Land Back Programs

We’re taught about the genocide of indigenous peoples as though it isn’t still ongoing. We’re taught that Americans forced the Indians off their land in a brutal occupation, and the various tribes withered away, their traditions and cultures and languages and histories cast to dust.

What we don’t talk about is how the Natives persevered. How they still exist in America fighting for the right to live in their ancestral home, while the occupying descendants of the settlers whine about “great replacement” and “blood and soil”. The fight is still ongoing.

I think of Malcolm X’s analogy of the knife. The knife has been dug deep. Progress can only be made once the knife has been completely removed and the wound can heal. Some people don’t see the knife at best, and are pushing it deeper at worst. I can’t speak to how much more work is needed to pull the knife out; however, I do know that every time I look at a map of America and I don’t see borders for Native Nations, it subconsciously reinforces the idea that they’re gone. The knife is gone.

They’re. Still. Here.