To say we've been going through it would be an understatement.. the night before Juneteenth our rising first grader Win came home from the summer program at school and said some boy cut her hair(?!) This came as quite a shock to us because no one called us, no one informed us, 1/ and they were out of school the next day because of Juneteenth. So we had a full 24 hours to seethe and just try to come to terms with the violence inflicted on our baby. We sent an email to all parties involved and promptly yanked them out of the summer program. 2/

I used to say bringing folx into broken systems just breaks the people, but I want to refine this. We are not broken. We are forced to choose to compromise our personal integrity for the sake of belonging OR become ostracized from the community 1/ ...within which we usually carve out our own space of resistance with fellow likeminded marginalized folx. So the toxic folx in power continue to do surface level DEI nonsense and continue to keep those of us who refuse to conform on the periphery of the org. 2/

Since I refuse to dignify these jerks individually with a response, let's collectively debunk some of the stereotypes/myths folx like to hurl around these days. Mini 🧵 "If you were a real Native American your ancestors would've k*lled you for being queer." False. Our ancestors' expressions of gender and sexualities were not confined to the colonial binary. In fact, two-spirit folx are sacred and hold important roles in our communities. Next.

My Mama is a fulltime caretaker for Grandma Myrtle. We were supposed to meet up in Kansas City last week (it's close to home) but she ended up not being able to make it because GMa got an appt for her new sleep apnea mask to wear at night. Mama had already taken time off work, so Instead of cancelling her days off, she got a hotel room in town and brought all her scrapbook materials, her favorite snacks, and a slice of cake from her favorite local bakery, and she spent one night in her own bed, in her own space in town. She slept 13 hours in a row!

Don't wanna watch the colonial glorifying blue people movie? Check out these sci-fi films by actual Indigenous people telling our own stories instead. 🧵 Night Raiders (available on Hulu) by Cree-Métis filmmaker Danis Goulet and executive produced by Taika Waititi. Sci-fi film where "a mother joins an underground band of vigilantes to try and rescue her daughter from a state-run institution". Released March 2021.

Over the summer, my brilliant colleague Dr. Ramona Beltrán and I provided consultation with one of NPR's producers about the use of #decolonization in therapy and shifting the focus to healing. Both of these are super accessible and would be great classroom additions! 1/ The podcast is a compelling story about intergenerational trauma in a Cambodian community in San José. Episode is titled "Therapy Ghostbusters" on NPR's Invisibilia Podcast. Link here: npr.org/2022/09/20/112… 2/