#unfortunately antiblackness makes the world go round

[wakandamama]

I got a bit of a loaded question, sis. And if it's inappropriate you can tell me, but you said you're Black and Cherokee, so I thought you might have a good perspective.

Do you have any suggested authors, books, or articles behind what seems to be this lack of Black and Indigenous solidarity? I was scrolling this morning and I saw this post that literally was two seconds from dropping a slur (the dogwhistles were horns) and I'm like ... well damn. White Supremacy works terrible wonders, bc I would think the circumstances that brought our groups together would cause some sort of solidarity, so I'm always blown away when I see stuff like that. With other groups I'm familiar with the reasons behind it, but I don't want to assume things for this one.

Sure thing! I'm also gonna annotate this with my own story and learned knowledge of the struggles I've encountered while trying to expand the understand of my identity at the end.

This awesome article by Amber Starks

All these articles by Alaina E. Roberts she amazing at inner community discussion on this topic along with just being an amazing scholar and writer

This Guardian article by Caleb Gayle (another amazing scholar and author, just anything he's written on the topic will do but this article really helped me understand why I had issues connecting) that explores a case study of a Black family aving to fight for a claim to their indigenous identity with certain tribes that want to erase their history of participating in the chattel slavery of Black people

Also Gayle's book We Refuse to Forget

The book Untangling a Red, White, and Black Heritage by Darnella Davis

The Book Blood Politics by Circe Sturm

All of Zora Neal Hurston's black anthropology films they are free on YouTube or through her foundation site and the Black Film Archive

This article by Rebecca Nagle that explores the history of Cherokee confederates and the community slow acknowledgement and atonement for them

This blog post leads to many other articles and interviews with other Black Natives and their experiences in different tribes

This Kyle Mays interview about the re-establishment of Cherokee Freedmans status (hey that's me) and it impact

These npr articles 1 2 about The fight for tribal rights of Cherokee Freedmans

kararoselles, choctawchickasawfreedmen, and faithcampos on tik tok are incredible too

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Okay so boom, me personally I am both Cherokee Freedman and by Blood quantum (ick) am Cherokee. However I claim my rights though the Dawes Rolls my great- grandfather enrolled too after emancipation because his father (and 2 aunts) were Cherokee slaves. I only really started connect with the native part of my identity recently (like 3 years)

Growing up I was told a lot of the family stories and raised to do a lot of old school practices that are crossed with being Black and being Cherokee. You drop me off in prairie land or a river side I'm surviving, (I hate it but I can process a deer) I grew up weaving baskets/wicker and doing beading, I know a lot of family recipes that now that I've expanded my knowledge are meals that are mixed between traditional Native American foods and AA cooking. My great-grandfather helped build Grand Lake in OK. My family is even prominently buried in and care takers for 2 Freedman Cemeteries.

But I was always taught that was just part of my and my family's Blackness. I have no living family that aren't Black in some way. Being Native American was an afterthought because of the generational racial trauma. Multiple of my full blood grandmas weren't allowed to have their grandchildren at their homes or on their land because they were Black. My mother often told me stories that her grandmother would sneak them to her home and land to learn how to forage, everytime they left she would cut her hair off to give to them because there was always the threat that they were going to get reported and her rights would be stripped. One of my ancestors is lost because he was a runaway slave from the Cherokee slave trade, many were denied status at some point

It's a lot and it didn't help that when I learned about this side of me and tired to reach out to the Native American club in my school. The Cherokee people there started being very racist to me and dismissed me. It jaded me, it pissed me off, I am still bitter and will probably be until I die.

Because a lot of the problems I advocated for (such as local climate change, environmental degradation, contaminated water, land stealing, food deserts, ect.) We're movements spearheaded by Native Americans in my area. I was denied say or acknowledgement because my issues were "Black issues". If someone told you "Hey this white rancher who had only been here 12 years is illegal trying to destroy a Native American cemetery so he had more graze land for his cows" the trial authority would be on that. But no, since the cemetery is Black Cherokees and Freedman they don't want to claim jurisdiction to help my family save it.

But, I do recognize that there has been a long and important history of Native and Black solidarity from social justice to environmental things. To just the clear fact that Native American people had everything stolen from them by white supremacy while Black Americans were stolen people brought here. Just as there was chattel slavery of Black people in certain major tribes, there were many that protected and supported escaping slaves. That history and cross culture is mine, I've made it one of my side missions to learn more about my Native side's culture, reconnects as some of my older family members are (mostly through folklore learning and connecting the things I was raised to do to Cherokee practices, participating in tribal news/votes ect.) But I haven't got the energy to connect with the people yet, I haven't gone to any in person Circles or powwows. I've only met other Black Cherokees with the intention to have community and friendship with.

Unfortunately but not surprising, the cause of a lack of solidarity comes down to white supremacy and global antiblackness. But I think that is the cause for a lack of ALL POC solidarity with Black people, especially in America.

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And for the hoteps that are gonna find this post and try to be fucking weird on it.

NO! BLACK PEOPLE (THOSE DESCENDANTS OF THE SURVIVORS OF THE MIDDLE PASSAGE SLAVE TRADE, DEMOGRAPHICALLY CATEGORIZED AS AFRICAN AMERICANS TODAY, MAJORITY OF US) ARE NOT THE ORIGINAL NATIVE AMERICANS OR OTHER INDIGENOUS PEOPLES TO THE AMERICAS

Do NOT be a fucking weirdo and deny the legacy of survival, tragedy, perseverance, and love that our ancestors went through in the past to lead to your lineage of today. I am a special and blessed case to have the family records, story keeping, and DNA testing available to claim my indigenous identity that is directly linked in through my Black identity.

