Today is Indigenous Peoples’ Day and for the first time ever it has been recognized by a presidential administration. President Biden released a proclamation on Friday recognizing the holiday. In it, he wrote:
For generations, Federal policies systematically sought to assimilate and displace Native people and eradicate Native cultures. Today, we recognize Indigenous peoples’ resilience and strength as well as the immeasurable positive impact that they have made on every aspect of American society.
These are great words, but stop short of mentioning that they did more than attempt to eradicate Native cultures, they attempted to genocide an entire continent. The eradication of culture was only a part of this genocide. The word genocide does not appear in the proclamation. President Biden also released a proclamation on Columbus Day. While it does acknowledge the atrocities committed by Columbus without going into specifics, it also says:
Today, let this day be one of reflection — on America’s spirit of exploration, on the courage and contributions of Italian Americans throughout the generations, on the dignity and resilience of Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities, and on the work that remains ahead of us to fulfill the promise of our Nation for all.
Italy did not even exist as a country when Columbus set sail. He was Genoese and funded by the Portuguese. There is a fundamental contradiction in both recognizing Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day at the same time. These are mutually exclusive holidays. You cannot both celebrate a genocidal maniac whose only goal was to murder natives for gold and celebrate these same natives at the same time. As Professor Nick Estes of the Red Nation put it:
This is the Democratic party in a nutshell. They are willing to acknowledge Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Juneteenth, but will not actually do anything about it. Meaningless gestures and performative acts are a specialty of the party. We should be grateful that Nancy Pelosi didn’t have Congress dress up in headdresses for Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Considering the Kente cloth incident, it’s a little surprising that she didn’t go there.
Enbridge Line 3
If Biden actually believed in Indigenous Peoples’ Day, he would listen to the demands on the water protectors who have put their lives on the line to stop Enbridge Line 3. Yet it was Biden’s Border Patrol that were called in to use their helicopters to harass protesters in June.
Enbridge Line 3 stands to double the carbon footprint of the entire state of Minnesota as it will be sending hundreds of thousands of gallons of dirty tar sands oil from Canada to Lake Superior. The state of Minnesota is perfectly alright with this, in fact they just recently paid Enbridge 45$ million because they “overvalued” pipeline property. Some of this money they returned to the state and local authorities, when they “reimbursed US police $2.4m for arresting and surveilling hundreds of demonstrators who oppose construction of its Line 3 pipeline, according to documents the Guardian obtained through a public records request.” The US police are acting as paid mercenaries for transnational capital. There should be massive outrage over this abuse of the legal system, yet it has largely gone unreported.
Enbridge Line 3 not only is a threat due to climate change, it is also a clear violation of Anishinaabe sovereignty. The Anishinaabe people rely on wild rice and the pipeline goes directly through their harvesting grounds. As Grist.org reports:
Now, LaDuke and Bibeau are facing a new battle for the future of wild rice: the so-called Line 3 pipeline, which is slated to carry 760,000 barrels of crude oil a day across more than 200 bodies of water, including lakes, streams, wetlands, the headwaters of the Mississippi River — and over 3,400 acres of wild rice waters.
Everything about Enbridge Line 3 is simply disgusting. No one in their right mind would support such an insane project. Yet here we are - the Biden administration has not done anything to halt it. In January, Vice President Kamala Harris said, “The science behind climate change is not a hoax. The science behind the virus is not partisan. The same laws apply, the same evidence holds true regardless of whether or not you accept them.” But this administration does not accept the science. According to a recent report by the BBC:
Almost 60% of oil and gas reserves and 90% of coal must remain in the ground to keep global warming below 1.5C, scientists say.
A good start on this would be stopping Line 3 and ending the tar sands project. People vs Fossil Fuels are currently carrying out a week long series of actions in Washington DC to call out the Biden administration on their inaction on Line 3.
There has been very little coverage of these protests. The Guardian, Washington Post, Democracy Now, UPI, and the New York Post have all made mention of them. Meanwhile, ABC news is covering Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland running a marathon for Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Only at the very bottom of this story is found a brief paragraph stating:
Meanwhile, other protestors, including Indigenous peoples, gathered at the White House on Monday morning to pressure the Biden Administration to take action against climate change and fossil fuels. These protests are expected to continue all week.
