think that this, and I think artists in general, and activism is that. And so this book speaks to me on that level, it surprised me in terms of the idea of writing as activism, because that's how I sort of I'm not I'm not necessarily somebody that goes out and, and protests. But I do. I think that what we're doing today, I think that, you know, speaking on a podcast, and and openly using the words white supremacy, is an act of refusing the patriarchy. So the title at first it that's spoke to me when it was given to me, but really, that is, it's about connecting with my people that I'm not necessarily connected to, who are fighting some of the things same things, even though they're in the States. We have been experiencing these things here, too, right?

There's a collectiveness around around trauma and lack of safety, but also resiliency. So it was just really great to see the resiliency of Black folks in this book doing what they what they are inspired to do, to support all other and not just Black folks. So that I think that surprised me very much of the book that it's not. It's all facing, it's all emotional facing and I appreciate that because it brings that up for me and allows me to be it's allowed me to be more real about myself and my experience. And I think that's why I keep going back to it.

Patty:

What's the name of the book again?

Angela:

It's called How We Fight White Supremacy.

Patty:

I'm just gonna put it into the chat so that people can get it how we fight white supremacy. Yeah,

Angela:

and so there's the author, the people that put it together Akiba Solomon, and can Kenrea Rankin and

Patty:

you can send that to Janessa and she can get the author's and all that information. Absolutely. Briefly forgot that that's when we have Jenessa here.

Nick, what surprised you about the books that you read?

Nick:

So um, I went into Split Tooth thinking that it was like a straight forward like memoir. And it was not um, it was really different from what I was expecting as far as like I wasn't really expecting like the supernatural element to it or not sure if supernatural is even the right term. But like kind of the other worldly sort of like, like communicating on you know, different planes with different you know, with with different aspects of the land in different you know, aspects of the environment.

And so, I definitely wasn't expecting that and I read some articles about it to try to like understand a little bit more and people compared it to Daniel Heath Justice’s wonder works from Why Indigenous Literature's Matter, the concept of Wonder Work that kind of defies categorization in like a colonial sense. And that truly like, I read that and I was like, Oh, that really explains a lot to me as far as like, just, it was so completely different from anything I had read before. Um, I guess I, I don't, I'm hesitant to say exactly what, what surprised me because I'm kind of hesitant to spoil the book, I think part of the journey of the book is being surprised by what happens. Um, but I was surprised, by the way that the way that she approached motherhood, and her motherhood journey, that was all very surprising to me, and I'll leave it at that.

Patty

Thank you, thank you, I think Tanya's comfort with the unseen and just how that was just such a, just another character in the book. Like, there wasn't. Yeah, and I find that with some, I think I'm finding that more with more Native authors now that it's not approached as this kind of weird spooky thing. It's just another character in you know, it's just, it's just there. But I think Tanya weaves it in in a really beautiful way and then maybe opens the door for more authors to be able to do that in in their own writing as well. It's, I'm gonna have to go back and read it. It's been a while. So it's been a while since I read it. I've had a couple of people had mentioned to me that they were planning on reading it and, and like I said you know, to both of you, it's like, okay, it's really raw. something you enjoy doing planned around the same time? I remember I remember being ..

Tate in your essay, what? What surprised you, as you as you wrote that, because we always have these ideas about the things that we're going to write, I'm in the midst of something myself. And really, it's kind of the book I picked. But now, there's a lot that changes.

Tate:

Well, and that, like I mentioned, that Fierce came out in 2018. And since then, I've been writing while I finished my first full length, Thunder Thighs and Trickster Vibes: Storied Advice From Your Two Spirited Auntie. And I finished that and it was supposed to come out November 2020, the publisher got COVID. And it just got pushed back. And to the point where though, so I finished it like last February, and had all my stuff in there. And I'm, you know, was in love with it, you know, baby push it out. Um, but the COVID happened. And then, you know, Black Lives Matter, which had been happening, but I mean, just really, here in Phoenix, we got really into it. Mascots had a whole different trajectory. And then, you know, our my own family having some issues.

So like, several chapters in there were just, like, completely destroyed, and had to be like, reworked and I shouldn’t say destroyed, I think, you know, evolved, if you will, which, you know, is sort of life, right? We're sort of always in transition. And the book was just sort of more on that. So yeah, that's been rough. So with Fierce though. So I was asked to write on anything related to like Indigenous feminisms, or like, pick a, pick somebody you would you would you would claim, as you know, your hero who folks don't know about it sounds like well Pte San Win. And of course, the first thing was No, a real person. Like, well, they were, we have a pipe for proof of that one you gave us. And so that was that was kind of the first fight was like, she was real. Any questions?

You know, so that that was interesting. And, you know, like, “we need citations.” You know, how many white people have seen Pte San Win? We like, Well, none, but I have citations from several elders across generations. But the the biggest one was, to me was the pushback I received from editors on the sections where I wrote about the harms, inherent within white feminism, which is, of course, white supremacy in action in so many ways. And there was just a lot of like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we gave you Pte San Win. We, you know, parentheses fake, but, um, you know, you were supposed to just talk about Indigenous feminism, we didn't want you to, you know, beat us all up, you know, I am a feminist and I am not, I'm white and I'm okay. And it'll became this sort of micro study of like, Well, what I'm talking about is actually what you're showcasing here and your editorial process, and so on.

Thankfully, we had a really great publisher who always had my back. And we were able to push through all my sections without any editorializing there or censoring, but it took a long time to have, you know, these nice white ladies nice white liberal ladies. Okay, you know, the discussion of things like, you know, the notion that being outside or being a caregiver, or you know, these things that we hold sacred, within, like, our ancestral stories in relationship with things like land or, you know, child rearing or just ideas and concepts of gender expansiveness, and how much those often fly in the face of, of white feminism of, you know, I don't want to be home, I want to, I want half a share in the, in the, the plantation, right? Like, I mean, that's white feminism in a nutshell, is that capitalist drive to own, if you will.

And that's just not, I mean, I'm preaching to the choir here. But so so my essay didn't, I wouldn't say it went super in depth into that stuff. But it was interesting to have the back, the back conversations with editors on, on how they were fitting into that model. And so then when we had like, the author readings and things like that, that conversation came up quite a bit, just in terms of, well, how does Indigenous feminism, you know, you know, isn't that an oxymoron, if you will? And no, I don't think it is. And I mean, I think maybe some people might start out with it being sort of, like, I'm an Indigenous person, and I'm a feminist, and I'm gonna, I don't know, advocate for, you know, corporations to hire more women in whatever, you know, and that's a bad example.

But essentially, like where we don't look at as intersectional a’la Kimberly Crenshaw, and how that can still harm sort of these movements that we've started with things like, oh, like the conversations, for instance, with missing and murdered Indigenous women, like that's been really evolving to talk about, like, missing and murdered indigenous relatives, and how we're, you know, we're just, we keep trying, right. And I think that's sort of the point. And again, when I go back to say, Pte San Win, we, and a lot of those teachings, it's always about change. It's always about how things are seasonal and evolutionary, right? I mean, even our language.

When I was a reporter, I did a story from Blackfoot scientist who was working on a Mars mission, and had his elder mother who was fluent in Blackfoot, Blackfoot create a dictionary of NASA terms. And it was really cool, because she was like, of course, we would have words for these, like, you know, people, like that's not traditional. You know, and we sort of get stuck in these like, has to be this way. And so anyway, going back to the Pte San Win teachings of just, you know, allow yourself to evolve and it happens. So, that essay, definitely, I think was a starting point to sort of my even own evolution of what it is to be Indigenous feminism, what that represents and how that changes and should change.

Patty:

Thankyou you. Yeah, that's, um, I'm old. I read the Hood Feminism recently. And she talks about one of the quotes from her was for women of color, the expectation is that we prioritize gender over race, that we treat the patriarchy as something that gives all men the same power and that leaves us feeling very isolated. Because white feminism is arguably the patriarchy. You know, like you said, it's the it's the drive to own it's the, you know, 500 CEOs control all the world's wealth. Well, half of those CEOs should be women. No, that's not gonna save the world. That's not the kind of feminism that we need. That's not the kind of things you know, you know, that's not you know, that. That's not the redemption we're looking for.

Dr. Robin, what, in your research in your books because I think you said you've read we've read most of these and you've also done your own writing. What surprised you what what did you go into something expecting and then what gift did you get from it?

Robin:

I don't think I don't ever know like as a writer, I don't think every anything ever turns out the way I want. But it turns out the way it should be. Although I really am glad Tate that you raised this because I just went through this horrible thing with a journal article about decolonizing #MeToo where I took on white feminism in Canada. And after two years of negotiating with the journal, I finally pulled the article because I'm not willing to go there.

And that's what I think, too, I want to share that same perspective, I'm always surprised by the backlash, even though I know it's probably like, every time, like, it's gonna be there, like, you can say anything about white folks, it's gonna come back at you. But I'm always surprised, and how virulent it is, and how forceful it is, and how, you know, vicious sometimes it can be. And that's always an interesting struggle when you're writing something like this, especially because I tend not to stray away from, I don't sugarcoat things. I don't have interest in that, you know, I've been really influenced by. I've worked with a lot of families of survivors, who've said, you know, we don't want you to exploit our story. But we also don't think people deserve like a sugar-coated version of what colonial violence is. Because we all have to live with it. So, so should everybody else and I find the resistance is stunning editors, publishers, audience, all of that students, faculty, you name it, is constant.

And it actually led me back to thinking about revisiting Halfbreed. Because I don't know about all of you, but have read was one of those first books I read. In fact, I think I actually have a first edition. And then to come back and realize, you know, it took what, you know, many years for them to actually release the version that was supposed to happen. And it had me thinking about the problematics of writing, especially for marginalized scholars, like, you know, the whole reason Maria Campbell is forced into the genre of autobiography is because the time publishers wouldn't print anything else, they directed all Indigenous peoples towards that category. In fact, that's one of the things that Emma LaRocque has written quite a bit about, right? We're not good enough to write academic books. We're not good enough to write even nonfiction. We're stuck in this category of autobiography, which makes some sense as Indigenous peoples, because we're storytellers. But then what are the limits of that?

So here's Mary Campbell telling this incredible story, and then ends up silenced for so long. And it's just like, you know, I, that's the kind of the challenge of this whole thing is what are the limits of what can be said? And what can't be said? And who gets to decide that? And then what are the punishments for the people who break those boundaries of what can and cannot be said? And you know, it that's I think that's really interesting. And it really revisiting Halfbreed made me think about that, how powerful that book was, but how it was also really, for so long, an incredible act of violence in many ways.

Because, again, Indigenous women were silenced. I just think that's so profound. And it's still happening. I mean, there's two examples in this conversation right now, of folks who are experiencing that, and I'm sure many, many more. So it makes me think about, you know, what is the world still go like, what are we facing? You know, how are our words to get to audiences, if we're being surveilled and silenced and surpressed? I think that's, you know, I'd hoped by the time I was 43, that the world might have changed. Maybe that's hopeful Robyn, who is an optimist, but I feel like we're still fighting this and it's not changing, and I shouldn't be surprised. And yet it still is this kind of violent assault again, and just a constant ache, I think, in terms of, you know, where are we going and the manifestations and how this switches and there's just so much there. So that I think, is what, where I headed with this.

Patty:

I think you are referring to her story of sexual assault by the RCMP officer is because she, because she had her in her book, originally, the editors pulled it out. And then when she revisited it for the, for the 25th I think it's the 25th anniversary, or like, the most recent edition that came out, she's like, Hey, this is missing something this was this was supposed to be in there. And so she insisted to go back in. And that's it. That's the version that I have.

But yeah, the thing because that's, like, Who Controls the story, even when they’re our stories, you know, beyond editors, like the power of the mob, you know, to to force our employers to control us. You know, for a long time I worked in child welfare, and there were a lot of things that I couldn't talk about. Not so much because it would you know, it was specific to certain clients and you know, I obviously know better than tell their stories, you know, but because it but most of the time I went to HR it was because something I had said on social media was reflecting badly on the organization. And that's a way of silencing people, you can't talk about these things, because we have this image, you know, where, you know, and you know, and all organizations operate that way they have this image.

And, you know, I'm thinking of Nora Loreto, who got badly targeted, you know, by white supremacists, and is basically unhire-able as a journalist in Canada. And yet, she's done some extraordinary research on the COVID numbers, and where the outbreaks and now journalists are using her numbers, and they're making money off of it, but she's not. She's in Canada, in the US, you get some stuff, but she's a Canadian journalist, and all about Canadian politics.

So all these different ways that we're controlled in terms of what we can say, and even, like, I can have my independent media, you know, my, you know, my little podcast, you know, my book club, these things that, you know, that I do, and the things that I do with Kerry, but our reach is controlled. They you know, whether it's on social media, or, you know, wherever there's always algorithms, controlling reach, and those things are. We can refuse patriarchy all day long, but they still own access to everything.

So when we think about our communities, whether there our communities, you know, as Indigenous peoples, as you know, the places where we work our chosen communities, what do we want from them? What do we want from them that will help us, you know, to pick up on that idea of cultural safety and the ways in which we are silenced? What do we want from our communities? And maybe I'll start with Nick.

Nick:

Um, I think, um, I honestly think the most important thing in a community is I think space to allow people to, to grow and be themselves and also a space where we can hold each other accountable while still doing so in a nurturing way. Like, I think restorative and transformative justice movements are really important when we're talking about community building. Because I see a lot of really hurt traumatized people hurting each other because, you know, somebody does something wrong, and it triggers somebody's fight or flight response. And, you know, I think we need to allow, you know, allow ourselves space to grow, and the space to hold each other accountable, to, you know, keep each other to keep each other safe or as safe as we can. So, you know, holding people accountable for messing up, but also doing so in a nurturing way so that people can grow back together.

Patty:

Angela, what do you what do you need from your community?

Angela:

I certainly like what Nick had to say about space, because I'm having this challenge around inclusion. It seems to be a part of the you know, diversity, equity, inclusion stuff, and I hear it all the time in my workplace, and it's driving me insane. So, I like the idea of space. Thank you, Nick. I think that you know, there has to be, I think that we can be, I find people of color in general, very forgiving, I think we have to be as part of our spirit, our spirit, Indigenous, Black. I just that is my experience, because of all the resiliency. And I think that anybody has been in a place of other, we naturally I this is my belief, I don't know. But we naturally have it just an openness to the mistakes of other because we have been suppressed and oppressed for so long. So if we are given a place of, of space to be who we are, there is that opportunity for transformation. The problem is that a system doesn't want to give up that space. It's too threatening for them.