DO NOT BE WEIRD ON THIS POST, THOSE STONE HEADS WITH THICK LIPS ARE NOT WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN MISLED TO THINK THEY ARE. CHEROKEE NATION WAS A DICK BEFORE HOPKINS WAS ELECTED. PLEASE RESEARCH YOUR LINEAGE BEFORE YOU HOP ON MY POST BECAUSE I WILL EMBARRASS YOU WITH THE RECEIPTS OF MINE

[jonahsahn]

AsiansWithAttitudes

We often talk about marginalized people and how they are the most oppressed within a society.

To be "marginalized" means that you do not fit in with the norm; it means that the way you identify is on the outside. You are not center stage and front page. You are, in fact, on the margins of the page.

I'm a supporter of most marginalized communities. I root for the underdog. I care about folks being treated fairly within a democratic society no matter how they identify or how they were born.

But there's one group that I just can't get behind. There's one marginalized group that I refuse to back and support in their endeavors to bring awareness to their cause. I try not to give them my time, resources, labor, or money.

I'm talking about the group known as stupid idiots.

Now, I know what you're going to say. I can hear you from the other side of your device screen: "They're the majority, not the minority, not the marginalized, not the oppressed!" I can hear you screaming that "idiots are currently in control!" or something like that.

And while that might be true for politics and government, I want to focus on another kind of stupid idiot right now. Given that a lot of my focus has lately been dedicated to the relationships between Black and Asian communities, I've come across a lot of discourse that suggests the existence of a group of stupid idiots who believe that a race war between people of Black and Asian descent is coming soon.

The latest round of conversation centers on events that have taken place in Minneapolis Minnesota. An Asian woman was kicked in the face while waiting for public transportation.

In response to that incident an Asian man in Minnesota allegedly (we will come back to that word momentarily) roamed the streets in the middle of the night to find a Black guy to attack.

There is video of both of these incidents.

Now, most people would agree that the attackers in both videos are stupid. The teens were stupid to kick the woman in the face, and the Asian guy was stupid for attacking a random Black person in the streets.

It's the stupid idiots that would try to justify either of these actions. Idiots would blame this pandemic on Asians and justify the teens attacking the Asian woman. Idiots would watch this man walk around a neighborhood in search of "revenge" and think "yeah he's doing the right thing."

It's no surprise that these idiots mainly live in the comments sections of the outlets that post about these stories. You've got NextShark for Asians, The Shade Room for Black folks, and a whole bunch of other fb and ig pages to choose from; some more biased than others; some more antagonistic than the rest.

And my focus here today is actually on those outlets, and one in particular that has gained a massive following on instagram and one that I have had private run ins with in the past. "AsiansWithAttitudes" is an instagram page that promotes itself as being "pro asian", "Asian first", and a "voice of the asian people"

Typically I love this type of action from the Asian community. I'm a strong believer in Asian people stepping up and representing themselves in the media and in the world. For far too long, Asians have been put on the back burner, and so places like Nextshark, Angry Asian Guy, Ricefeed and plenty more pages act as a beacon of confidence for Asian people, young and old.

Unfortunately, these pages don't have huge staff, and so the comments often get out of control when a stupid idiot enters the chat. It only takes one of them to light the flame of racist conversation, whether they're trolling or not, whether they're asian or not, because we know that there are plenty of bots out there behind faceless profiles saying any and everything to start some mess, and suddenly people who align with that high key antiblackness show up in droves. It happens all-of-the-time.

The good news is that stupid idiots are the minority. They're on the margins in this specific instance, because I constantly see a lot of Asian folks also calling out the negative double standard and unfortunate situation of being a minority in the position that Asians are in, while simultaneously existing next to Black people, a people with a very long history of oppression in *this* country.

Most people are actually smart. Most people get it, and most people don't try to compare what is happening now with the state-backed and protected murder of Black folks that has existed throughout the history of the United States.

And so, I typically leave the comments alone. Stupid idiots are going to be stupid idiots.

But what do you do when you have a page like AsiansWithAttitudes? What happens when one of the stupid idiots rises and makes an instagram page that amasses a huge following and becomes a haven for people who constantly measure their oppression against the oppression of Black people and blames them for their suffering, instead of pointing at the actual reason for the division?

If you haven't figured it out by now, this isn't all about a single instagram page. Rather it's about a collective of people who think like the person running that page and their followers. These Asians who think they're doing the right thing in their pursuit of social justice by somehow throwing one of the most oppressed groups on the ladder of privilege under the bus? They're stupid idiots.

They may be in the minority, and therefore a marginalized group, but I feel nothing for them and I can't support them in their misguided efforts at fake wokeness; not when they're incapable of doing the simple algebra that it takes to realize that Black people aren't the enemy just because some Black people are attacking Asians in the streets.

But their antiblackness shows. Their disdain for Black people oozes through their words and positions on these matters so clearly that I can't help but shake my head at how idiotic they truly look.

If you're out there and you're Asian and you are looking to do something to move Asian people forward, don't be like these people. Do a lot better.