outcast but never alone

So long as the political and economic system remains intact, voter enfranchisement, though perhaps resisted by overt white supremacists, is still welcomed so long as nothing about the overall political arrangement fundamentally changes. The facade of political equality can occur under violent occupation, but liberation cannot be found in the occupier’s ballot box. In the context of settler colonialism voting is the “civic duty” of maintaining our own oppression. It is intrinsically bound to a strategy of extinguishing our cultural identities and autonomy.

Since we cannot expect those selected to rule in this system to make decisions that benefit our lands and peoples, we have to do it ourselves. Direct action, or the unmediated expression of individual or collective desire, has always been the most effective means by which we change the conditions of our communities. What do we get out of voting that we cannot directly provide for ourselves and our people? What ways can we organize and make decisions that are in harmony with our diverse lifeways? What ways can the immense amount of material resources and energy focused on persuading people to vote be redirected into services and support that we actually need? What ways can we direct our energy, individually and collectively, into efforts that have immediate impact in our lives and the lives of those around us? This is not only a moral but a practical position and so we embrace our contradictions. We’re not rallying for a perfect prescription for “decolonization” or a multitude of Indigenous Nationalisms, but for a great undoing of the settler colonial project that comprises the United States of America so that we may restore healthy and just relations with Mother Earth and all her beings. Our tendency is towards autonomous anti-colonial struggles that intervene and attack the critical infrastructure that the U.S. and its institutions rest on. Interestingly enough, these are the areas of our homelands under greatest threat by resource colonialism. This is where the system is most prone to rupture, it’s the fragility of colonial power. Our enemies are only as powerful as the infrastructure that sustains them. The brutal result of forced assimilation is that we know our enemies better than they know themselves. What strategies and actions can we devise to make it impossible for this system to govern on stolen land? We aren’t advocating for a state-based solution, redwashed European politic, or some other colonial fantasy of “utopia.” In our rejection of the abstraction of settler colonialism, we don’t aim to seize colonial state power but to abolish it. We seek nothing but total liberation.

• That thought isn’t helpful right now.
• Now is not the time to think about it. I can think about it later.
• This is irrational. I’m going to let it go.
• I won’t argue with an irrational thought.
• This is not an emergency. I can slow down and think clearly about what I need.
• This feels threatening and urgent, but it really isn’t.
• I don’t have to be perfect to be OK.
• I don’t have to figure out this question. The best thing to do is just drop it.
• It’s OK to make mistakes.
• I already know from my past experiences that these fears are irrational.
• I have to take risks in order to be free. I’m willing to take this risk.
• It’s OK that I just had that thought/image, and it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t have to pay attention to it.
• I’m ready to move on now.
• I can handle being wrong.
• I don’t have to suffer like this. I deserve to feel comfortable.
• That’s not my responsibility.
• That’s not my problem.
• I’ve done the best I can.
• It’s good practice to let go of this worry. I want to practice.