And so what I what I would ask is along with space is is the opportunity for people just to be vulnerable? Just to say, you know what, I fucked up pardon my language I do that. So how do we work this out so that I'm not keeping I'm not continuing to do this and can continuing to activate your nervous system. I know that I have this in me I know you know, whatever it is, I know but let's let's have the space, the openness to to both be vulnerable in that. I think transformative transformation can happen in that space. And I, that's what I would like to see in all places

Patty

I read one of the books that I've read recently We Do This Till We Free Us by Mariame Kaba, and one and she's an abolitionist. And one of the things that she talks about is getting away from this consequence mindset. Because if we're thinking about being accountable, when we think about being accountable, if there's always consequences and punishment, nobody's going to admit to doing anything, because why would I? I'm going to deflect as long as possible because I'm worried about losing my , losing my friend, losing access to something, you know, losing followers, you know, I'm worried about punishment. But if we're thinking about real accountability, which is what rebuilds relationships, that's when we can move forward, that's when people are free to admit things and to acknowledge that they screwed up. Because we screw up. We make when we make mistakes

Tate what do you what do you want or need from your community?

Tate:

I think the biggest thing that came to mind was a people need to listen. And that includes myself. We mentioned earlier, like young people, you know, they have so much to say. And beyond just like you know, our tick tock social media stuff. I think I think a lot of magic happens when we start letting them lead with these new ideas. And as a 40 something I would think I'm okay to say, you know, youngins have have something to say. But that includes, you know, folks that are often pushed aside and Two spirits, elderly, things like that, but I like this idea of space, and maybe want to incorporate that into, you know, the idea of land back. And how, you know, be unapologetic about the demanding of our Indigenous lands back. And what and however, that looks, there's been a lot of really successful initiatives to reclaim land, a lot of it has to deal with, you know, we're in a capitalistic society. So there's a lot of exchange of money for that land, but it's happening, and I just want to see it happen a lot more.

And when when when that land back happens, right, when when when it's returned to Indigenous caretaking? Because I don't I think, you know, much like we talked about with white feminism and ownership, you know, this, this concept of, you know, what, what do you do with the land when we go back to and how does that look, when I when you say give me the land back? Like, it's pretty simple, I think. But there's this element of relationship that goes into our ideas of land back that lead to things like language reclamation, right, like, when we start recognizing land as a, as a relative, that language starts coming back to us. And I'm thinking of someone like Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer in Breeding Sweetgrass, and how just, you know, the land has a language to it, and listening to that is there's often a lot of growth that happens.

And then, you know, so So reclaiming that language, land and getting getting the language back leads us to, you know, other relatives, whether that's a, you know, non human relatives or your family too. I think there's a lot of really great things that are possible when we encompass, you know, the land with with our community. Stop there, because I'm going to wax romantic now. And my name means the wind. Just kidding.

Patty: 1:09:05

Land back, though, yes. Because if we're going to have space, we need space. And you have to have safe relationships includes the land, and I just finished so yeah, Robin Wall Kimmerer. Yes. But I just finished a really extraordinary book by Mary Jorstad. She's a Norwegian, Hebrew scholar. And she wrote a book about the Hebrew, what Christians will call the Old Testament about how the whole the world is alive. You know, about how, you know, just kind of the life and the agency of the land, the agency of the trees and all of that and, you know, kind of this completely other worldview that has really been stripped out of it. Anyway, it's just it was just an extraordinary, it was really beautiful. And I think you know, you know, Nick mentioned that they were Jewish and that there's a lot of Tribal thinking, I don't know, maybe that's not the right word. But you know, in terms in terms of talking about, you know, with some other Jewish people on Twitter that we have a lot in common in the way we do connect with land, which is not to go all Zionist on you because freedom for Palestine means freedom for everybody. Right? Just like land back for us does not mean bouncing everybody back to Europe with the exception of maybe a couple I can think of. But for the most part, it means about sharing the land in a good way, living together in a good way, if the Haudenosaunee and the Anishinaabeg can live together in a good way, anybody can live together. I'm gonna say about that.

Dr. Robin, you have a lot of things you need from your community. Oh, my goodness.

Robyn:

Thank you for that. I think I you know, the best way for me to approach this actually. So think about violence, because that's what I think about every single day of my life. And in that regard, I need accountability. And let me let me unpack that for a minute. Um, you know, I still can't believe you know, what I'm thinking about Sarah Deer’s work. I’m thinking about what Maria Campbell goes through. I want people to believe survivors, I don't want to have to fight anymore to convince people that I've experienced violence enough, like enough. And then I want people to hear that, and I want them to be accountable. I don't want my community defending or protecting abusers, especially well known abusers. That is not acceptable. And it just perpetuates everything we're fighting against. It perpetuates patriarchy, it perpetuates colonialism, all of it.

And I just, you know, when I'm looking at the the work we do around violence, and that we still have to convince people every single day that we're being raped, that we're being trafficked, that we're being murdered, that all of these things are happening, and they're still happening at this huge level. And then our communities are like, No, yeah, no, this is just, you know, somebody who made a really bad mistake. Okay. But I still want you to be accountable.

And here's the thing though, I'm with Patty, I am not, you know, this is not the responses not the carceral system, like, at all, not even a little bit, you know, I really want us to think of new ways, because it is still true at the end of the day, that, you know, some of our Indigenous community who are inflicting violence on other people are is because of this history of colonial violence. And because of the way it's internalized, and the way it's manifested, and how, you know, violence at the end of the day gives us power, and when you're disempowered that sometimes can feel like power, right? And, and I struggle with that. And, you know, we're dealing with all kinds of problems.

So we need something other than prison to be the answer to this, we need accountability. And we need to ensure that our communities are safe. But there has to be another solution other than locking somebody up. And that's where, you know, I think we need to really think seriously about how do we respond as a community to these situations? How can we respond in a good way that first of all, always centers the survivors, like, if you are not sending this centering the survivors in your response, you are inflicting even more harm. So it has to be centered there, and then you have to work and think about this, and we have to do this in a really good way. And here's the thing, I think he's indigenous groups, I'm just gonna throw that out there that, you know, given our 100 years of justice in our own systems, we might have some ideas about how that might work. Right. You know, I'm thinking about Cree natural law and how that might work. You know, we do have to I agree with Sean, I think, you know, I can only speak for Cree interpretation of things. But I think we have to do a better job of just disrupting the gender binary, within some of the way Cree teachings are taught, you know, we're limited to male and female. And yet we know in Cree language, there's at least six or seven different gender identities. And that's just the ones we know of. Right.

So I think we need to fight against that a little bit, too. But I think, you know, this, the carceral system is not the answer is where I was going. And that we really need to think about what else could this look like, but I do still want accountability. And I do still want survivors to be safe. And I do want other members of the community be safe, and not have people protecting someone who's known, you know, a known predator, but just like Enough, enough, aren't our lives worth more than that? That's, I just I can't get over that. So I'm gonna stop there.

Patty:

That's a frequent thing that people bring up in terms of countering abolitionist arguements. But what about all the rapists? What are you gonna do with them? And it's like, well, They're not in jail now anyway, they're walking around the streets anyway. Because you know what, you know, if you've got this many to keep it in the screen, and you've got this many sexual assaults happening, you've got this many actually being reported. And then you got this many who actually go to jail, and then they're only out in two years, less a day. So really, 95% of the sexual predators are already out on the street with absolutely no incentive to admit they have a problem?

Yeah, so if we find another way of dealing with things, a way that centers the victim that believes the victim, like my God, how many? How many things, would adults would be saved? If we listened to teenage girls, when they told us that somebody was dangerous? If we listened to young men, when they told us somebody was dangerous, how many future things? Oh, anyway, that's a whole other episode.

Sean, what do you need from your community?

Sean:

Um, so I think I was thinking about, I think, firstly, the ability to be a whole and complete person. And that's in with its messiness. But also responsibility to kin right so the idea is that are especially for Cree and Anishinaabeg, folks. Kinship is our foundational thing. So the first question we ask is, where are you from? Which is not where are you physically from? It's who are your relations who are your relatives? Right? Because, you know, for like, in some ways, we are literally all related, because, you know, we have Migration Stories and may have come from from similar places. But we're always trying to find family and always trying to find, you know, who we fit in with and how.

I think that, that idea of being a whole and complete person, also comes back to that perpetual fear of violence, and rejection, which is his own kind of, which is his own kind of violence. And I think especially as like, for me as a disabled like mixed person who doesn't ascribe to a gender binary, there's a constant worry about how much I can show up in the various spaces I come into, right. So, you know, the mental thing is, okay, is this a place I can put lipstick on? Is this a place I could wear a ribbon skirt to, like, you know, or maybe I'm feeling like, I want to wear my ribbon vest today, right? Like it, that idea of being binary, of fighting that binary is very confusing for folks. Because, again, those are not necessarily teachings that have been maintained in the same way. When I think a lot about how the land, right, when we talk about the land, the land doesn't reject us, right? When you go and sit with creation, creation doesn't go, Oh, I'm sorry, you don't fit into my binary notions and colonial notions of gender go away, like the sun shines on all of us, you know, the grass and the waters embrace us like these are these are foundational things that we all have the right to, to go and sit with creation. And, you know, and capitalism is about separating this from that, right?

Like I spend, you know, like a lot of employed people, I spend all my day on a friggin zoom, you know, call right now, with the sun just outside my window that I can see. You know, and so, I also think about how, when we talk about that land back notion that we have to get rid of these categories that the government has put us in and created on our behalf that separate us, right. So you know, whether we're talking about, you know, status Indians, whether we're talking about Metis, or Inuit in these, like artificial categories that aren't really, you know, that don't exist, because ultimately, we were all folks who had relationships with each other, and like various communities where you know, all three of those people and kinds of people might have existed in one place, and how do you tell them apart, right language culture, like, all of these things, I think, for a really long time, were things that we managed, and we had control over. And then the government has decided for, you know, since the 1870s, like, how that works for us. And that hasn't worked for us.

So I think that could also be a whole topic of itself. And then also, allowances for other kinds of relationship structures. So you know, there's a history of my family, that's very confusing, because so many of my ancestors had multiple partners, and trying to map out who's kids are who and who has cousins. And that kind of stuff is very difficult. Partially because we were so far in the West that the church didn't get us for a while. So we weren't having church marriages until actually probably pretty close to like the early 1900s kind of time. So then before then, you know, their relationship structures of all sorts, and I myself am ascribed to a non monogamous relationship kind of structure. Kim TallBear talks a lot about this idea of critical polyamory. And so there's alternative relationship structures that we could look into. And I would appreciate if those were like recognized and valued in our communities, as opposed to again replicating these very colonial structures. And then, I think the other piece I was thinking of that Angela had said of writing as activism, like I like to write queer smutty erotic poetry, and that's one of the ways that I personally challenge patriarchy, and I challenged notions around gender and I, you know, I literally have a poem that's in my hallway right now that's that's framed because it was part of an art thing. That is about you know, being like a seahorse and getting pegged, right. So like, this is like, you know, I like that phrase like peg the patriarchy, right? Like there's this whole idea of this work can be sort of like trans, transgressive, but not really. Because you know you can you can pull with those pieces.

And I think again, it's about taking up space. Because patriarchy controls who we love and for indigenous people how we love and and who we should be. And we're storytellers, right. So I think about the truths that, that Maria talks about, that Tanya talks about, that Ma-Ne talks about, like, you know, that point of like, I always love the notion of like being careful what you ask for in our communities, because someone asked him, I want you to tell your story. And that's what they got. They got a full unfiltered, like, this is the story, right?

And so, you know, the question I have as a senior leader in an institution, because I think much like Robyn and I sort of have that weird, sort of senior leadership, Indigenous role doing Indigenisation work. I'm also like, how much can I show up in that space? Like, how much do I talk about my smutty poetry side, right? And who can I talk about that too, without discrediting myself as as being taken seriously as an academic or someone who's also talking about these things. And so all of those pieces, I think, are things that I kind of sit with around around trying to understand what I what I want for my community.

And I yeah, there's some there's some good, I don't know if other folks can see this chat. But there's a “talk about smutty poetry always.” So I Do I Do I enjoy it. And we actually have an event gladly regularly called Smart peddlers that started, literally, because we just wanted to tell a sexy story to each other. So, so I'm always down for that. And so I just, you know, having that be accepted, and not weird not weirding people out, because in our community sometimes because of all that colonial violence and history it does, right. We're not supposed to talk about sex, we're not supposed to talk about especially like, non heteronormative sex and especially not, you know, non monogamous sex. Actually, these are all things that we're never supposed to mention in any company. So I think, you know, pushing back on those things, because so many of our stories, our traditional stories are freaking hilarious. And so filthy, so filthy. So that's a good note, I think so I'll say miigwech then

Patty:

Actually, I can confirm. I got a book a book, Patricia Ningewance is language teacher Ojibwe language teacher from Lac Seul First Nation. She pulled out a book of traditional stories from Lac Seul that she had heard as a child you know, these are things that she had heard as a child, and one of them is the skull the rolling skull, which is apparently also a Cree story. I'm reading through these stories and I'm like, these are naughty story for why penises are the size they are. Add massive life size and put it out on Twitter because it was just so hilarious. Anyway, so yeah, so Sean and Angela and Tate, if you guys have a website where people can access some of your work, if you could put that into our chat and then Janessa we'll get that out there because I think I think people are it's out people are here for smutty poetry that's so we're actually getting very close to our hour and a half which is bonkers these conversations go so fast.

So just by way of kind of a final trip around the circle, what book did you not read, but you've heard about today, and now you want to read it?

Angela:

I want to read Halfbreed well, I knew about Halfbreed. I want to read that but I also want to read Split Tooth. So it's a it's a balance

Nick:

I'd like to read Halfbreed and the Two Spirit Journey.

Patty:

Tate just wants to read Sean’s poetry

Tate

I’m looking at Sean’s right now. Smutty’s poetry is coming. Actually, I'm gonna leave it at that. Yep. I'm gonna stalk your Instagram now, Sean.

Robyn:

I'm also in for smutty poetry. So just saying I will also be stalking but I'm Split Tooth. This is on my nightstand. But I've been warned and I have not ever felt strong enough yet to read it. But after hearing everybody today, maybe it's time. So thank you,.

Sean:

I think I want to finish Split Tooth slowly. Like again, it's for me, it's really like, like almost like poem by poem. So I'll commit to finishing that at some point. It's also just a beautiful book like it's beautifully bound and like looks looks really pretty and I think Fierce is the other one that I'm really interested in. So, you know, I'm gonna see or, you know, the true answer is whatever I can get on Kobo, that's not going to take 12 weeks to come from the Toronto Public Library system

Patty: 1:25:18

For me, I think that'll be Ma-Ne Chacaby’s biography partly because I think it's the only one on the list that I haven't read. But also I know Maya and you know, so I, you know, I'm connected, you know, connected with I'm connected with my event and she's a really interesting person, I really like her. So I want to hear from another Chacaby. I want I want, I want to hear that story. I want to know, I want to know that story as well.

And anyway, I'm just so pleased about all of the things that we talked about. You guys have given me a lot to think about. And you know, you've given me smutty poetry, which is outside of my comfort zone, really. Three years of talking to Kerry, I think I'd be more comfortable with it. But no, I'm was raised white. And do my best doing my best. So just any last words from anybody I've really, I've really enjoyed all the contributions that everybody has brought, and given me and kind of the way you guys kind of play off of each other. And, you know, anyway. Yeah, you guys, as always, these panels give me so much to think about. So any last words from anybody, I'll start picking on people.

