So you want to decolonize your syllabus, a thread:
1. Start by understanding what decolonization means, and that it is not a metaphor (Tuck and Yang), but a material, tangible, physical process. 2. But what does that mean for my syllabus? It means not simply adding one or two Indigenous texts, but asking how the fundamental premise of the course is predicated on settler colonialism, theft of land, culture, and life, and then, and only then...

If race is not a precondition for humanness, but rather an effect of structural inequalities, namely the structuring of the world according to western imperial logics, then race is not simply a fiction but an imperial tool. If race is an imperial tool, which is to say, a figuring of humanity as developmental, incremental, and thus, temporally determined, then whiteness is always figured as of the present, while people "of color" are figured as of the past.

The Supreme Court will be hearing arguments about #ICWA tomorrow. This is a thread about trans-racial adoption, Indigenous futures, and the intergenerational effects of US assimilation policies. 1/ My father was adopted by a white family as a newborn in 1952. We knew nothing about his biological kin. He never wanted to know about them. He never asked. He never wanted to open that wound. 2/

It’s the year 2078. I am a spirit ancestor. The sidewalks crack with wild tobacco and the wind rushes prayers to silent stars. Colonialism is over. The dark earth sighs with relief. And beauty is no longer a dream. But the dreaming has only begun. Dreams sprout, hyacinths emerging, casting their purple light. Dreams that had only been dreamt in secret begin to take shape, amass. These silent dreams deferred, these wonderings, it-can't-possiblies, these futures, shudder and stretch to life.

With ICWA being debated in SCOTUS this November, I think it is important to understand three things about Indigenous people and adoption. 1. The United States has systematically and insistently sought to dismantle Indigenous kinship networks since the very beginning. Indigenous children represent Indigenous futures, and thus have been the prime targets for both assimilation in boarding schools, and adoption.

I've posted a couple thoughts on land acknowledgments recently, but the point is this: an acknowledgment is not the same as a relationship. Land does not require that you confirm it exists or that it has been stolen, rather that you reciprocate the care that it has given you. Elaboration: The land and water and air, the territory, exists regardless of the acknowledgment, which is only ever a first step. Next steps involve treating territory as kin, building relationships with that land itself, as if it were your kin. Because it is.

I want to take a sec to talk about universities and COVID. (These are my thoughts, not my employer's or my union's). OK, so, when many public universities set out to recruit students, they make claims like "you'll get a job" or "we provide upward mobility" and the like. Add to this, the neoliberalization of the public university, and we get other claims, like "you'll be able to climb on a rock wall between classes" or "our dorms are state of the art". What they don't claim, however, is to care for the wellbeing of the workers at the University.

Here is a little Cherokee / queer / asegi / 2 spirit related thread for pride month. I want to say something about the liminal spaces that we occupy, in which we thrive, as Indigiqueer people. (I'm a literary scholar by training, and this is my own interpretation.) In the Cherokee creation story all the animals are on an island surrounded by water. The are running out of room, so the animals hold a council and decide that some will try to dive to the bottom of the water to find land.

On the utility of queer studies and related critical approaches, an if/then thread.
1) If humans have bodies (as a precondition), then humanity is predicated on what makes a body human, and what makes humans bodied. 2) If queer studies is concerned with how bodies become bodies, under what structural, ontological, epistemological conditions--and not just what 'sexuality' means, then QS is a method for understanding bodies in their ongoing transformations, undoings/becomings, aliveness.

How Trump's @WhiteHouse statement on Columbus Day, is more revisionist than the revisionists they fear, a thread: "Today, we celebrate Columbus Day to commemorate the great Italian who opened a new chapter in world history and to appreciate his enduring significance to the Western Hemisphere."
1. Italy was not a unified country until 1946. Columbus was not Italian.

For those wondering why Trump recently linked a critique of the nuclear family to a critique of whiteness, a thread: The family is the main place where gender, race, and sexuality are constructed in contemporary societies. Marx and Engels described the family as the place where the division of labor first occurs, and thus, where women are first subjected to discrimination on the basis of gender.

