Seeking Racial Justice for All Communities, Including Indian Country

In the wake of the white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally and the ensuing violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, resulting in the death of Heather D. Heyer and the wounding of 34 others, the value of the work being performed by white anti-racist groups like Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) is becoming more apparent.

According to its website, SURJ believes in collective liberation—“and that none of us can be free until we end white supremacy.” Through its network of affiliated organizations, which ascribe to certain shared organizational values such as financial reparations and accountability to community groups led by people of color, SURJ seeks to help build “a multi-racial movement to undermine white support for white supremacy and to help build a racially just society.”

ICMN recently spoke with representatives from several SURJ chapters to learn if Native American concerns are included in their visions of racial justice, and if Native-led organizations are the beneficiaries of material support from SURJ’s fundraising efforts.

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Monterey County, California

“We’ve had our hands full with police violence and ICE migrant farm worker raids,” JT Mason of Whites for Racial Equity, the local SURJ chapter, told ICMN. “Besides recent support for Standing Rock, reposting some ICMN articles on our Facebook page and publicizing local pow wows, we haven’t done as much as we want with respect to Native issues. Just your asking the questions makes us realize we have to open our arms wider.”

San Francisco, California

Felicia Gustin says the ranks of the SURJ Bay Area chapter raised $10,000 for Standing Rock, which they disseminated through indigenous contacts on the ground to the legal collective, the medic and healer council, the Red Warrior camp, the Oceti Sakowin camp, and Honor the Earth.

“We said no strings attached, here’s the money,” she told ICMN. “At the same time, getting behind the struggle with the pipeline, local people are also engaged in struggles here in the Bay area, and we support them too.”

Many of the local initiatives focus on undoing the ravages of settler colonialism. The chapter co-sponsored a recent “Living on Ohlone Land” program in which an all-indigenous panel discussed “how to be in respectful, reciprocal, and appropriate relationship with local indigenous communities.” The SURJ chapter supports the Ohlone women who’ve created a voluntary tax to create revenue to purchase land for their own indigenous stewardship.

“This land has a deep history and a community of people who have lived here for thousands of years,” explained Gustin. “For those of us who are not indigenous to this land, the Shuumi Land Tax is a way to acknowledge this history and the Ohlone community.”

New York City

“SURJ NYC is interested in building one of its accountability relationships with the American Indian Community House,” says Jennifer Hadlock, who helped to establish the New York City chapter.
“The relationship is nascent—we’ve attended some of AICH’s open events, and have turned people out for various NoDAPL solidarity actions,” she explained.
SURJ NYC is looking to build on the momentum of Standing Rock and Hadlock is seizing the coming moment to dream a whale of a dream.
“We’re thinking about the impacts of settler colonialism on the indigenous communities on an ongoing basis. Looking forward, there is an opportunity provided by the 400th anniversary of the crossing of the Mayflower in 2020. Hoping we can build on the recent momentum and be inspired by Unsettling Canada150.”

The hashtag will be #UnsettlingAmerica400.

Westchester, NY

SURJ Westchester looks for inspiration to other groups of white folks in New York State that support indigenous priorities. One such group is Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation (NOON) which recently penned an editorial in support of the Onondaga Nation in its fight for culturally appropriate education. According to Lindsay Speer, in 2005 NOON organized to support the Nation in its Land Rights Action against New York state. The Nation sued the state on behalf of the land because of New York’s destructive environmental stewardship, especially the industrial pollution of Onondaga Lake.

“NOON developed outreach to non-tribal members to help allay fears, to spread the word the Nation was not looking to evict homeowners by asserting land rights,” Speer told ICMN. “Deep friendships developed during that campaign, and we’ve kept that going.”

In 2014 it revised and expanded its publication edited by Carol Baum titled Neighbor to Neighbor, Nation to Nation, which is a compendium of historical writings and environmental analyses meant to foster cooperation in pursuit of common goals, especially clean water, land and air.

“I have an immense respect for the situation of Native peoples in this country, and how difficult it is to maintain their identity when so much of this country’s history has been about destroying that identity,” Baum told ICMN.

One of the group’s most poetic and grand actions was a 13-day paddle down the Hudson River from Albany to the United Nations in honor of the 400 year anniversary of the Two Row Wampum Treaty in 2013. Two rows of canoes, one Indigenous, one non-Native, paddled side by side, living and eating together along the way.

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“The Two Row paddle provided an opportunity for those who have benefitted from the genocide to push our nation to honestly look at that genocide and to make amends,” explained Andy Mager, lead organizer of the epic journey of solidarity.

“It was a major eye opener for a lot of white people,” Baum told ICMN.

Northern New Mexico

Scott Davis and Jenny Haley told ICMN their group is focused on supporting local indigenous communities in their environmental justice struggles against the Los Alamos National Labs.

“We have to learn what is needed from us,” Scott told ICMN. “Sometimes it’s to sit down and be quiet, other times to stand up in solidarity, or other times, to disrupt the systems of white privilege.”

For Haley, fighting insidious white supremacist conditioning and behaviors requires constant thoughtfulness and questioning.

“How am I complicit in structural racism, how am I complicit as a white settler?” asked Haley. “I have to ask that on a daily basis, and my awareness of complicity is changing through dialogues and conversation. I’m also critically looking at harm reduction, at causing the least amount of harm that I can.”

This notion of harm reduction will inform the group as they support local Natives in one of New Mexico’s thorniest anti-racism conflicts—the fight to abolish the Entrada pageant celebrated at the annual Fiestas, which falsely depicts the Spanish reconquest of Santa Fe in 1692 as “bloodless.” A protest, the third annual, has been called by The Red Nation and is scheduled for September 8.

“Through SURJ, communities impacted by white supremacy and settler colonialism are building networks,” Nifield told ICMN. “And that’s an army.”