Angela: 1:26:38

I, I just want to thank everyone, I just really want to thank everyone for your just your openness and your honesty and your truth. I just, it just lit my heart. Thank you.

Sean:

Um, I just want to say thank you, chi miigwech for that. I will, because we've talked about money poetry, and I would be remiss and not saying this, we were actually nominated for we're a finalist for a lambda. Because we did a glaad day 50th anniversary zine that a lot of my poetry is featured in. So we'll see if I can find the link for that. It's also got some very smutty photos in it. So just be aware that is a definite sort of, like, draw the shades and not for kids kind of situation or for kids, you know, depends on your parenting relationship, I suppose. So anyway, so I will throw that in the chat also. But I'm just really grateful to to be able to have this conversation and to chat about all this stuff. It was a really good time, miigwech

Nick: 1:27:54

I also just want to thank everyone, thank you for inviting me to this space, Patty. I've really enjoyed hearing from everyone and getting to know everyone just a little bit. I, I do some abortion storytelling work as a transgender person who had an abortion. So if anyone's interested, I was in a documentary called Ours To Tell about abortion access in the United States. And I kind of followed four abortion storytellers. And we kind of did a retrospective of our abortion stories and what that means for abortion access in the future. So it's called Ours To Tell, and it's on YouTube. Just if anyone's interested.

Patty:

If you could drop the title in the chat for Janessa she'll get that out to everybody Tate?. And then we'll give the last word to Dr. Robin.

Tate:

Yeah, wopila tanka, Thank you for having me on. So interesting. Love it. I want to leave you with a quote. It kind of follows what what Angela had mentioned about writing as activism or writing as sort of like your expression and outlet. And as somebody who considers himself a storyteller, I like to think of myself as living by this quote. It's from a tweet of Taizhou Cole. And I'll drop his link there in the chat later. But in 2014, he wrote, writing, as writing, writing, as rioting, and writing as righting as R IG H T -ing, and on the best days, all three. And so I really like this concept of how writing really is all encompassing, and plays into a lot of the work that we're just constantly doing almost inherently right. Especially when you consider yourself or consider the work you do like as a form of storytelling, which I think most of what we do in life, especially if you're a caregiver is right, just that passing down of knowledge. So you're doing a good job, Angela, and all have you. So I appreciate the being part of this space. Thank you so much.

Robyn 1:30:03

I think you should have just ended there. Because I'm not going to come up with anything that eloquent at the moment. Oh, I love that. I just want to say thank you so much. We've had a really rough couple of days at work it, it's been really nice to come and sit in a room full of people and talk about books. I mean, that's what I love. And all of you are so brilliant that I've learned so much from each of you. And I just, you know, thank you for asking me to be part of this. And I just, I can't wait to come back.

Patty:

We will have you back. And I would be remiss in saying that, thanks to a relationship with the Vice Provost of Indigenous engagement at Brock University. Aambe does receive some financial support. And we really, really appreciate that because people are worth their labor, right? So yes, so yay, thanks to Brock University. Somehow, I'm gonna have to put that logo on the webpage because y'all have given me money and not get any credit for it.

So anyway, so thank you, everybody. And thank you people in the chat next month is Richard Wagamese Month. So we're going to be talking about coming home. That is a really, when I was developing this list, I'm gonna blame Kyle, because Kyle had just asked for a couple of indigenous books to read. And then I wound up going month by month and I wasn't planning on doing this. I was just going month by month. And so I made June because I was thinking about fathers and made June, Richard Wagamese baa mine. And, you know, now that I'm doing panels is really challenging, because unless I have a seance I will be able to have him with us. But the theme is going to be about coming home. And we're really fortunate that Sheila Rogers, who is a close friend of Richard Richard baa’s is going to be with us to talk about her relationship with him and his books and the themes of coming home. We're also going to have Dr. Raven Sinclair, who has done a ton of research on the 60 Scoop. And then Daniel Delgado who has been on the podcast before, he's a Jewish Quechua writer, living in the Southwest, and, you know, and, you know, being a father and we had talked with him previously about being Indigenous on land that wasn't, you know, being a long way from home.

So, you know, so those are the three and really, if anybody is a big fan of Richard Wagamese Ba and wants to come back and talk about coming home and his books, hit me up, because I got two more spots that I need to fill for this conversation. So yeah, so come back in June and I promise I'll get the information to everybody out sooner.

Thank you guys so much for being reminded at the last minute and not standing me up.

And they talk and laugh and have a great time. Back in the summer we talked about fiction and the stories we tell about our communities and ourselves. I was joined by Waubgeshig Rice, (an Anishinaabe storyteller and journalist) as well as Sonia Sulaiman (a keeper of Palestinian folktale) and Kesha Christie (an Afro-Caribbean storyteller).

There’s just too much good fiction out there and it was hard to make a list of the books that people should read because there’s just so much that is excellent. And when I started thinking about Indigeneity as a global thing, well the amount of excellent fiction just exploded and then I had a thought.

What if we talked about our stories, about recovering them and saving them and sharing them with others and so I gathered three storytellers and we shared our stories. We shared our stories of dislocation and trauma, our stories of Nakba and the Middle Passage and Residential Schools. We shared our stories of butts and babies that are little s***s and tricky spiders. We shared the stories that we saved from white anthropologists who had a single story about us. And it was magic.So please. listen and share widely. You can read the transcript here.

And join us next month at www.twitch.tv/patty_wbk when we talk about Being Indigenous.

I encountered Richard Wagamese ba shortly after I found my father, which was in my late 20s.  My mother had moved us down south after they separated and I was raised with my maternal family, Ukranians who had come to Canada as refugees. They loved me, but I was the brown child in the white family. The fact that they loved me did not change the loss that I felt. I had no contact with my paternal family who lived, as I thought all Indians did, far away from me in the northwest.  I had no idea that there were several reserves within just a few hours of me including Anishnaabe reserves.  I thought I was all alone.  I was alone. 

The first book I read was Keeper ‘n Me in which Garnet Raven is taken from his family at 3 years old and raised in foster care.  There is one scene in which Garnet is playing cowboys and Indians with the other children and they want him to be the Indian and he becomes distraught because he doesn’t know how. 

I didn’t know how.  

Richard ba also found his family in his mid 20s, just as I did, and began that journey to find place and home and belonging that is anything but linear. It goes back and forth between connection and loss, between hope and grief, between belonging and being a tourist in your own community. The things we learned about native people were the same things that everyone else learned, all those stereotypes that are probably flooding your brain right now. The difference being that when we looked in the mirror we saw those things like tattoos. We saw them inscribed in our features, marks that wouldn’t wash off. 

His final books, Medicine Walk and Starlight, reveal a different man than his earlier works.  One who has accepted himself and his relationship with the world around him and I feel that too. I feel that knowing, not all the time .. it’s still elusive and transitory but it is there and if I quiet myself I can feel the threads that tie me here.  Whether you have read all of his books or just one, whether you know him only from the movie Indian Horse and wish you knew him better, I hope you enjoy this discussion.The panel:  

Jenessa Galenkamp  is a citizen of the Métis Nation. Originally from Tiny, Ontario by the shores of Georgian Bay, She now lives and works in St. Catharines. She spends her 9-5 working as an executive administrative assistant, and her weekends in the summer are often spent photographing weddings. When not working, Jenessa loves hiking with her partner, playing cribbage, reading, chilling with their two cats, Eleanor Rigby and Penny Lane, or working out ways for her church community to become better relatives with the broader community and learning as she goes.

Daniel Delgado is Quechua runa and Jewish. He is a writer with varied and overlapping interests in fantasy, journalism, deep ecology, and decolonization. Daniel was previously on the podcast I host, Medicine for the Resistance, where we talked about the Quechua and Jewish cosmologies and holding onto your histories while living in diaspora. One thing that stayed with me is the idea of multiple worlds and inevitable shifts in how the world is structured, these shifts are inevitable and it is our responsibility to be ready.Dalton Walker, Red Lake Anishinaabe, is an award-winning journalist based in Phoenix. He is the deputy managing editor at Indian Country Today. Before Indian Country Today, Dalton was the senior reporter at O’odham Action News in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community in Arizona. Dalton has worked at The Gazette in Colorado Springs, Sioux Falls Argus Leader and Omaha World-Herald.

Dalton is a speaker and presenter to various local academic institutions concerning journalism and Native youth empowerment.  He served on the Native American Journalists Association board of directors from 2013-2016. Follow him on Twitter @daltonwalker 

Raven Sinclair is a member of Gordon First Nation of the Treaty #4 area of southern Saskatchewan. Raven has been with the faculty since July 2005. Raven was previously on faculty with the First Nations University of Canada, and has taught at Masckwacis Cultural College, and the access division of Calgary’s Faculty of Social Work. She is a founding editorial member of Indigenous Voices in Social Work (UHawaii), and a regional editor for AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples.

Raven’s academic and research interests include Indigenous knowledge and research methodologies, the synthesis of traditional and contemporary healing theories and modalities, aboriginal cultural identity issues, adoption, colonial and decolonization theories, and mental health and wellness.  She particularly enjoys facilitating workshops in interpersonal communication based on an accountability model.Raven owns Resonance Counselling, Coaching, and Consulting in Saskatoon.

Shelagh Rogers is a broadcaster for more than 40 years, Shelagh has won the John Drainie Award for Significant Contribution to Canadian Broadcasting. She has worked on programs such as Morningside, The Arts Tonight and This Morning. She has been an advocate for people with mental illness for more than a decade, often speaking about her own depression. The Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH) presented her a Transforming Lives Award in 2008. She was named a Champion of Mental Health in 2009. In 2010, she received the Hero Award from the Mood Disorders Association of Ontario and the 2010 Voices of Mental Health Award from CMHA BC. In 2016, she was the inaugural recipient of the Margaret Trudeau Award for Mental Health Advocacy.

In 2011, she was named an Officer of the Order of Canada for promoting Canadian culture, for advocacy in mental health, truth and reconciliation, and adult literacy. That same year, she was inducted as an Honorary Witness for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a role she committed to for the rest of her life. Shelagh is a co-editor of the series of the Speaking My Truth books about truth, justice and reconciliation published by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. She has received the Achievement Award from Native Counselling Services of Alberta. She holds honorary doctorates from six universities, and is the Chancellor of the University of Victoria.

Shelagh revels in stories and like Richard Wagamese, believes we can change the world, one story at a time.

Refusing Patriarchy.  The theme for this month went through several iterations, originally I was thinking about Mother’s Day and the various ways that we mother that go far beyond a binary that is so comforting to some and so alienating for others.  Then I thought about the way that norms become so pervasive that we become defined by them, on one side are men and on the other women, 2SLGBTQIAA, and non binary people.  So I thought about Navigating Patriarchy.  But no, that wasn’t right.  I landed on Resisting Patriarchy, because that’s closer to what we do, we push back against it.  

And then my brain latched onto Refusing Patriarchy. And that’s where it stayed because more than navigating or resisting, a politics of refusal simply refuses to engage. A politics of refusal turns it’s back on patriarchy and just goes on building something new, something different, something closer to what we had before.  A politics of refusal does not seek inclusion because if what are we seeking inclusion into?  The people on this panel have all refused: refused to let Patriarchy define the boundaries or decide when we have transgressed them. Refused to be defined and in that way have defined refusal.  

For racially marginalized people patriarchy is not always the final boss that needs to be dismantled, our men don’t benefit from it the same way that cis white men do, they don’t even benefit from it the same way that cis white women do.  And Homonormativity means that queer white men often benefit from patriarchy as well.  

Refusing Patriarchy.  

The panel:  

Robyn Bourgeois (Laughing Otter Caring Woman, she/her) is a mixed-race Cree woman born and raised in Syilx and Splats’in territories of British Columbia, and connected through marriage and her three children to the Six Nations of the Grand River. She is an associate professor in the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies at Brock, where her scholarly work focuses on indigenous feminisms, violence against indigenous women and girls, and indigenous women’s political activism and leadership. In addition to being an academic, Robyn is also as activist, author, and artist.

Angela J. Gray (she/her) is an emerging writer and visual artist who has shared her writing and poetry on Vancouver Co-op Radio’s Storytelling Show. Angela has trained as a photographer and enjoys using photography and acrylic painting as means to enhance her writing endeavours. Her training as a community addictions counsellor is a valuable resource to her creative work.Nick (they/them) is a white Jewish settler living on Coahuiltecan, Karankawa, and Sana land in Houston, TX. They are a queer transgender abortion storyteller, and they focus on improving abortion care and support for queer and trans people and providing practical support for people seeking abortions in the Houston area. They are married and have two cats, and they spend a lot of their free time knitting and cross stitching.Seán Carson Kinsella is migizi dodem (Bald Eagle Clan) and also identifies as twospirit/queer/crip/aayahkwêw and is descended from signatories of Treaties 4, 6 and 8 (êkâ ê-akimiht nêhiyaw/otipemisiwak/Nakawé/Irish). They were born in Toronto, on Treaty 13 lands and grew up in Williams Treaty territory. A member of the Titiesg Wîcinímintôwak Bluejays Dancing Together Collective, Seán has been featured as a reader at both last year’s and this year’s Naked Heart festival. Their zine pîkiskiwewin sâkihtowin featuring poems of Indiqueer futurism, survival and getting hot and bothered was released last year. They are currently the Director, the Eighth Fire at Centennial College and have previously taught Indigenous Studies there as well.  

Taté Walker is a Lakota citizen of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe of South Dakota. They are a Two Spirit feminist, Indigenous rights activist, and a published and award-winning storyteller for outlets like “The Nation,” “Everyday Feminism,” “Native Peoples” magazine, and “Indian Country Today,” and “ANMLY.” They are also featured in several anthologies: FIERCE: Essays by and about Dauntless Women, South Dakota in Poems, and W.W. Norton’s Everyone’s an Author. Their first full-length book, Thunder Thighs & Trickster Vibes: Storied Advice from your Fat, Two Spirit Auntie, is set to publish in 2021. Taté uses their 15+ years of experience working for daily newspapers, social justice organizations, and tribal education systems to organize students and professionals around issues of critical cultural competency, anti-racism/anti-bias, and inclusive community building.

Somehow the last 20 minutes got truncated in the podcast release. You can watch and listen to the entire episode on Twitch.

transcript follows the show notes.

What are the conditions our communities need to see the Milky Way?  

This is the question that Chanda Prescod-Weinstein poses near the end of her book The Disordered Cosmos.  I hadn’t meant to include a book on astro/physics when I created April’s topics, and indeed when I first thought of April I thought only about Braiding Sweetgrass. But I follow Chanda on Twitter and she’s been on the podcast and when I saw that she had written a book it occurred to me that we don’t look up often enough, so I asked her if she thought it would be appropriate and she thought that it would be. I hadn’t read the book at that point yet, it wasn’t published until early March, but we really don’t look up often enough.  