Shouldn’t indigenous climate protests against Biden be the headline? That would seem the most newsworthy item in the report, yet it is relegated to the last paragraph as an aside. CNN does not even mention the protests in their article on Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Rachel Maddow over on MSNBC does wish us all a Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day with no mention of protests or climate change!
This is how the Biden administration is celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day - the same way white supremacists have been celebrating since 1492. Settle colonialism is a plague on the planet and must be rooted out. President Biden is more likely to fund the police than to take action on Enbridge Line 3 and mitigate climate catastrophe. Over 100 Indigenous activists and allies were arrested in front of the White House today. Actions will continue throughout the week.
Is there any hope?
Frankly, all of this is disgusting but not unexpected. The Biden presidency is a do nothing administration that is incapable of passing even the most moderate of reforms. The Democratic Party is owned by their corporate donors. As long as the corporate duopoly controls electoral politics, no significant progress will come from Washington. The media will defend Biden even when his administration shows itself to be a more effective evil than Trump. With all the gaslighting, it is not a shock that the people aren’t out in the streets in mass as they should be. This is the depressing reality that we currently face.
However, we can derive some hope for the future from Indigenous resistance. The Red Nation is at the forefront of the struggle against colonialism and imperialism. I frequently return to this article by the Red Nation:
Communism is the Horizon, Queer Indigenous Feminism is the Way
This brilliant article gives me hope for the future in the class struggle. I recommend reading the whole article, but here are a few quotes:
Socialism is a program for survival. If we want to live to see communism, we must build something that can weather the already-present ecological crisis. We know that capitalism and its handy machinery of militarized colonialism has destroyed the land, water, and skies, and torn up the bodies and spirits of Indigenous, Brown and Black people around the world. We need socialism to usher in the sweeping changes for liberation and to defend ourselves from the inevitable brutal reaction of the capitalist class. Once the survival of colonized peoples is secured through the mass redistribution of resources and decimation of violent state capabilities, we can build up our liberated territories towards communism.
Communism is kinship; kinship is communism. Marx knew this. Marx saw in Indigenous kinship the fulcrum of the commons, which he understood as the basis of communism. He understood the original form of capitalist violence was the enclosure of the commons. The caging and commodification of communal lands through the erection of fences and borders created the conditions for primitive accumulation. It also alienated people from their kinship bonds, literally forged through communal relationship with the land. While Marx was observing this in England, Indigenous people were resisting and mourning the enclosure of our commons here in Turtle Island: the theft and transfer of our beloved kin—the land, mountains, and rivers—into private property and eminent domain. Capitalism requires all forms of relationality to become selfish (as in to own property) and individualist (as in to own wealth). Communism is based on the opposite: generosity and collectivity, what we as Indigenous peoples simply call ‘kinship’ (the term is different in each of our languages, so the English term is a shorthand).
Queer Indigenous feminism emphasizes kinship and relationality based in reciprocity. Queer Indigenous feminists remind us that Indigenous traditions of kinship do not discriminate against gender and sexual diversity amongst our relatives. Prior to settler colonialism many Indigenous peoples recognized and respected their relatives who did not fit gender binaries. Indigenous stories and kinship practices show the presence of female, male, intersex, and multiple genders. Gender roles within families and societies included non-binary relatives.
The US built its ruling capitalist class through the genocide and theft of land stolen from the Indigenous inhabitants of this continent, and by exploiting the enslaved labor of African people. This country was founded on the class war of the rich upon the basis of racism, conducted, enabled and safeguarded by the state apparatus. The US created white supremacy to uphold this class war, constructing an empire of capitalist domination through westward expansion and colonization in the 1800s, and US imperialist subjugation of Black and Brown peoples across the Global South in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
I urge you all to read the entire article, it is well worth your time. I also recommend on this Indigenous Peoples’ Day that you look into getting a copy of The Red Deal from The Red Nation and An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. It is important that we have a true understanding of Indigenous history, not the whitewashed mythical version pushed on us in schools. Even though Indigenous peoples only comprise 5% of the world’s population, they protect 80% of biodiversity. When it comes to taking care of the land, we should look to them for guidance. As Nick Estes says:
It is time to name the systems that kill us — capitalism and colonialism — and call for their destruction so that our people may live. We will not apologize for this, relatives. It is the only right thing left to do. The Red Nation is a movement for life, not death. And for us to live, capitalism and colonialism must die.
There can be no way forward without Indigenous liberation. Decolonization must be at the center of the class struggle. Land back!