Sis @MelaninMvskoke and I had an inbox convo yesterday. Grateful for the space she made for processing some things surrounding liberation and sovereignty for Black n Native folks.

Started around how to find evidence of Black Codes, intentional exclusions, in N8v spaces.

I said "One reason I have an issue with settler privilege and settler fragility is it disenfranchises Black people, Black Natives, and Black ppl dispossessed of land in a way that posits us next to damages caused by colonialism and imperialism and that's not accurate"

Sis replied that N8v tribes have internalized and perpetuated 1-drop rules to the exclusion of Black Natives. Also that .any tribes for political reasons and under the guise of “saving our cultures” have used blood quantum to erase Black Natives and non-Black Natives.

I replied that N8vs discount Black folks' needs for decolonizing as well on displaced land and how Black indigeneity is still at play when demanding rights to land and visibility even on Turtle Island.

And we processed how when we say "Black ppl have to get free for all of us to get free" it is bc *we are fighting to dismantle the very same systems.*

Sis said that Black liberation and Indigenous sovereignty aren’t mutually exclusive. They are complementary!!

I also noted that as Anishinaabek we had nation to nation relationships and agreements before disruption of our orders of life. So in this day to intentionally NOT make a statement of solidarity as a N8v nation is inherently antiBlack.

Bc for some reason our Indigenous heritage is overlooked or rejected as Indigenous bc of our treatment by colonizers and the ways antiBlackness was injected into this settler-colonial occupied space.

Yall nonBlack n8vs don't see us as Indigenous. Yet we move together as an Indigenous response to our known inherent value with BLM movements and proclamations. We are making our visibility a priority. We don't prevent anyone else from doing that.

The charge for nonBlack N8vs is to decolonize so u can recognize Black lives as Indigenous. Period. Then figure out why you ain't tryna move with us.

So when we say "No one can be free until Black lives are free" it is because as @MelaninMvskoke said, BLM is about dismantling the same systems that oppress all BIPOC.

And I add that fighting for our liberation inherently rights for yalls.