When Chanda was on the podcast I had made a cheeky comment about Thoreau sitting in the woods thinking his Big Thoughts while his mother brought him sandwiches. It’s a common remark, intended to remind people of Thoreau’s privilege and the nonsense of Enlightenment ideas about pristine wilderness. Chanda turned this over and reminded me that the people who make her meals, who empty her garbage can, who sweep the floors and do all the myriad caretaking that exists in the world are also part of the scientific process.  Enlightenment ideas about wilderness are nonsense, but not because Thoreau didn’t make his own sandwiches.

So what are the conditions that our communities need to see the Milky Way?

To notice badgers and raccoons?

To gather moss?

To watch the growth of plants and their relationships to each other?

To be undrowned.  

Each of this books talks about how our relationships with the world around us are made complicated and disconnected.  Animals are an inconvenience. Food comes in packages. Weeds get pulled. Pets are much loved but still commodities, animals we buy and sell and who themselves live in disconnection.  We learn to listen to the world around us on its own terms, not just to draw lessons from them. They are teachers, but we need to be careful about the way we think about that because they don’t exist in order to teach us. Teaching is part of reciprocal relationship, it is not transactional and as Chanda notes in quantum physics, the act of observing has consequences, it changes the thing being observed. 

So when we think of the conditions that we need in order to see, to know, to gather, to watch, to be undrowned we think about all the barriers that exist. The lights that drown out the stars and the distance that you need to drive, if you even have access to a car, to be somewhere that you can see. The way that we live in cities, not the fact of cities but the way that we have constructed them to pull resources from places we call remote and then concentrate them to meet certain needs, depriving those places of the resources that they need.  

We think about our location, because our location and the way that we think about it is what complicates these things.  And thinking about our location helps us to work through what we might do differently.  How we might imagine, and then enact, a world where Black children can see the night sky and dream big dreams that come true.  

If you haven’t had time to read the books, that’s ok. Please join us anyway. I have resources for you:

* This conversation with Daniel about his book Raccoon that comes out in June.

* This conversation with Mi’kmaq astronomer Hilding Neilson about Indigenous stargazing.

* This magical interview with Mari Joerstad about the ways in which the Hebrew Bible describes a world that is filled alive with other than human persons.

* And this article about the first three months of conversations.

This month’s panel:

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is an American and Barbadian theoretical cosmologist, and is both an Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy and a Core Faculty Member in Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of New Hampshire.  She is the author of The Disordered Cosmos, a book connecting theoretical physics and Black feminisms.

http://www.cprescodweinstein.com/

Daniel Heath Justice is a American-born Canadian academic and member of the Cherokee Nation. He is professor of First Nations and Indigenous Studies and English at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Why Indigenous Literatures Matter which we discussed in January as well as Badger and the soon to be released Raccoon. Daniel also writes Wonderworks, which are speculative fictions.

Home

Neil Ellis Orts is a writer and performer living in Houston, Texas. His novella, Cary & John, is available for order wherever you order books. He is currently putting together a short story collection. Themes that emerge from Neil’s body of work include identity and religious faith, and of course grief.  There is almost always someone dead or dying in his stories, having absorbed the Pauline line about death being the final enemy.  His performance work often invites his audience into self reflection.  

https://www.neilellisorts.com/

Ben Krawec is self-described forest geek.  A wild harvesting, dumpster diving, Anishnaabeinnini.  

https://www.instagram.com/foodgetter/

Celeste Smith is an Oneida woman living in Anishnaabe territory and the founder of Cultural Seeds, a plant-based business rooted in Traditional Indigenous Knowledges. 

https://www.instagram.com/culturalseeds/

More info on this yearlong series of discussions about Indigenous Literatures at daanis.ca/ambeTRANSCRIPT: transcript is lightly edited for clarity

Surrounded by relatives

Fri, Jun 30, 2023 10:23AM • 1:09:20

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

land, book, indigenous, talk, relationship, plant, braiding, thought, year, writes, conversation, live, discovery, people, growing, called, fight, medicine, discovered, hear

00:14

PK  I am so happy to be here to talk about being surrounded by relatives, these  books that we've that I've collected are just some of them were really surprising to me.  I hadn't. I don't think any of my high school science teachers had ever thought that I would pick up a physics book again. But I really, really enjoyed The Disordered Cosmos. So what I was reflecting on, you know, as we're kind of going to move into the introductions was last night on medicine for the resistance, we talked with Helen Knott, and she had written a memoir, in my own moccasins:, a memoir of resistance, and we were talking about loss, the loss of relatives, the loss of place, the loss of connection, and we have been talking about connection to place and going home, and the feeling of the land remembering me when was the first time that I went home and how incredibly powerful that was, because I hadn't been expecting. I wasn't used to thinking in that way at that time. And so to have that feeling of the land, remembering me was really surprising.

And then I was and of course I've been I was thinking how Kerry, you know, my co hosts would hear that either she's part of the black diaspora doesn't know where that land is that would know her ancestors. And then Helen made a comment. later on in the conversation, that her grandmother had told her what medicine shows up, you know, her grandma, she was going through some stuff, as we all do. And her grandmother had made a comment about medicine showing up. And in the context of what we had said a few minutes earlier, it sounded like the land reaching out and offering something of itself, you know, to any one of us and it sounded to me, you know, in the context of thinking about Kerry and how she might have heard earlier comment, you know, the earlier part of the conversation and the loss that would be associated with that for her. You know, I asked her about that. You know, what, what medicine shows up for you. In what way does the land reach out to welcome you and to know you and so that in the context of our conversation, that's kind of what I want to hear from each of you as we introduce ourselves and then in the chat as well. How, how does, what medicine shows up for you? How does the land or the universe of whatever, you know, whatever it is that reaches out to you, as you were writing the book, or reflecting on the book. So we'll start with Jenessa, and then she'll go take off and focus on the chat. With Jenessa what medicine shows up for you.

Jenessa: Oh my Gosh, I was hoping to just fly under the radar of that question by keeping my camera. But you still are picking on me anyway. So I was I read Braiding Sweetgrass. Well, I read Braiding Sweetgrass, like last year, but for this month, I was kind of reading Robin's other book called Gathering Moss. And I haven't actually finished it yet. But I just think, just like reading, going through the book, the way that Robin writes about moss, it almost feels like this, like love letter to moss. And I think like, just like reflecting on that I've never heard, I've never really read a book where, like, a single like, plant has been described in this way. And like, there's one particular chapter where she talks about reciprocity, it's called a web of reciprocity. And she's like, it's like, the chapter focuses on like, her journey, trying to figure out what the traditional uses of moss were, and like, figure out other like, if Moss was like, as loved by other people is like, how she loves moss. And I thought it was really interesting in this chapter, and this might not be exactly the answer, you're looking for Patty, so I apologize. But, uh, one of the things that she found was one of the ways that moss reflects it's like best gift was in the hands of, of women, most namely during their like, reproductive cycles and with babies, and I thought this was interesting, sort of like looking forward to next month's conversation where we're gonna be talking about mothers and made me think about how you can like this month was like talking about how we're all connected in us like even in this book like we’re already connecting with like, the next month's topic a little bit and I just thought that was pretty cool stuff. Oh, that is I have say about that.

05:04

PK thanks, Jen. So I'm gonna go clockwise around my screen. I don't know if this is your screen, there's my screen. Oh, Celeste what medicine shows up for you.

05:16

Celeste: Um, a couple of things. Actually, for me, water has been showing up a lot. I actually started out, as you know, because we've been friends for a long time in the city. And I gravitated out of the city and I came to Manitoulin island, which is the biggest  fresh water island in the world. And I'm surrounded by water here. And when I was in the city, I would constantly try to get to the water. But it was super hard, right to do that. So now I'm live minutes from the water. And I'm always going down there and just being here. But I would get this overwhelming feeling that when I first moved here that I that I have to get in the water, it was bizarre, I would just tell people, if I'm in the car with them, you need to stop, I need to just jump in the water. And then we can continue on *laughter*  I don't know what your deal is. But I moved here I was just getting off all of the stuff that was hanging off of you right some of the stress and the anxiety of so that that water just helped me and I just jump in now.

06:29

PK: That's amazing, Ben?.

06:32

Ben:  Yeah. So like Jenessa, I've been really kind of diving really hard into Robin Wall Kimmerer’s work. Because I've been studying ecological restoration for the last year or so. That's pretty directly related to my chosen field. And some, something in her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, or the chapter about following in the footprints of Nanaboozhoo really stuck with me, because it's, you know, it's about becoming indigenous to place and building and developing a connection with the land wherever, where you happen to be. And that struck a bit of a chord with me because I mean, you know, like one side of my ancestry comes all the way over from Ukraine. They're displaced by war and famine. And then the other chunk, another chunk of it comes way from way up in Northwestern Ontario, which, I mean, as much as identify as Ojibwe, Northwestern, Ontario, Ojibwe is kind of a different, different brand of Ojibwe, then you get in central Ontario.

And so I on top that I've been in Toronto, for the last six months, half a year, on and off, on and off for a good long time now. And it's been, it gets really difficult to feel a sense of connection to the land when you're surrounded by so much concrete and traffic and pollution and noise. So, but what's been kind of keeping me sane out here is doing a lot of back alley botanizing. Now I've been I've been noticing that the places where I tend to feel like the strongest sense of connection to land, and Toronto, they're like, they're not necessarily the like the designated conservation spaces like Tommy Thompson Park, or the ravines it's these little places in the alleys where, like little plant like little plants have been making a go of it. And that there's these like little mounds of pigeon droppings, sand that kind of accumulate where things, things grow up. And there's this really cool thing that happens where things like lambs quarters are things in the nightshade family, it's like one little seed, we'll find a crack, and then and then grit, and pigeon droppings will kind of accumulate where this plant starts to grow. And then so you can kind of you can actually see, like gradients. As you go further and further, like through these alleys where you like, you'll see these little mounds of accumulated, accumulated soil get bigger, and the community of plants within these towns will get more, more complex. And most of these plants aren't indigenous to the area. There are a lot of them, you know, kind of quote-unquote, invasive. But if you sit and watch, watch for a little bit. It's like the birds, the birds in the area and the bugs, they don't seem to care too much. Whether or not they're invasive, you know, the birds, you know, they're perfectly happy to come in and eat and nibble on the seeds or rodents will come in and chomp on them while they're still young. I kind of just feel like I don't want to talk to point to death, but I feel like I can kind of see what I'm getting at is that sense that In life in nature, find a way, even when and attend to it. And the beauty of it though, is it's happening in the places where we didn't seek out to conserve anything we didn't set intentionally set the space aside, things just process and just showed up, and took root.

10:20

PK:  I appreciate the (intelligible) Neil? What medicine shows up for you.

10:31

Neil: This is a curious question for me. So I recall, you, Patty, telling this story. When you first visited, the where you came from, and you feeling the land calling to you. And that story is kind of haunted me ever since because I I am so disconnected from the land of where my people come from, separated by an ocean, there's not a bit of indigenous-ness in me to Texas, or this whole continent. And it's made me wonder what it would be like to, to, I've never had an urge to visit Germany, but now I kind of do want to go visit Germany and see if there's an experience here because growing up on the farm I always felt very connected to  that spot. And also kind of knowing I, that there are people there before me, and I remember sitting out at night, stargazing or whatever, and listening to the highway, which was a half a mile away, but hearing traffic there and wondering what the people that we displaced, what they what did they hear and what did they see and all those things. So I think I've always had a feeling of not really belonging. I don't know if that's even the word.

But when you talk about what medicine comes to me from from the land. Scents, smells are really strong for me. When I go to the to the arboretum here in Houston even though I'm surrounded by the sounds of the freeway just out of sight, the smells of that, the forest I mean it's protected land otherwise running into creatures armadillos things I run into, but the smells of the leaves and plants the dirt that is somehow resonant for me. And when I read Braiding Sweetgrass I felt like someone was articulating things that I I felt that I've never thought to speak about I don't know how many people living in Houston and all the concrete and what have you and city people or city people, so many of them have never grown a plant in their life. And so I don't even know how to talk to him about some of this. But luckily, I when I was reading, Braiding Sweetgrass, a local performance artist. had a residency where she was doing public events, and one of them was a reading group around Braiding Sweetgrass, because she's very concerned about living in the city of oil business and the pollution around that industry. You know, things explode now and then and there's big plumes of smoke that cover the whole city. And yeah, so that was also kind of a nice connection to my, my performance art world that we had. I don't know I'm kind of rambling now. But But yeah, the smells are really strong. And just sort of the wonder about connecting to the dirt on your feet.

14:32

Chanda: I feel like this is a complicated question for me. So I feel like I should um, you know, start by saying that I think sometimes the relationship that I have to land can be misunderstood because I was born in East Los Angeles. El Cerreno, if there's anybody in the audience who happens to be also from eastla. But my mom was born in Barbados. And so sometimes I get articulated is like specifically even in the context of being Black if not being Black of this land. And there's a lot of that, um, but then I think also, people sometimes imagine that having that relationship with Barbados somehow mitigates the fact that occasionally people ask me like, what part of Africa did your family come from? And I can, I will never be able to answer that question. Um, or sometimes people say, like, oh, at least your family doesn't have like, you know, the same history of slavery. And I'm like, You do realize most of the enslaved people went not to the United States, but to Latin America and the Caribbean, right?

Um, so I feel like the the question of the land for me is always very fraught. I'm and also that my mom and I have very different experiences with it. I should say like for her, it's been easier to find ways to root it into the land that she is on in ways, where she tries to be respectful with local communities. And this might be a generational thing that for me, that's more challenging. And so I bring this up to say that the last year being in lockdown has meant for the first time in my entire life, I actually sat and watched seasons in a in an area that was not urban. And so I and I found myself asking different questions and this translated into .. um  I live in on the New Hampshire Seacrest. And I also read a column for new scientists. So I think probably readers of my column were really surprised when I popped up like late in spring last year with a column about how blue jays aren't blue. Because I had spent, I had found myself in this situation where I was watching blue jays and not just like, look, there's a blue jay, which had been my experience very occasionally, I would see one somewhere. But where I was actually seeing them every day and watching their behavior and finding myself curious about what they were and how they worked and and and asking all of these other questions that I had never asked because they had never really been an environment where I was really watching other creatures living on the land.

And so I think like right now, a lot of my relationship with the land is actually watching how all of the others are living on the land from the desk I'm sitting at right now, because I'm sitting right in front of a window that looks out onto a wooded area, and so like watching. I learned that blue jays are very aggressive. I watched one fight with a cardinal over a tree at one point. All of these things I am I've been watching the deer in that have recently started to emerge and consume. I'm and I guess I, I am very aware that in many ways, this is not like I can't be rooted in this land in the way that like other people are particularly the Abenaki people and I'm the Penobscot people who come from a little bit north of where I am. I'm and at the same time like part of the challenge that those of us in the Black Atlantic, find ourselves in is ways that we have to find a way to build relationships with where we are, that we are creolized in our relationship with the land. And that is a painful task. But also something that we have to learn to live with. And then not hating ourselves like not hate that. And live with the complexity of that.

