Support Indigenous People This Weekend

Every year I invite people who are celebrating the colonial holiday to do something in support of Native people. Amid an overdose crisis and high rates of poverty, illness, and unemployment, Indigenous organizers are doing incredible work to reduce harm and help our peoples thrive. Through mutual aid, cultural work, protest, advocacy, and the sharing of Indigenous lifeways, these organizers are making a profound difference in the lives of Indigenous people in the U.S. If you can and would like to, please join me in supporting one of the following organizations this weekend.

• Indigenous Women Rising’s initiatives include financial and practical support for Indigenous abortion seekers in the US and Canada, midwifery support, and reproductive justice advocacy. Their efforts have never been more crucial. You can support their work here.
  
• Indigenous Justice provides crucial support for the families of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives, and Native survivors of violence. They also do powerful harm reduction work to address the overdose crisis in Native communities while also seeking to free Native people caught up in carceral systems. You can support their work here.
  
• My collective, Lifted Voices, is sponsoring survival stipends for individual Indigenous organizers. Indigenous activists on our waiting list include land and water defenders as well as people providing crucial community care in Indigenous communities. You can help support their needs here.
  
• Four Directions is a Native-led voting rights organization that works to ensure that Native people have equal ballot access. Native people have been the target of voter suppression in recent years, making this work even more crucial. You can support Four Directions here.
  
• NICWA works to support the safety, health, and spiritual strength of Native children. They have done amazing work to help Native nations keep Native families together. You can support their work here.
  
• Chi-Nations Youth Council is a diverse group of Native youth activists who steward the First Nations Garden, which is an important radical Indigenous space here in Chicago. They're hosting a teach-in about Palestine in the garden this weekend. You can support their work here.
• Maeqtekuahkihkiw Metaemohsak - Woodland Women is an elder-led group on my reservation that provides accompaniment and support to survivors of trauma. The group also engages in mutual aid, cultural education, and lots of crafting. You can support their work here.

Tomorrow, I will be sharing a special episode of Movement Memos featuring Morning Star Gali and Ashley Crystal Rojas, who organize with Indigenous Justice. I look forward to sharing it with you all, and I hope you will join me in supporting the work of Indigenous organizers like Morning Star and Ashley. While I know that most of you will not be celebrating the myth of “Thanksgiving” when you gather with loved ones this week, I think it’s important to actively embrace a counter-narrative during such times. How can we make this weekend about decolonization and opposing the violence of settler colonialism? Supporting Native groups, including organizers who are acting in solidarity with Palestine, is one way to repurpose this moment.

Tomorrow you will hear from Morning Star about some of the ways Native people have reclaimed and redefined “Thanksgiving.” I invite you all to likewise bring a different purpose to this occasion — one that supports the survival and cultural life of Native people.