I have not commented specifically on this. I wasn't sure exactly how I felt, but then, I realized that #JessicaKrug wrote to her unknown ancestors in the acknowledgments to her latest book, and I just broke down. That white fuckery, that debasement of the memory of the ancestors that she did not have, is rooted in so much violence and so much privilege that it is utterly astounding. Pathologically astounding.

I've been thinking about mask wearing a lot. For reasons that are probably not surprising, the mask is now a symbol and has been taken up by conservatives (and white supremacists, but there is really very little difference there) as a way to signal their rebellion & independence. That is entirely logical, as I have said before, because it channels the white desire for invincibility, on the one hand, and disregard for collective care, on the other. Now, that being said, as an Indigenous person, for me, wearing a mask signals that I am aware of you.

Apparently, there is an *ongoing* discussion (like today) of whether Native Americans were "cannibals" and that it was "proven" so. Here are some resources to dispel that myth, since it was used for centuries to steal our land and enslave us. We have receipts: 1. Jáuregui, Carlos A. 2008. Canibalia: Canibalismo, calibanismo, antropofagia cultural y consumo en América Latina. Madrid: Iberoamericana/Vervuert. (Literally a 500 page academic monograph on the subject, dispelling the myth)

Some people have questioned my own path to Cherokee citizenship after the Warren letter. I have nothing to hide. My father was adopted pre-ICWA by a white family. We have gone through the slow, painful process of reconnecting & reclaiming citizenship in the Cherokee Nation. I have written about it extensively. First, here in Indian Country Today: newsmaven.io/indiancountryt…

I was once asked by a Warren staffer if I would rather get hung up on the Cherokee issue, or let Trump win. As if to say, there are two options: let go of my conviction that Cherokee sovereignty matters, or allow more years of this... /1 It is a false dichotomy, obviously, but that interaction has repeated itself over and over again since we published the open letter. The letter, for me at least, is bigger than electoral politics, even while it intervenes during the electoral cycle-- /2

Thoughts at the close of the day when we published a collective letter with over 140 Cherokee signatures and over 200 total Native citizens asking @ewarren to begin to repair the harm she has caused by falsely claiming Cherokee heritage: 1. The campaign's lack of engagement beyond the 12-page response is telling. They do not want to talk about this in person or online. They want this statement to do the talking for them. Only one Cherokee is cited in the 88 footnotes.

Oh, so now the left is asking itself if @ewarren is a credible, ethical candidate? Really? Not when dozens of Cherokee scholars, genealogists and the Cherokee Nation itself rebuked her claims to Cherokee heritage? Not when she silenced Indigenous critics again and again? Not when Cherokee scholars collaborated on a public syllabus to inform the public about her unethical claims? criticalethnicstudiesjournal.org/blog/2018/12/1…

I have been tweeting a bit more recently about Cherokee identity, cultural appropriation, and the politics and ethics of belonging. It seems like a good time to put these in a thread, for those interested. It started in 2015 with this personal reflection on how to approach the ambiguity of "not knowing" our histories of Indigenous kinship: josephmpierce.com/2015/07/02/in-…

So, irony of ironies: There was an @ewarren campaign, recruitment thing on my block today, and when I walked outside, a guy tried to convince me to vote for her. I said, "I'm Cherokee and she hasn't done enough to right the harm she has caused." AND THEN... the guy said that he would take me to someone "who could get the word to Elizabeth." Intrigued, I go with him, and its a white guy with a beard, and we interrupt his conversation, because its important, and I say, "I'm Cherokee" and he nods...

My analysis of @ewarren at the @4directionsvote forum: Essentially, I see a pattern of attempting to vaguely admit that she was wrong, but not say specifically why she was wrong or what she did. And then to pivot quickly to her strong suit, which is public policy. #NativeVote 1/ It's a good strategy for her, but it doesn't address the central issue of Cherokee sovereignty: how will you repair the harm you have caused? She has not even admitted what that harm was, the DNA test video is still up on her website, and she didn't answer any tough questions. 2/