I do feel like the other thing that I should mention is that I've also spent a lot of time because the Disordered Cosmos just came out talking publicly about Kanaka Maoli and Native Hawaiian land. I'm and and what's interesting is that not many people have asked me if I have been to Mauna Kea, which is you know, contested land in the fight over the 30-meter telescope. I have sacrificed professionally to fight with Kanaka folks. I have also never been to the Moana. And I don't think I need to in order to feel very rooted in that struggle and in that land. And so we think sometimes it's not about physicality, but sometimes our land ties are through political solidarity. And I think that that's like especially true for those of us in the African diaspora who have experienced such extensive displacement that our sense of the land is almost that we're rooted in all of the political struggles in the land.

And so I guess the last comment I will make about that is when I first started thinking about what to do, when I realized that Kanaka were being criminalized, is I knew that vocabulary as a Black person, I knew that vocabulary very intimately if criminalized for defending your community. I also asked myself, What would I do if it was Barbados? And I knew that I would want people to fight with me if it was Barbados and so even though Barbados is not where my land ties begin, there is something also about being Island people that tied me to the Kanaka struggle and to their land struggle. And as I say, in the book, I promise I'm not trying to sell it, I'm just pointing out that I say this. I have a chapter called Lessons from the Moana that, um, Kanaka the movement for sovereignty and the fight to articulate what has been called their apauno science saved me as a scientist and I know that that wasn't the goal, but it is nonetheless what happened. And so again, I've never been to the Mauna but I still feel very tied to it in that way. And for me, I think that I'm being in struggle with Kanaka Maoli people has been medicine.

21:35

PK: Yeah, when I read that part, because at the time that I was reading that I was also, I had just done a couple of presentations to labor groups, because I've done a couple of presentations to labor groups for International Women's Day. And then I think your book arrived a day or two later, you know, and so then I get to that part of the chapter where you're like, I can't cross the picket line. I can't cross the picket line. And that was just like, really, because of the context that I have was coming to that from it was just an incredibly powerful thing. You know, I can't cross the picket line. That's, that's, that's, you know, this is going to be my relationship. And that that was just it. And people should buy your book. Go ahead and pitch it, people should buy it. It's a really, really, really, really good book. Daniel, what medicine shows up for you?

22:25

Daniel: Well, I think it's a complicated question for me too. I mean, behind me is a picture of where I grew up in Colorado, which is not Cherokee territory, but it's where I call home. It's my heart home more than any place in the world because I'm third generation of my mom's family, who were part of the mining, exodus, or kind of influx that contributed to Ute people's dispossession. Right. And now I live in Skwxwú7mesh-ulh Temíx̱w on the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia, which isn't Cherokee territory. After the Trail of Tears, we were driven from our territory into other people's territory. And so the relationship with the land is always a really complicated one for me, too. And yet, I mean, I think that the whole issue we're talking about is how do you how are you in relation to land in ways that aren't about laying claim but asserting obligation and not just to the human peoples who call it home, but also the other than human peoples?

And I love where I live here. On the Sunshine Coast. It's a beautiful place and under lockdown as well for me, I'm an animal person, much more than I'm kind of called to plants except for trees. Trees are the plant that I'm really drawn to but I've become much more attentive to the little plant, I have ..  Ben’s comments. Like I had no idea there were all these little flowers and now I'm, I'm finding out what these are. I just learned about this thing called miner's lettuce the other day, which is amazing and I had no idea this stuff existed. It’s green leaf with flowers popping out of the middle. And I think for me when I'm when I think about that relationship, trying as much as possible to have it be infused by wonder and humility. These aren't my lands This is an I will never belong to the land in the ways that Skwxwú7mesh-ulh people belong to these lands. But I hopefully can be an honorable relationship with this land and, and be continually surprised and delighted. And and sometimes frightened and confused by the relationship and the interactions here as well, because I think oftentimes when we're talking about being in relationship with land where we're kind of, we're presuming an inevitably positive one, but it's, it's complicated, just like it's complicated for our other than human kin. And I think that's important, too.

In terms of medicine, we did you know, under pandemic, we decided to put up a, a new garden bed, and I had some old tobacco from Ontario. And I tried to grow tobacco when I was in Ontario when I was North. of Toronto, and it was a dismal failure. And I planted it last year, and it went wild like it. I did not know you could have so much tobacco. I did not know what I was doing. But it was amazing. And so I had this, this really incredible harvest of old tobacco that I was able to gift to people. It was far more than I could do anything with that it was it felt very much like an important opportunity for sharing. because it came very unexpectedly to me it was not because I know what I'm doing. But it was it. It was really amazing to have so much tobacco that I could actually gift because I'm usually the one who's gifted tobacco. And so it was a it was a really beautiful experience. So I think for me, it's the unexpected part of the relationship.

And one thing that drives me crazy here in DC is oftentimes you'll hear people say that they're an uninvited guest on Skwxwú7mesh-ulh land or Musqueam land and I'm like that makes no sense. You cannot be an uninvited guest. You're either an invited guest or you're not. But like an uninvited guest makes no sense to me. You can be a visitor. You can be a hopefully honorable visitor you can be an invader. And so thinking about where I am, I'm not an uninvited guest. I'm not even an invited guest. But I hope that I'm, uh, I hope that I'm moving toward being an honorable guest at least or an honorable visitor in these lands. And if I can, if I am invited to be a guest, that's all the better. But I just, I hope that the work I do here doesn't make the relations harder for the people who are from this place. So yeah, anyway, with thinking about that relationship to land, and, and what that calls, calls on us to do I think it's very complicated for all of us in very different ways, right.

28:05

PK: So in Undrowned, by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, she writes us meditations about sea mammals. And so it's lessons on Black feminism meditations on sea mammals. And she writes about this giant sea mammal who had weighed up to 23 times swimming in the Bering Sea. German naturalist discovered Hydrodamalis gigas swimming large and large and lux, she writes. At least three times bigger than the contemporary manatee and within 27 years, the entire species was extinct. So 27 years so she you know, Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain Jimi Hendrix within 27 years this beautiful creature was extinct and then she makes the comment that being discovered is dangerous. And, you know, so Daniel, I'm gonna, I'm gonna stick with you. Because actually, you know your comment about being a guest uninvited or otherwise you know, a trespasser, invader, a discoverer. And in your books, Badger and Raccoon you talk about the risk. You know, the danger that being discovered had I you know, had for badgers and I realized actually that I have a badger stole that I caught at a yard sale. And I didn't realize it till after I read your book and I was looking at it's like, I think that's badger. So yes, I liberated it from somebody's yard sale, but now. Now it just has an extra little layer of meaning for me. So can you talk a little bit about that? You know, with badgers and raccoons and how dangerous how dangerous it has been for them to be discovered.

29:44

Daniel: I think when we talked about discovery, what we're talking about is exploitability. We're not talking about relations. And that I think is kind of the key moment and if you are valuable as an exploitable object, you're in danger. If you're not useful as an exploitable object, you're also in danger. And I think that that's the situation for both raccoons and badgers and for so many other beings, is your when you're thought of as a commodity, use value, either direction, puts you at risk. It's only when you're considered as a relative or a being with inherent value on your own merits. And according to your own priorities, that you're not endangered in the same way. I mean, discovery is always about exploitation. It's whether you know whether it's material exploitation or ideological exploitation. The language of discovery is about extraction. Transformation into some sort of transferable commodity.

And so I think that that's the real danger is, if so much of the conversation that we have in ecology is, you know, a lot of people are trying to communicate the value of nature, but they're doing it within a frame, that is only going to be more problematic and more exploitable. And I think that's the, that's the conundrum we have is, you know, there are reasons why people go toward capitalist language to try to communicate the importance of things but that's only to make it easier to appropriate and, and wound. So I think we have to get out of that kind of language. And you know, when, you know, Robin Wall Kimmerer has gotten a lot of deserved attention here. But I think, you know, , her piece in Orion on the language of animacy. I think it's an important direction to go in thinking about kinship and relationship. And even then, I think, I mean, how many times do we see language about relatives being language about, you know, those who are exploitable, and those who aren't. So even in thinking about relations, we also have to think about the power dynamics within those relations. So it's easy to call somebody's family and still screw him over. So I think always having that power analysis within that is important. And it's just as important for our human kin as it is for our other than human kin. But I think that the issue of languages is really important in thinking about discovery, if you're turned into if you're useful, you're gonna die. If you're not useful, you're gonna die. Discovery is about death. It's not about thriving.

33:10

PK  Wow. You're right, you're right. I haven't I haven't even thought about that. But you're at you're absolutely right. Chanda, that kind of goes to what you were talking about regarding Mauna Kea, and, you know, the discovery or the noticing you, you call it? good. Seeing was good, you know, good seeing and how that has affected you know, so could you talk a little bit more about that?

33:36

Chanda: Yeah. So I think the thing that's coming to mind, particularly, as you mentioned, the question that seeing is that also this consumption happens not just to our bodies, and to our lands, but also to our with our ideas. Right. And this really kind of intersects when you start talking about what constitutes good seeing. So just to define that for everybody. One of the reasons that the fight about Mauna Kea is happening at all is because it is at a very high altitude above certain layers of the atmosphere, it's a great place to put a telescope. And this is something astronomers know partly because like native Hawaiians told them themselves about it, that when Europeans first showed up, they were really check out this awesome place, we have to look at the sky. And this was embedded in in the cosmology of Kanaka folks and their self conception.

And here I want to point to Keolu Fox who is a Kanaka Maoli geneticists, geneticists and bio ethicist who are just finding this really powerful talk, where he was talking about how our genome is shaped by the land.  And then at the very end of the talk, he moved back around and said like, like, “when I say that the land is my ancestor I literally am telling you that I can show you using science that my genome was shaped by the land and so was your genome. So when we're telling you that we're fighting over our ancestor and we're fighting over our family member, that's a scientific statement like let me be clear with you that from my point of view as a Kanaka scientist, this is this is a scientific statement.”

Um, so you know, when we talk about like colonizing the land, part of what was being colonized was this idea that Europeans discovered that it was a good place to look at the sky, when that was already known by the people who were there and had developed their own sensibility. What, therefore, people's relationship to that land should be because of its specific location relative to the sky, and to Wākea the sky father, um, and so, I think that, you know, one of the pieces that can sometimes get lost in these conversations about consumption, is that it's, I think it's easier for us to grasp material consumption, that is has a physicality to it, that's immediately obvious to us, like consuming the labor of Black people consuming, you know, the, the bodies of, for example, Indigenous women, um all for all of these different ways that there's physical consumption, but also not thinking about the consumption of Indigenous ideas. That the Enlightenment is built out of Europeans traveling around the world, meeting ideas, and saying, Hey, that's cool. And taking it back to Europe and collating it and Europe becoming this unique geography for thought, in a particular sense, right? I don't want to say, objectively, were universally but in this particular sense, because all of this information is being collated in one place, which does give people this interesting opportunity to put ideas from different geographies in conversation with each other in a way that they are not in conversation with each other, elsewhere. That's not to say it's the only conversation or even the most important one.

But it does produce this one line of thought. So when we talk about consumption, material consumption, I'm, I think it's really, when we talk about discovery, that part of what needs to be thought about is how often what is identified as discovery isn’t discovery at all, even if you're taking the word on its face value definition and not sitting there doing the material analysis, and what it does to people's lives to be discovered. That what discovery usually means is just a pretty colloquially, we came we noticed you had some s**t, we took your s**t. I'm just like summarizing in some sense, like what Daniel said. And sometimes what we noticed was your body. Or sometimes what we noticed was your expertise. And that we will simultaneously not recognize you as an expert. We will gaslight you and your descendants for generations and centuries, and say that we were the experts. And then I just want to tie this to, to diversity and inclusion. Since I'm you know, we're talking about books that talk about science today. And then the message is we want to bring Black people into science. We want to bring Indigenous youth into science and show them that science is interesting and exciting. And it's late. Yeah, we've we've been doing rational knowledge production and analysis the entire time. Some of what y'all know, it's stuff that we told you. Right? And, and so, diversity and inclusion discourse in a real way can be thought of as like, the next step of colonialism, which is colonizing our mind to not see our history for what it was. it was.

39:50

PK:  That was the chat was all I well, you know, it's led to lots of good insight from both of you on that. But yeah, I mean, you know, this guy you know, and then just the way we I like that idea and I also I really liked in your book, to Chandra where you talk about I hadn't heard Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz do the same thing. Europe being a peninsula of Asia. And just really situating it geographically for people I heard that Roxanne and you know workshops and webinars say that it's absolutely the truth and Europe I don't know why we think of it as a continent. It's a peninsula jutting off of Asia. It's, it doesn't even meet the criteria for a continent and yet somehow we think that it is because you’re right, they just kind of grabbed everything and then collate it in their own particular way and wrote it down which made it wrote it down in a very particular way, which gave it a kind of finality. Now this is the way it is and then everybody else gets compared, gets compared to that, and it's really, it really hasn't it hasn't been helpful.

40:57

Chanda:  Can I just make a comment about the European peninsula of Asia thing? Because I use this term in the book. And I have to say that part of it was like the Disordered Cosmos is supposed to be like a science but a great, there's like, Okay, y'all went science, Let's Talk Science, by our scientific definition, that is not a continent. So like, it has to be downgraded if we're going to be accurate. And that was, that was how I thought about it. I was waiting for it. I actually haven't gotten any questions about it. But that's my answer. Right? Is it's not, it's an unscientific statement. Thank you. Right.

41:36

Daniel: Europe is Pluto, what you're saying?

41:42

PK:  Europe is the Pluto of, of the world. So Ben, you had thought you had posted something on Facebook about your favorite thing to do when you discover when you come across brands when you you know your favorite thing to do you go for a walk and you saw ramps. So what is your favorite thing to do? And why does that matter? Why is it important,

42:03

Ben:  but leave them the heck alone and keep their location secret? Because, yeah, so I'm gonna be, Daniel, so I'm sure you meet plenty of these people out west. But like there's, there's a kind of a resurgence or another is that it's becoming really trendy again, to go and harvest wild foods. And a lot of people think that living and good relation, and like loving nature and being and good relationship with nature just means knowing what plants out there good for you and how they're edible. And it's like, they're so enthusiastic about building this relationship, and they just kind of like, fly at it like Leroy Jenkins, and they jump into it without any real plan or knowing what they're doing. So I'm saying and the what, you know, the wild ramps for just about extirpated from eastern North America, by people doing exactly that. And so I think like, you know, these conversations about discovery, I mean, like, the Mississaugas of central Ontario, probably weren't too stoked when ramps were discovered by settlers. And, and yeah, and then so looping that back to relationship to land, sometimes acting in good relationship to something and acting in a loving way to something involves just leaving it the heck alone, right? Like you'd love it from a safe and respectful distance. If you are going to do something, make sure you know exactly what its lifecycle is like, how it reproduces, how long it takes to germinate, what conditions it takes to germinate it,

43:55

PK: and that's the observation piece Chanda, the observation of being at home and I think, I think braiding sweetgrass actually hit the New York Times bestseller last year for the first seven years after it was published, I think because everybody was stuck at home. And it became everyone's gateway drug into the natural world. So which is great, which is great. I love it. No disrespect to Braiding Sweetgrass. I think I was one of its biggest apostles for a long time. So it's a good book, but I don't want people to stop there. I want people to keep going and unfolding and unfolding the world. Celeste, can you talk a little bit about you have a change in direction in your life? You went from? I'm going to fight on the world stage to what are we fighting for?

