Decolonizing Antiracism

Praxis

Lawrence and Dua provide insight into how the study of antiracism is part of an ongoing colonization project. The article highlights the need to take up the fight for Indigenous sovereignty in our organizing. This section will give you questions and exercises to reflect upon alone or discuss with others to help you put these ideas into practice.

Questions

These questions are written specifically with the United States and Canada in mind.

1. If you are not an Indigenous person, reflect on how you have participated or been complicit in the ongoing colonization project? Consider the following:

   1. Your citizenship status;

   2. Your immigration story; and

   3. The land you live on.

2. If you are Indigenous, go back to the questions Lawrence and Dua posed for Indigenous people, in Summary, Part 5: Taking on Decolonization.

3. Reflect on your understanding or race. Has it so far been through a Black-White binary? How have other groups fit into that understanding? How has your understanding of race changed throughout reading this study guide?

4. Think about the education you received growing up. How were you taught about Indigenous people’s history?

5. How has your organizing included or failed to include the fight for Indigenous sovereignty?

Exercises

1. Identify the name of the Indigenous land you live on using this resource.

2. Learn about land acknowledgments and incorporate them into your life, for example, before you begin a presentation, using this resource.

3. Read through the United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People and reflect on what your country has done to uphold or violate these rights.

4. Visit our Antiracism Study Guide and evaluate how Ibram X. Kendi incorporates (or fails to incorporate) Indigenous resistance in his text.

5. Research the history of why we use the term Black, Indigenou, and People of Color (BIPOC) as opposed to People of Color (POC)

For Educators

To better center Indigeneity and Indigenous struggles in our understanding of race and racism, we must better incorporate the study of Indigeneity and Indigenous struggles in our curriculums.

There are specific ways to decolonize your curriculum depending on which of era of American history you want to decolonize:

• Pre-colonial history: Instead of referring to it as the “New World” or “the Americas”, use the language “Turtle Land” which was the name assigned by Natives to describe North and South America (Some historians also believe this was used to describe the world/earth, but we’re unsure)

• Pre-colonial history: “Indigenous Peoples” is considered preferable to “Native Americans/American Indians” (though older generations of indigenous peoples do use that term), because these people are not native to America or the Americas, they are the “first/indigenous peoples” of a land before America

• Civil rights era: Examples of which civil rights photos should be produced in color (Black and White photos were a tactic developed by school systems to seemingly ‘distance’ themselves from the civil rights period, make it seem like a historical event further in the past)

Further reading

• Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa

• How We Go Home: Voices from Indigenous North America by Sara Sinclair

• A beginner’s guide to supporting First Nations peoples & being anti-racist from The Industry Observer

• Native Appropriations blog by Adrienne Keene