Every Native woman has been compared to Pocahontas - a 12yo child sex trafficking victim who was sold to white men in Britain to keep her people in line.

What do you think it does to Indigenous women to be constantly compared to this real girl Disney turned into a "princess"?
What do you think it does to a country to massively rewrite history in this way? To pretend that any 12yo could have the capacity to not only consent to rape, but to consent to being a pawn in a political game solely meant to keep her powerful people from stopping US expansion?
This country has many sins to account for.

The use, abuse and misuse of "Pocahontas" - whose real name was Matoaka - is only one. And yet it's one that this country seems consistently unable to even look at, let alone reckon with.
Native women know what it does. That history lives in our bodies, in our breath, in our blood. It lives in the faces of our sisters, cousins, nieces, aunties. It lives in the fear that at any moment we may lose those closest to us - and no one will do anything to stop it. Ever.
We have begged countries to stop killing us, raping us, abusing us, misusing us, manipulating us, controlling us.

All we've gotten are thousands of unimplemented policies, multiple "task forces" that have no real power, and systemic, unequivocal denial of our pain. #MMIWG2
So yeah. Make another joke about Pocahontas, you absolutely heartless pieces of shit. Your ancestors wouldn't have even survived on this land if it wasn't for us. Which means you wouldn't be here. We know the score. And we will not let you kill our sisters any longer. We can't.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Alicia Elliott - AND THEN SHE FELL out now!

Alicia Elliott - AND THEN SHE FELL out now! Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @WordsandGuitar

Sep 30, 2022
What I hate about Truth & Reconciliation Day is how the government and politicians, who have power to make real change, have encouraged everyday Canadians to think reconciliation is achieved through individual capitalist consumption. Buying orange shirts and donuts, for example.
Meanwhile, they could be passing legislation to save Indigenous languages by giving them the same funding as French. They could put moratoriums on extractive business practices like logging or drilling for oil. They could give back some of the 89% of Canada that's crown land.
They could make sure that 5-10 TRC calls to action are enacted every year until they're done, then move on to the RCAP recommendations, then MMIWG2S Inquiry recommendations. They could do SO much. Instead, they want Canadians think land acknowledgements & orange shirts are enough
Read 5 tweets
Sep 29, 2022
There definitely is a certain type of second wave feminist white woman who thinks she's outsmarted sexism by placing herself above women who embrace their sexuality and attractiveness and it's weird so many people are acting like there isn't.
The type who makes fun of women who show cleavage and thinks the men she pals around with at literary events *actually respect* her, since she's so smart and talented that she doesn't *need* to dress *like that.* She has self-respect, *those* women are destroying feminism, etc.
And tbh, since the movie that book is based on is being roundly criticized for how misogynistic and exploitative it is, are we really gonna pretend that type of attitude wasn't carried over into the book? Come on.
Read 5 tweets
Feb 2, 2022
So I guess Trucker Convoy folks started a fundraiser claiming they're helping Indigenous communities get clean water, but they're raising money for an NGO called Water First that has nothing to do with creating infrastructure for that to happen?
From what I can tell, despite this rather misleading pie chart saying 61% of funds goes towards "Drinking Water," they don't actually help First Nations get access to clean water. They run paid internships for Native ppl to work in water treatment & arrange class visits.
They started by doing work in other countries, but as of 2016, they changed their name and mandate to focus on Indigenous communities in Canada "through education, training and meaningful collaboration." Except... even according to them, this doesn't work. Peep that last line.
Read 13 tweets
Feb 14, 2021
So I watched the Cecil Hotel doc on Netflix and it's so clear to me that people do NOT understand the ways bipolar disorder/psychosis work. Saying "Elisa Lam's behaviour makes no sense!" implies that the internal logic of psychosis "makes sense" to the external world.
If you've experienced psychosis, you know that there is an internal logic to psychosis, which makes you watch the elevator video in a completely different way. If Lam was feeling paranoid, and had delusions about being chased or targeted, those thoughts would have *felt real*
More real than her observable reality from an outside perspective, in which she went to a bookstore, then came back to her room, accidentally pressed a button that kept the elevator doors open for 2 mins, didn't realize it, then wandered away and ended up in a water tank.
Read 14 tweets
Jan 28, 2021
I've written extensively about my own experiences of depression and anxiety in my book, "A Mind Spread Out On The Ground." In the title essay, I compare depression to the effects of colonialism. Since it's #BellLetsTalk, I want to talk more about what I call colonial depression.
I've tried therapy on and off for many years, and while I've found some CBT helpful, I want to point out the inherent problems involved in CBT and, to an extent, the mindfulness movement - both of which have become incredibly Westernized and are used to try to help depression.
CBT, or cognitive behavioural therapy, is a form of therapy that works based on the premise that how we think about and interpret the events in our lives affects how we feel, so if we train ourselves to think differently about the events in our lives, we can change our moods.
Read 23 tweets
Aug 7, 2020
Right now, as you read this, my people are peacefully occupying a land development that Canada has never owned, and in fact was supposed to negotiate back in 2006. The OPP raided the camp 2 days ago. Yesterday, we took it back. This is how local media reported on it:
The article starts with an interview of a scared white Caledonia resident, which frames this photo of young Indigenous men standing up for their community against state violence as "menacing."

I don't see menace. I see power. I see possibility. I see revolution.
In case you were wondering if this clearly biased reporting was an anomaly, another local reporter posted this on our group's Facebook page. Note the lol reactions.
Read 13 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(