44:40

Celeste: Yeah, so I I was on my way to become a lawyer in fight for Indigenous rights, human rights. Sorry, my internet is a little unstable. So it might be a little crackly. you Yeah. I mean, it's lovely here, but we have satellite internet folks. struggle is real. So, and I was working with the UN, and I discovered, I discovered in myself that what what I really was fighting for with food sovereignty was something that was not being practiced. And I thought, well, actually my great aunt passed away, and she was a great agriculturalist for my nation, and I had lost so much by not taking that time and going with her and spending that time with her. I felt like a huge fool because I thought here I was in you know, in university and wasting all this time. And the knowledge was being passed down, and I wasn't there. I was missing and I was losing it. And it just went right through my fingers. And I just felt a great sadness. And I thought what we're working towards, what are we doing? Is it ego driven? And I just had a real big talk with myself. And I thought, okay, so what do I want to spend the rest of my life doing? Is it going to school? Is it being in a colonial structure where I'm fighting every tooth and nail, academics? And sure, that's exciting. But I mean, what does that give us as a people? in the end? So I swtiched and now I'm farming, I'm doing agricultural knowledge on the land literally building a center for traditional, traditional agricultural knowledge for Indigenous women and youth. Literally bring us back on to the land, so we can learn together and practice actual sovereignty. Not just talk about it. But other academics who also want to talk about it. So what we're doing is we're is we're planting the seeds, literally, in ourselves. And I think that's gonna do a lot of healing.

So that's what I'm doing now and it’s a real journey, because there's a lot that we don't know. And there's a lot that we've lost, but you were talking about medicine and medicine is coming to me, and that's what's coming seeds are coming to me, people are bringing me things, say, can you plant this you have like, Can you can you plant this for me, and keep it going. And we're exchanging with things, and it's really moving forward. And it's just just amazing to have that physical connection and working on land justice, getting that land back. I was telling Patty earlier I was in, I was in a webinar. And we were talking about land back and I want to literally talk about land back from Nature Conservancies when I moved here. There's actually it's a bizarre place there. The island that I live, there's no, there's no public land, there is no Crown land here. And it's bizarre. It's all public. It's all private land that's been bought by Nature Conservancy's trying to take care of nature trying to, to, you know, I guess commodify it, but they don't let Indigenous people share in that. So, what are they doing with this land? So, I had a conversation with someone with one of the board members and I thought, You know what, we need to share this land and he's like, I just don't think that that's a really good fit. I don't think that's a good fit. Wow, Indigenous people are not a good fit. That's really interesting that you say that. So yeah, I'll be coming after.

48:37

Ben: Hell, yeah.

Celeste: land use and land land back. What does that physically mean? What does land this opportunity? What is foods opportunity? Well, it means these things, practical things on the ground.

49:02

PK: And I like what Eve Tuck and K Wayne Yang say.  Yes, it does mean give the land back. Yeah, actually means give it back. It's not a metaphor. Give it back, figure it out. So I know Neil, you plant you plant things every see every year I watch your peppers grow. And your morning glories.

49:24

Neil: Yeah. I have a hobby. It's my balcony plants. And I live in an apartment, a second story. Second second-floor balcony with apartment with about the peppers are kind of an accident. I had bought a poblano from the grocery store and it's It's just teeming with seeds inside. I want to see if these germinate. They did. And I have two plants that have survived almost two years now on my balcony. Houston’s long growing seasons and, and I I've eaten poblanos from my bushes. They are smaller than what I got at the grocery store. They are not as spicy. They're very mild. But it's kind of a cool thing. Now I've tried a lot of other things that have failed miserably. I've tried growing beans, I've tried growing some kind of peas and other things. So it's not like my have an exceptionally green for this sort of balcony gardening. But I also have different things like I have some sort of citrus tree that I'm not really sure what kind of citrus tree it is. It could be a lemon, it could be orange or grapefruit. But it's about as tall as I am now in a pot that grew completely by accident germinate from a seed i Sometimes compost on my balcony as well. And this is where the seed germinate and it's like okay, it's green. It's growing up. We'll see what happens. It's never bloomed. I don't know that I never will. And you know, and my morning glories last year took off they'd never I've tried several times before they had never taken off before last year they did. They seem to be doing okay this year so far. But it's I don't know what it is in me that wants to do this exactly. Other than I'm a farm boy that was always around things growing. You know, besides having our gardens in our in our farmland. Mama always had lots of potted plants too. And I was always interested. It seems to mystify so many of my friends. It's like I'm doing magic or something.

52:15

PK: There is something magical about growing food. I mean, yeah, Ben’s right. I am not. I am not the person who's going to get out there and we that garden and he's done a really good job of making sure that he’s planting things that don't require care, that aren't going to be high maintenance, but there is something really magical about putting seeds in the ground. And then eating them. You know, There's

52:38

Neil: there’s a mystery about it. I grant you that. But it's also just like the most natural thing in the world. Amazing. That happens without us.

52:55

Chanda: I will say that one of the realizations I had last spring was that I found buds to be really creepy. And I realized that that's like a socialization thing. And I think it's because like so much of my experience of seeing things in their right before their opening stage was through the lens of like Alien movies. That when I was actually confronted with seeing a lot of them, that I felt like my garden was about to attack me. And I had to like kind of have this whole conversation with myself that no, the movies are based on that not the other way around.

53:32

Neil: Depending on your sensitivity to pollen, they may be attacking you

*laughter*

53:39

Chanda:  that's fair. It definitely was kind of informative about like what happens when we get put in situations where we're not surrounded by a lot of things that are growing, or we're from different like you know, I did see things grow growing up in Los Angeles, but I saw like ice plants, which is like very hard to get started and it doesn't have these buds that pop out every spring and look like little aliens that are about to like. You can tell I still have this like, have this like *gestures like an explosion*

*laughter*

54:08

PK:  there were two things that came together for me together for me in Undrowned, again, because I just finished it. She's writing about dolphins and whales and how they use echolocation and how echolocation and she's talking about echolocation being a kind of relationship, right because it's bouncing a sound and then getting and then getting information back.  She talks about these dolphins that live in the Ganges River and it's so silty they really they can't be you know they don't have much visual visual ability. And so they're constantly saying I'm here I'm here I'm here and responding that I'm here and here and so this you know this constant echolocation. Then for me that combined in Badger there's a part in badger Daniel, where you write that the more distant we become, the more potential there is for other than human relatives to just become shallow symbols forgotten, or actively disregarded. And so for me, those two ideas kind of came together in my head that for echolocation to work we have to be we have to be in good relationship with each other because if echolocation is showing us we're showing predators where we are that is not good. You know, so we need to be close enough to be in good relationship with each other and to see each other. You know, to see each other in a good way. So I guess, Daniel, I'm going back to you, about that potential, about how we get distanced and we get distanced in city life we just get distanced. I mean even in the country, I get distance bands always reminding me that if I'm going to be connected to nature, I have to like actually go out into it.

55:53

Daniel: Yeah, I mean, this is one of those. It's a challenging conversation that a lot of ways because intimacy can also be violent. Right. So distance and intimacy, I think it these are always in context. And you know, and I think back to Ben's comment about, you know, sometimes the best thing to do is just leave things alone. There's also that idea, you know, when we're, when we are kind of asking the world for permission, what if they said, What if the world says no? What happens when animals don't want to have anything to do with us? And I think I think there's a really important tension at play between being connected and being, un. I mean going back to the idea about exploited liveness like, I mean, how many men think that love is about possessiveness, right? And then the violence that's associated with that, you know, and we do that with our pets. And I'm, I've gotten, one of the reasons I keep looking down is because my dogs are very interested in what's happening here. And one thing up, but one of them wants up on my lap, while we're doing all this but there's like even the basic foundations of pet ownership are coercive and violent. And, you know, being somebody who has furry animals who live in our house, I mean that the foundation of that relationship is still one that's very dangerous to them. Like we dominate everything about their lives out of love. And it's a very complicated tension to grapple with. I think distance, it's easier to get into a commodifying mindset at a distance. But closeness brings danger too. And I think we have to, we have to sit with the difficulties of both intimacy and distance and bring an ethical lens. And like Chanda said that they bring different ways of thinking, and different ways of relating, and different ways of imagining into those relationships. Because I think an intimate an intimacy that is based on a patriarchal mindset is murderous. So I think proximity isn't enough, we have to change the way in which we're in relationship.

58:52

PK: that actually goes really nicely into a quote from Chanda’s book, which I think is the husband's quote. “We are a quark assembly of supernova remnants on a journey to honor to know and honor all our galactic relations”. Galactic relations, I think is the part from your husband, but I just I just love that phrase, because that's kind of what Daniel is talking about. It's not necessarily about physical closeness. How do we know and honor our galactic relations when they're so far from us? You know, how do we do that? I just love that phrase, we are a quark assembly of supernova remnants on a journey to know and honor all our galactic relations.

59:43

Chanda: Yeah, so the quark assembly. That part is me. It was actually kind of a running joke that for a while I fit I had like, a bet with someone that if I put quark assembly on the bottom of my slides, of my talks, to see if anybody would ask me about it, because someone was like go you'll definitely get asked about it. And nobody has ever asked me what is quark assembly mean? Sometimes when you're giving professional talks, you're supposed to put the name of your name at the bottom of every slide, so people remember your name. So occasionally, I would slip in trying to Prescod Weinstein, quark assembly. Um, and, and it really, you know, it should be like a quark and electron is something I guess, if I was I was really being careful there. Um, but all our galactic relations is something that my spouse came up with. Um, and I also feel like I have to mention Eve Tuck here, because the moment that he said that, to me, it was like, I really love that phrase, but I also want to be careful about where it came from. And so I reached out to Eve to have a conversation with her about, you know, the different ways that might be rooted in different modes of thought and wanting to make sure that we were being respectful in its use, and so folks who pick up the book will also see that I make a point as that, that section, all our galactic relations, that's the fourth phase of the book, and that it opens with Winona LaDuke.

And that actually, I spent a lot of time on Black feminism in that last phase of the book and even so, a lot of the multiple chapters open with the words of non-black Indigenous women. And I was proactively throughout the book thinking about closing this gap of Black as non Indigenous or Indigenous as non as fundamentally non-black in in a couple of different ways, which is that you know, there are fam out there who are Black and Indigenous in the sense that we, I think we all understand the word indigenous to me and, and not just our our over men, but also folks who are Black and Indigenous and other ways, right. Um, but I also did want to grapple a little bit with, you know, the fact that my ancestors were Indigenous people who were torn away from their Indigenous communities. And in some sense, I'm the way that the word indigenous gets constructed, particularly in our academic discourses, I think our grassroots discourses can actually be more flexible. But in our academic discourses are very much you either are or you aren't. Here are the rules. And what I found this to translate into is, um, breaks in our solidarity, that I think don't necessarily need to exist in our in our ability to be in political solidarity, but also finding myself in environments where people are like, yes, our organization has Indigenous people from Northern Europe, and Indigenous people from Latin America and the United States and Australia. And then I'm like, so where are the Africans members? And they're like us, and they're like, Oh, we don't have any African members. And so then you have this whole continent that's constructed as non Indigenous somehow. And I think the vehicle hurting me the vehicle for that I need construction, I would say, as, as indigenous, is black Americans, as framing black Americans as fundamentally non Indigenous, because we can't articulate our claims to our land and to our traditional communities, and therefore, the people who remained in those communities by virtue of also being Black, in this social sense of Black, or therefore also not Indigenous.

And so I'm, you know, I was in in small ways, I think that wasn't the centerpiece of the book. I did want to push that a little bit. But in a way that felt like reaching out and being in community as opposed to I want to fight with people about this word. I want to fight with people about like, what, like, about ownership over a word, because they think in some sense, some of this is about ownership. And that I don't want to reproduce that ownership narrative. That capital, that capitalist conversation that Daniel was talking about earlier. I'm so I just wanted to share that that was kind of the story and even as the book keynote, I was nervous about it. I was like, I wonder if people are gonna Are you gonna take all our galactic relations and say this is appropriation, um, I didn't, we feel we are so hurt by white supremacy colonialism that I didn't want somebody to feel hurt. I think like even even if like I hadn't done anything wrong, that's sort of not the point. I didn't want anybody to feel hurt by a book that I hoped would feel like it was for us. And that us could maybe be more expansive than maybe we had been thinking about it.

1:05:20

PK: And I know that I have been really challenged by in the last few years of doing this podcast with Kerry and some of the people that we've talked about is really kind of broadening my understanding and use of the word Indigenous. Because it's particularly in Canada, we think of Indigenous as being specifically Indigenous to here, right, like all indigenous people live here, mostly in Canada, because in the United States, its native amount I guess, just it's just a really weird kind of way that we think about it. And so actually, as I'm working on my own project, I've gone back and change the language in it, you know, so that I'm not using Indigenous and kind of that Canadian way that we use it to refer to only Indigenous, you know, people who are Indigenous to this place that. Yeah, so that's something that I had that I have really been challenged on in the way that I talk. And then we did I think, and in the end, even in the way that I've shaped these conversations, because it was originally just Indigenous to here what's that I was thinking about. And then in our conversation with Tope Adefarakan, about The Souls of Yoruba People, I was like, Whoa, I need to completely reshape all of this My black authors, and then I realized how many gaps I had in my bookcase, I've got lots of Black authors in my bookcase. But it's a very narrow story that they tell like this, you know, over the course of this year, we're, we're looking at a number of different topics, a number of different things. And I didn't have any Black authors for memoir. There's a lot of Black authors writing memoirs, but they weren't on my bookshelf. So I had all these gaps. So you're, I'm feeling like, I should have known better, but you know, we're always learning right? You know, so I had to do do that work. So I really appreciate you. you know, you talking about that. And working that through in your book, I really liked that. I really liked that in there.

And now, I kind of forget where I was going. So I'm just gonna throw to Celeste and see what Celeste is thinking.

1:07:27

Celeste: You know, knowing everything and I just wrote down ‘knowing everything is a western concept.” Yeah. Right. So stop beating yourself up above, because we will never know everything about it and, you know, in our concepts, too, and a lot of people, you know, it's experience. It's about experience, not knowledge. Right? , because experience not knowledge, right. Even the word knowledge is right. Yesterday, something that it's not, it's a Western really Thank you for listening knowledge and we say, either traditional or traditional logical knowledge, knowledge or traditional, traditional agricultural or ecological knowledge. It's really not knowledge per se. It's really an experience

And that's how we viewed learning as experience then we can always be open and always be learning I was also making notes that it's also based on the agenda western view of life as scarcity versus abundance. Right life of scarcity versus life with abundance, you have two very have very different lives. So it's funny because that's how that's how we think about life is that it's abundant, that's why we don't so actually professor asked me years ago, you know, well, you have to have the jails. Jail versus ever and it's like, well, if you see things in a scarcity, you would think that you know, think quite a lot about scarcity and abundance, and you have to take your chances, right so that it becomes about sharing then it becomes about community and it becomes about community. Your status, sharing versus your status. Those are good,

Daniel:  I also just want to piggyback on that just really quickly, that also it's about language to right?  I mean, English is a thingifying language, it's about, you know, it does certain things really well but it's very much about concretizing things whereas our Indigenous languages are very often about the relations between beings. And, and it's harder to do that kind of concretizing, so it's about the ideas but it's also like we're using particular words like knowledge as though but those those words, freeze things. They aren't about relationships, they're about thingifying those things.

Ben:  My partner sent me a really cool paper written by a quantum physicist, so Chanda, your little thing about quarks made me think about this and also thinking also like how the language like the structure of the language matters. But I guess my partner sent me a she's very dedicated language learner. She’s throwing her heart and soul into learning on Anishinaabemowin. I’m trying to keep up but um, yes, so this paper talks about how Anishinaabemowin is actually better equipped to speak about quantum physics than English is because of the way the language is structured. So it's like in English, you think about a healer acting on somebody who is acting on somebody who is sick with a medicine right. So healer plus, you know, like acts on the patient with the medicine, and then you get a cure for that and then that leads to a cure. Whereas, in kind of the Anishinaabemowin the way that language is structured, it kind of works out more like healer, plus medicine, plus patient equals a cure. It's it's the coming together of those three things that that results in the ceremony that gives provides the cure. And that I think that that circles back to you know, relationship with land as, as opposed to kind of like a mutualistic relationship with land as opposed to one of domination and exploitation, right?. Like I don't act on the dirt of the garden to make the food it's the me you know, me and the plants and the soil organisms. We come together and then we have and then we have abundance.

PK: I like that, even though it's still means I have to go into the garden and do things

Ben: Yeah, that was really cool. I might throw you guys are interested. I'll throw a link to that paper in the chat. It blew my mind. Chanda:  Yeah, you my mind. I'm wondering if this is maybe related to some of the work that Leroy Little Bear did, in in conversation with David Boehm, who was a theoretical physicist. He spent a lot of his career trying to theorize how to interpret quantum mechanics and Leroy Littlebear, I believe was Blackfoot and, and I think and I'll just actually I want to highlight Zoe Todd who is is an anthropologist who, who was actually just recently tweeting about Leroy Littlebear sorry, I want to mention that she was one of the reasons that that he was he was fresh on my mind. But what's interesting to me about that is you know, there's a big debate about how to interpret quantum mechanics and David Boehm had one particular interpretation that doesn't necessarily mean it's it's the best interpretation or it's one that we are settled on. But it is very interesting, that Littlebear saw a way to connect his ways of thinking and his community ways of thinking with this, this one particular interpretation. And I do think that quantum mechanics can be an interesting site for asking the question. Maybe the reason that people who come through this like very narrow European epistemology are having a hard time interpreting quantum mechanics is that this is actually a place where that epistemology is not good for the doing of science.

And the reason that I want to bring this up is that people often say, Well, like, you know, you know, it's fine that Indigenous ways of knowing are good for ecology, but like, what does it have to say for physics? Or, you know, how do you know that like this Indigenous way of knowing is equivalent? And I actually, I want us to be a little more relaxed about it in some sense and say, like, okay, maybe there are some things that certain epistemologies are good at. And then they have limits. So maybe it is the case with this particular framework that got synthesized in Europe does do certain things particularly well. But it clearly doesn't do everything. And there are things it does particularly badly. Like global warming is a technological development in that framework. And the effects of that were pretty badly. So, you know, if you're going to say that that's progress, you got to own the whole thing, the whole shebang. You got to own global warming as like a successful outcome of your technological paradigm. So I just kind of want to highlight that maybe that's a place where it's like, okay, so maybe I'm, you know, parts of physics come through better in this framework, but then there may be other parts of physics that will come through better and other frameworks and it's actually okay. For them to be working together at the interstices as opposed to in competition, where one has to own the whole thing.

PK: And that's also relationship. Right? That's, you know, like Daniel had talked about, you know, being in relationship with, you know, other than human relatives on their own terms. You know, he's brought it you brought up before the book, Motorcycles and Sweetgrass, and how Nanabush, go, you know, you know, he kind of goes off and he has this feud with raccoons and the raccoons. Just act like raccoons. It's not like a Disney film. You know, where they're talking and singing about painting with own colors of the wind. They're speaking you know, he speaks raccoon-ish to them, and he engages with them on their own terms. And as we engage with each other on our own terms, as we actually exist without forcing us all to you know, to work in this one particular way. There's some really generative opportunities for so for some really neat things to happen. And for some really neat ways of thinking and doing things.

I just wanted to pose another question to everybody, Chanda, you in your book, towards the end of your book, but the question you talked about your mom taking you out, to see the Milky Way and this question has really stayed with me. I you know, I think about it a lot. What are the conditions that our communities need? You know, to see the Milky Way, what are the things that we need? And then as I was you know, kind of reflecting on all of this as what are the things our communities need to braid sweetgrass to gather moss to see raccoons and badgers on their own terms and not as, you know, things that we buy of yard sale or pests that we need to root out of our lawn or what you know, what do our communities need to be undrowned? What do our communities need? So just I just kind of want to invite everybody as we kind of winding down as well, this time went really fast. So Chanda, we'll start with you because it's your story and your question that we’re you know, that I'm posing

Chanda: So I think that the simple answer that's like really easy for everyone to plug into is I wanted to highlight for people that if we really want everyone to have the opportunity to sit with and wonder about the night sky, that means confronting pollution, it means that people need to have enough to eat so that they are able to focus so that their stomach isn't crying to them and distracting them from thinking about what does it mean that I'm seeing this dark night sky? That means that public transportation has to be such that everybody can get to a dark night sky, but that means that parents can't be working 80-hour weeks so that they can take their children and go have that journey with them. It means also that disabled access has to, that society has to stop being disabling in a way that people only people who have like, you know, the super high tech wheelchair, that everybody who needs that high tech wheelchair has the high tech wheelchair. Um, that asking ourselves this one question about being able to just sit and wonder about the night sky actually requires really radically rethinking how our society operates.

Um, but I also in the context of this conversation, again want to situate it in terms of all our galactic relations which is even for those of us who feel very comfortable and what I’ll say like a professional institutionalized scientific framing, need to sit with the discomfort of it may be that there are other ways of knowing that feel in conflict with what we think is the right way to interpret information about the world, and that doesn't mean that you always have to change your mind about things, but you need to sit with why these things have meaning for people And be humble. I have participated in one way or another in solidarity work around the struggle for the Mona since 2015. And as I mentioned earlier, Keolu Fox's talk that I just saw a few weeks ago was eye-opening for me and it deepened my understanding of what he was talking about when people were talking about aina and family and relationship to the land. But even I was like, Okay, maybe because I didn't grow up with seeing the land as a family member that I will never intuitively feel that but then he told me that my genome was shaped by the land, and I did, and that meant that I had to have the humility of recognizing that maybe there was still something I had to learn about what people were saying to me.

PK: I really love that our genome being shaped by the land, I need to find that article. Neil, what do you think your community needs?

Neil: Say again?

PK: What do you think your community needs? You know, when you think of not, maybe, maybe not necessarily Houston as a whole. But your community? What do you think, you know, when you think of who your community is, what do they need to be able to, to see and hear the things that we've been talking about?

Neil: They need more wonder, they need more amazement. You know, I will sometimes go for walks with friends around Memorial Park here which is a just a walking/running trail. very urban, but lots of trees. And like, one day, I'm sitting there and I was actually sitting on the bench writing in my journal before I went on my walk and there were these two rabbits behind me that caught my eye. And I'm looking at the rabbits and I'm looking at other people. Just walking by, never noticing the rabbits. And a couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine from church went to went to the park with me to walk and I always felt rude so I didn't do it but I kept wanting to interrupt her that Did you see that? Look at this. Oh my goodness, look at this. And and while she she would say she has an appreciation of the things, she doesn’t notice. It kind of has to be pointed out to her and she she has to I don't know. My community needs more wonder.

We had a big Arctic vortex winter vortex in February that you know destroyed our infrastructure such as it was and you know my my hobby right now is going around and checking on all the plants. Some are coming back some are not and I find that there aren't any other people doing that. And to me that's that's that's a lack of I want to say wonder, maybe imagination. Just paying attention. I mean, it is magical to use your word. I would probably use mysteriou. I don't know we need more wonder.

PK: Yea, Ben?

Ben: so I guess I'm kind of feel like I straddle a couple communities. But we're gonna start with the, like settler community in general. It's just piggyback on what Neil was saying because I think people just need to simmer down and pay attention. Right like that that sense of wonder I think starts with slowing down long enough to notice that the plants and the animals are even there to begin with. And then if you sit down and pay attention, you can notice that they're in relation and that's, you don't necessarily need like a big park to do that. You can do that right in your front lawn. Sit down. Take 10 minutes in the morning and think right, well, what seeds, what seeds are what plants are going there that are shedding seeds. Okay, which birds are coming and eating those seeds? Where are those? Some of those? Where are the birds taking those seeds that might come out the other end undigested that whole sense of wonder kind of gets started.

And then the other side like the Indigenous communities that I'm working to participate in in a good way. I mean, honestly just straight up with need the land back. We need the like kind of very physical and a very physical and practical sense of that we need land back. And we need like so. Celeste, when you mentioned about the conservation groups on Manitoulin, fireworks started going off and gears started grinding in my brain because I think we need culture writ large to understand that humans are part of the ecosystem. We're animals on landscape just like bears and coyotes and amoebas and everybody else and we have a role to play and when you've been playing an active role in North America since the megafauna extinction and the ending of the Holocene. Right, like the eastern part of the Eastern tallgrass prairie like one of the most vital and vibrant ecosystems and interior where I live now, that developed with the assistance of people actively burning and encouraging certain megafauna to show up and intentionally spreading certain seeds. Like the Eastern tall grass prairie didn't show up without us. I mean, like the whole idea of a grassland ecosystem existing in such a hot, humid environment as North America is like that just doesn't happen without human intervention. And a place as special as Manitoulin like something where like so many different ecozones collide and like just like the idea that something that has been so vibrant and beautiful under the stewardship of Indigenous communities for 1000s of years, can thrive without the assistance of people who have like, who culturally and as a society, and have co-evolved with those systems. Like Give me a break. Get out of the way.

PK: thank you.

Celeste: So last, but dear communities need land back. But first, we need to remember that we are the land. Many of our communities have cosmologies like my own that we are literally made out of clay, taken or molded out of the clay and likeness. So we're literally the Earth itself. And I think once you know and a lot of our people like I wish that we would again, stop listen, about wonder, all of those things, right? Because they're there, right? The plants can see you if you listen. The problem is is that we've lost that right? We we've got these blinders on. It's like some sort of, I don't know whether what it is but there's an anxiety or something that kind of emanates from cities and it kind of blocks, block things out is when you you have that feeling when you get out of a city or when you go camping or when you go you just kind of forget that we've all felt it when we get into the woods and when we're surrounded by our relatives and trees, we just feel that feeling of clearness.

PK: Daniel, what do your communities need?

Daniel: I think everything everybody said here would definitely be part of that. I mean, I don't I think we need a lot. But if I were to reduce it to one thing that I would like to see more of is a greater capacity to hold complexity. With care, and not be afraid of complexity and complexity is not going to be easy. So I think complexity and courage, the courage in that complexity because I think often, we want to flatten out these complexities and have things be much simpler and more kind of manageable. And it's in the complexity that our humanity is best realized. It's in the complexity that those relationships are best lived. I'm always suspicious when we get to people who have really easy answers. to complex problems. Because that almost invariably means some violence is going to be at play. Because complexity gets evacuated. And in that evacuation, a lot of people fall by the wayside. So I think, not just a tolerance for complexity, but a real embrace of complexity and what it asks of us and to hold those tensions together. With courage.

PK:  that was one of the things in Chanda’s book about, you know, the quarks and AW’s in the chat, putting in you know, they were putting in all the different, you know, gluons in and that's why you know, and all the Neil and I were joking that maybe you were making words up Chanda was like, I think this is English, but I'm not sure. And just how incredibly complex we are, on the little tiny scale and then on like, kind of this massive, universal scale, and I really feel like now would be a good time to get into the quantum ness of it. But it's already been an hour and a half. So, can you get into the quantumness of it? kind of a little nutshell how complex we are and we'll go out on the beauty of our below microscopic complexity. I don't know if that's even a fair question.

Chanda: Is that a question for me? Yes. I am going to answer and not answer your question, but just to build on what Daniel said about complexity and about the danger of simple stories and simple solutions. That there are ways in which particle physics is about, you know, trying to figure out what the fundamental constituents of everything is. So you're trying to break the everything down into the smallest thing. And it's easy to get into breaking things down and thinking about it as commodities, like what is the smallest commodity? Is it a quark? Is it a quarks exchanging gluons interacting with electrons? Um, but it also turns out that some of our greatest calculational difficulties are when we get there. And I'm so we simultaneously tell ourselves the story that the Standard Model of particle physics is complete. And then it also turns out that the Standard Model of particle physics only describes about 4% of the matter-energy content in the universe. And then it also turns out that knowing all the things we do about particle physics doesn't actually make us good at figuring out how sand stacks which actually turns out to be a really hard thing to describe mathematically. And so I think that's a really good example of how it feels simple and then turns out to be complex. I just turned in my column yesterday, where I wrote about how we can write down an equation. But being able to write down the equation doesn't mean we know how to calculate with it. And this causes us all kinds of problems. So I think that's maybe my physicist’s reflection on what Daniel just said.

PK  Amazing, thank you. Thank you guys so much. Well, this time went by super fast …

Last month we talked about history and what stood out to me is the gaps.  The gaps in Black history where Indigenous peoples should be and the gaps in Native Studies where Black people should be.  Our histories never unfold in isolation, and yet they are told that way. In shaping each of these panels I am mindful of those gaps and I work to fill them in, to make sure that you have voices who will fill them in so that your vision, and therefore your imagination, will be encouraged and enlarged by possibility.

Memoirs are personal history and they form the flesh and blood of the broad strokes that fill our history books.  Ernestine’s book reflects on the story of Raven stealing the sun, the relationship that he builds with the old man in order to gain access to his boxes of treasure in order to bring light into a dark world. There is loss and sorrow, but there is also life and our own lives are like this. Memoirs, our personal histories are like this.

Our interior lives are filled with carved boxes. In this conversation we invite you inwards, to reflect on the carved boxes in your own lives and what treasures might be revealed in the opening.  

Ambe

This month’s panel:

Ernestine Hayes, author the Tao of Raven.  Ernestine was born and raised in Juneau when Alaska was still a territory. When she was fifteen years old she and her mother moved to California where she spent 25 long years. When she turned 40 she resolved to go home or die with her thoughts facing north. It took her eight months to get from San Francisco to Ketchikan. She finally made it back home two years later. After she got back home she enrolled at the University of Alaska, eventually receiving an MFA in creative writing and literary arts and now teaches at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau.  Ernestine belongs to the Kaagwaantaan clan of the Eagle side of the Lingit nation. She has four grandchildren and two great grandchildren.  

https://www.ernestinehayes.com/

    Demita Frazier. Interviewed by Keeanga–Yamahtta Taylor for How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective.  Demita Frazier is an unrepentant life long Black feminist, social justice activist, thought leader, writer, and teacher. She is a founding member of the Combahee River Collective who has remained a committed activist in Boston for over 44 years, was a radical even as a child. While a high school student in Chicago, she helped organize a student walk out in protest of the Vietnam War. She has worked in coalition with many organizations on the issues of reproductive rights, domestic violence, the care and protection of endangered children, urban sustainability issues affecting food access in poor and working class communities, and a host of other important issues affecting communities of color. She has been an organizer and architect behind the scenes of many movement initiatives including the Chicago Black Panther Party’s Breakfast Program, Jane Collective, and more. After receiving her JD from Northeastern University, Frazier contributed to local and national campaigns for gender and racial justice. For more on Demita’s extraordinary activist journey, please see Keeanga–Yamahtta Taylor’s How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective. She has been a consistent advocate for the unequivocal freedom of Black women so that we can get on with the urgent business of freeing the world.Kaitlin Curtice, author Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God  

Kaitlin Curtice is a poet, author and public speaker. As an enrolled citizen of the Potawatomi Nation, Kaitlin writes on the intersection of Indigenous spirituality, faith in everyday life, and decolonization within the church.

Her new book NATIVE: Identity, Belonging and Rediscovering God is about identity, soul-searching, and being on the never-ending journey of finding ourselves and finding God. As both a citizen of the Potawatomi Nation and a Christian, Curtice offers a unique perspective on these topics. In this book, she shows how reconnecting with her identity both informs and challenges her faith.

Joy Henderson  is a Black-Lakota writer, mother, and Child and Youth Care practitioner. She lives in Scarborough, is a constant commentator on Canadian politics, children’s rights, and Back and Indigenous identity. Joy has written op eds for the Toronto Star and spoken at various events.  She is also a huge fan of ketchup chips.Jenessa Galenkamp  is a citizen of the Métis Nation. Originally from Tiny, Ontario by the shores of Georgian Bay, She now lives and works in St. Catharines. She spends her 9-5 working as an executive administrative assistant, and her weekends in the summer are often spent photographing weddings. When not working, Jenessa loves hiking with her partner, playing cribbage, reading, chilling with their two cats, Eleanor Rigby and Penny Lane, or working out ways for her church community to become better relatives with the broader community and learning as she goes.

Robin McBurney, chatroom moderator for this month Robin is a high school teacher in Niagara Falls. She advises the Student Council and encourages them to see activities through a diversity lens, such as cultures are not costumes and eliminating “crazy hair day.”  Robin is on the Literacy Committee where they work to bring in diverse stories and authors and has found several staff members with whom she can actively disrupt white supremacy in the classroom and the administration.  Seeing herself as an intern alongside the work of Black and Indigenous activists has changed how she sees her role in the fight.

stop writing about Indiansshe told me againonly louder as ifI was hard of hearingyou have to allow authorstheir subjects, she saidstop writing aboutwhat isn’ t in the text

which is just our entire history

excerpt from graduate school first semester: so here I am writing about Indians again, Cheryl Savageau

This morning I watched a documentary about the public works projects of the early 20th century.  Dams that created hydro electricity for cities. Aqueducts that brought water to cities. Public parks that were protected from cities. They talked about the setting aside of land and the movement of dirt, but not the displacement of Native Americans who had lived on land before it got protected or turned into dirt. The Indians who weren’t in the text.

Our history is the future. This is the title of Nick’s book and it captures a belief about history that matters. So often we are taught history as a thing that happened back then. It is static and has little to do with us today aside from being occasionally interesting. But history is indeed story and we’re in the midst of it. The things that happened back then reach forward to us in a hundred different ways.  My maternal grandmother was born in 1919 in the Ukraine. Her life contained the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, WW2, Stalin, Hitler, postwar immigration, the Big Bopper and the Bee Gees.  Moon landings and space shuttles. My paternal grandmother was born around the same time in northwestern Ontario.  Her life contained residential schools and trap lines, Treaty 3 and the concentration of Anishnaabe families into reserves, the children she outlived.  We live under laws and policies that were developed more than a hundred years ago, and with the consequences of others.  

And yet we also live with possibility and promise because history is not only inevitable progress for some and disruption of others.  It contains examples we can learn from, actions we can build on, and ideas we develop and expand into new places.  For me it is the history of Black Disaspora in Indian country that contains so much promise amid the heartache. The relationships between Black and Native Americans is at once fraught and hopeful.  Many of our tribes sheltered slaves, others owned them. Sometimes both. We returned runaway slaves under the terms of treaties we were determined to respect and sheltered them because this wasn’t what we meant.  Tiya Miles, in the preface to the collection of essays Crossing Waters Crossing Worlds, notes that there is an third partner in Black and Native American relationships, a constant structuring white presence that gives shape to our ideas about each other.  We don’t think about this enough. We need to. 

As I read history I am struck by how deliberate colonialism was. It wasn’t “the times” as if now is any different and it wasn’t accidental. I am also struck by the persistence of purity as an ideology and how ideas about purity were invoked to separate us from land and each other and in those things we can find paths forward. We can be just as deliberate about our own decolonizing, about embracing the relationships that impurity creates in and among us. 

I am so looking forward to this conversation, there are bios and links below that will introduce us to the panel and other works by the authors you may want to dip into. 

If you missed last month’s conversation on Why Indigenous Literatures Matter you can watch that here:  https://www.twitch.tv/videos/882335162  

And next month we are looking at Memoirs, which are personal histories.  We have confirmed with Ernestine Hayes, author of the Tao of Raven, and Demita Frazer who was interviewed for How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor as well as our chat moderator Jenessa Galenkamp who will take a break from the chat rooom to join the panel.  

Ambe!

Panelists:  

Khadija Hammuda works in child protection and has done some organizing and educating in the community around Islamaphobia. A settler in Canada with roots in Libya, Khadija works against the colonialism so often part of the immigrant experience by developing relationships with Indigenous peoples.  She recently started a new position on a specialized child protectionteam working collaboratively with Indigenous organizations to serve Indigenous families in Niagara.  Khadija enjoys daily ice coffees and hanging out with her cat, Mungi.  

Seán Carson Kinsella is migizi dodem (Bald Eagle Clan) and also identifies as twospirit/queer/crip/aayahkwêw and is descended from signatories of Treaties 4,6, and 8 (êkâ ê-akimiht nêhiyaw/otipemisiwak/Nakawé/Irish). They were born in Toronto, on Treaty 13 lands and grew up in Williams Treaty territory. A member of the Titiesg Wîcinímintôwak Bluejays Dancing Together Collective, Seán has been featured as a reader at both last year’s and this year’s Naked Heart festival. Their zine pîkiskiwewin sâkihtowin featuring poems of Indiqueer futurism, survival and getting hot and bothered was released last year. They are currently the Director, the Eighth Fire at Centennial College and have previously taught Indigenous Studies there as well.

Cheryl Savageau is the author of the poetry collections, Dirt Road Home, which was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and Mother/Land, which has been described as “one of the best literary depictions of New England to date.” (Craig Womack, author of Red on Red).  Her children’s book, Muskrat Will Be Swimming was a Smithsonian Notable Book and won the Skipping Stones Book Award for Exceptional Multicultural and Ecology and Nature Books. Savageau has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Arts Foundation. She has been a mentor to Native American writers through the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers, and received their Mentor of the Year award in 1999.

Savageau teaches at the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College.

Tiya Miles is Professor of History and Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She is a public historian, academic historian, and creative writer whose work explores the intersections of African American, Native American and women’s histories. Her temporal and geographical zones of greatest interest include the nineteenth-century U.S. South, Midwest, and West. Miles offers courses on African American women, Native American women, abolitionist women, and “Black Indian” histories and identities. She has become increasingly engaged in environmental humanities questions and ways of articulating and enlivening African American environmental consciousness.

https://history.fas.harvard.edu/people/tiya-miles

A citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, Dr. Nick Estes is an Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico. He is a historian, journalist, and host of The Red Nation Podcast. Estes also is a founding editor of Red Media Collective, which publishes books, podcasts, and stories highlighting Indigenous intelligence in all its forms. His writing and research engage decolonization, Indigenous histories, environmental justice, and anti-capitalism and have been featured in The Baffler, The Guardian, The Nation, High Country News, Indian Country Today, Jacobin, NBC News, and The Intercept. In 2019, Estes was awarded the Lannan Literary Fellowship for Non-Fiction. Estes is the author of the book “Our History is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance.” He is a co-author of two books coming out in 2021 on police abolition and Indigenous environmental justice, and is currently working on a book on the history of Red Power.

https://nickestes.blog/

More information at daanis.ca/ambe

Foundations, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter by Daniel Heath Justice

After the Civil War the United States had a decision to make about who they would be. This happens regularly in nations, they form and reform their collective identity and the afternath of the Civil War was one such time. Would they reckon with a history that relied on racial hierachies and inequity to achieve their state, or would they reconcile with their southern brothers. Reconstruction could have been a time of reckoning and rebuilding in a way that brought everyone into that collective identity but it was not, and the promise of a racial solidarity rooted in white Christian supremacy remained the basis of American identity. 

We’re at that place again, the US and Canada. The events at the Capitol, which were the inevitable outcome of what Black and Indigenous people have tried to raise awareness on for years, have brought us here again. To another crossroads. Many prophecies talk about times like this, choices that will need to be made and the consequences of those choices. The Christian book of Revelations isn’t the only place of such imaginings.  So on the day of the inauguration of the next US president, as we stand at another place of possibility, we will see how Indigenous literatures invite us to consider these questions.  

What does it mean to be human? 

How do we behave as good relatives?

How do we become good ancestors?

How do we learn to live together?

There is a focus on kindness throughout the book that I think is very important, and if you have time there is a podcast by Kelly Hayes that I would encourage you to listen to, the link has a transcript as well but there’s something about listening to Kelly.  We need a riot of empathy, and right now, in this moment while we are about to launch on a year of Indigenous reading and thinking about what it means to be humans being as my friend Maya explains the word Anishnaabe, centering the idea of kindness will make all the difference in how we proceed out of this moment.  

This month’s panel:

Daniel Heath Justice is a Colorado-born Canadian citizen of the Cherokee Nation/ ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ. Daniel currently holds the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Literature and Expressive Culture at UBC on unceded Musqueam territory. His most recent book is Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, a literary manifesto about the way Indigenous writing works in the world. He is the author of Our Fire Survives the Storm: A Cherokee Literary History and numerous essays and reviews in the field of Indigenous literary studies, and he is co-editor of a number of critical and creative anthologies and journals, including the award-winning The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous American Literature (with James H. Cox) and Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two-Spirit Literature (with Qwo-Li Driskill, Deborah Miranda, and Lisa Tatonetti). Other writings include the animal cultural history Badger in the celebrated Animal series from Reaktion Books (UK) and the Indigenous epic fantasy novel, The Way of Thorn and Thunder: The Kynship Chronicles.

Daniel’s current projects include Raccoon (also in Reaktion’s Animal Series), a collection of essays titled This Hummingbird Heart: Indigenous Writing, Wonder, and Desire, an edited collection on Indigenous land privatization and allotment co-edited with White Earth Ojibwe historian Jean M. O’Brien, and a long-gestating Indigenous steampunk novel.

Janet Rogers is a Mohawk/Tuscarora writer from Six Nations of the Grand River. She was born in Vancouver British Columbia in 1963 and raised in southern Ontario. Janet traveled throughout 2017-2019 working within numerous residencies in Vancouver BC, Santa Fe NM and Edmonton AB. Janet is based on the Six Nations territory of the Grand River where she operates the Ojistoh Publishing label. Janet works in page poetry, spoken word performance poetry, video poetry and recorded poetry with music. She is a radio broadcaster, documentary producer and media and sound artist.

Her literary titles include; Splitting the Heart, Ekstasis Editions 2007, Red Erotic, Ojistah Publishing 2010, Unearthed, Leaf Press 2011 “Peace in Duress” Talonbooks 2014 and Totem Poles and Railroads ARP Books 2016, “As Long As the Sun Shines” (English edition), Bookland Press 2018 with a Mohawk language edition released in 2019. “Ego of a Nation” is Janet’s 7th poetry title which she independently produced on the Ojistoh Publishing label 2020.

Jackson Twobears and Janet collaborate as 2Ro Media. They combined their individual talents and skills along with National Screen Institute training to produce two short documentaries;  NDNs on the Airwaves about Six Nations radio (APTN 2016), Moving Voice, a Telus STORYHIVE sponsored digital broadcast 2019 featuring the travels of literary trailblazer and Mohawk poetess E. Pauline Johnson, and The Spirit of Rage a short experimental video poem about anti-racism.  Janet won the 45th Annual American Indian Film Festival 2020, BEST MUSIC VIDEO award for her video Ego of a Nation produced with Wes Day of Fresh Shift Productions. 

Ishenikeyaa Waawaashkesh is Deer clan, and a member of Ardoch Algonquin First Nation. As a mother, sister, auntie and community member, Ishkenikeyaa believes in liberatory practice as community care. An educator for 20 years, she is currently an Indigenous Education consultant, as well as Equity and Inclusive Education consultant, for Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board. Ishkenikeyaa is passionate about culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy, Anishinaabemowin, and beading. She has 2 sons, Bnajaanh and Ziigwan, and is a lifelong voracious reader. 

Joy Henderson  is a Black-Lakota writer, mother, and Child and Youth Care practitioner. She lives in Scarborough, is a constant commentator on Canadian politics, children’s rights, and Back and Indigenous identity. Joy has written op eds for the Toronto Star and spoken at various events.  She is also a huge fan of ketchup chips.  

Neil Ellis Orts is a writer and performer living in Houston, Texas. His novella, Cary & John, is available for order wherever you order books. He is currently putting together a short story collection. Themes that emerge from Neil’s body of work include identity and religious faith, and of course grief.  There is almost always someone dead or dying in his stories, having absorbed the Pauline line about death being the final enemy.  His performance work often invites his audience into self reflection.  

Robin McBurney is a high school teacher in Niagara Falls. She advises the Student Council and encourages them to see activities through a diversity lens, such as cultures are not costumes and eliminating “crazy hair day.”  Robin is on the Literacy Committee where they work to bring in diverse stories and authors and has found several staff members with whom she can actively disrupt white supremacy in the classroom and the administration.  Seeing herself as an intern alongside the work of Black and Indigenous activists has changed how she sees her role in the fight.

Biindigen.  

Ambe!

More information at daanis.ca/ambe