CW: MMIR, Violence - International Women’s Day
On this day of celebrating women across the earth, I am grounded in the realities, the legacies, the re-blooming of violence as it reproduces and feeds on itself. The photo included with this entry is of a poster I carried at the 2018 Women’s March in LA. I can still feel the weight of carrying Ashlynne, Hanna, and Savanna’s names 7 years ago.
As the place of my birth, I’m oriented toward Turtle Island, the belly of the colonial beast many of us know as the United States of America. I read somewhere that before death, systems of oppression become ever more monstrous in hopes of maintaining their power. I, like many of you, am bearing witness to the ever-increasing vitriol and attacks on migrant, Black, Indigenous, queer, poor, trans - really all women - who dare to exist as Christian nationalism consumes the sham of US “democracy.”
Finding myself in my Irish homelands as Executive Orders and chaos tear into all the communities I hold dear, my spirit threatens to break. Having spent my 35 years wrestling with the realities of brutality inside my own womanhood, I long have dreamed to cast my life & white body as a spell to stem the flood terrorizing us collectively. In hopes of nurturing my own wounds from the hands of men with whom I’ve shared bloodlines, romances, workplaces, friendships, and beyond, I’ve dedicated my life to disrupting the attempts to crush resistance and joy from all and any of us the patriarchy seeks to destroy.
I wonder how I can extend myself across the Atlantic to protect, resist, and not go quietly into the night. As someone whose primary defense mechanism is freeze, there’s been many moments of feeling powerless to keep myself, much less anyone else, safe. At times, I’m still choked by the hands that stole my sense of dignity and right to my own body sovereignty throughout my youth and adulthood. I continue to struggle to find my voice time and again.
Having titrated in and out of my own eras of silence, I find this particular moment demands all of our voices. To speak the truth, to hold each other in dignity, the way our existence makes possible the generations that have been and will (may?) be, are critical - even if all we can manage is a whisper. In my life, work and organizing realms, I’ve aimed to ally with communities who have been and continue to be targeted by the systems colluding with patriarchy (looking at you - colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy). At the moment, this has included research on police brutality and perpetuation of violence against Indigenous women.
If I’m honest, I didn’t anticipate the weight of the project. I often find myself reading and writing through tears, speaking words of horror to no one. Lately, much of my non-work hours are spent processing and speaking of the expansiveness in which Indigenous femmes and their communities have been directly attacked for centuries by those supposedly meant to “serve and protect.” We know that police have rarely if ever moved from ground beyond protecting whiteness, wealth and property, surveilling bodies who challenge the hierarchies that shape us.
I’ve leaned heavily on the Irish sea and loughs to remind me that there is a world that remains beyond violence. I’ve practiced to be in the both/and - the reality of state-sanctioned pillaging of safety and life and the painstaking beauty I find in bone chilling water, the Irish countryside. I’ve wondered how I can honor the women who have been harmed, raped, threatened, trafficked, disappeared, tortured, and their lives claimed by men (with badges). There are days it seems the patriarchy’s weaponization of power is limitless, and as a result, men’s violence pours from the sky.
This International Women’s Day, I dedicate myself to remembering the lives and names of the women who have been stolen, and those whose sense of joy and safety have been robbed. I will carry their stories with me til my last breath, and I invite you to join me in holding vigil to them however you so choose. Today, I light candles, speak their names, tell the pieces of their stories I’ve learned, and call all settlers like myself to interrogate the ways in which our silence and looking away from these realities perpetuate them.
Indigenous women are sacred, and no one has the right to threaten, demean, or quell their brilliance, aliveness, and lineages they each carry. May we collectively offer prayers to their spirits & kin to ensure their lives call us all to action. We must demand a world in which Indigenous women and relatives, all relatives, are never again under threat. May the patriarchy & colonialism die, so that matriarchs may live.
******
If you’re able, I invite you to donate to gender based violence organizations (today, monthly, and always) in solidarity with Indigenous women, relatives, and the communities they call home. If you’re not Indigenous yourself, look for organizations in your area who center Indigenous survivors of violence, as many are under threat due to the current attacks on DEI and federal funding. Now more than ever, our financial support can ensure these critical, life-saving services by and for Tribal members and descendants can continue to be available.
Organizations to consider if you’re not sure where to donate:
Alaska Native Women’s Resource Center “is dedicated to strengthening local, tribal government's responses through community organizing efforts advocating for the safety of women and children in their communities and homes, especially against domestic and sexual abuse and violence.”
Haseya Advocate Program “is the only program in the state of Colorado that provides domestic and sexual violence services specifically for urban Indigenous survivors.”
Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition “exists to support culturally-grounded, grassroots advocacy; and to provide national leadership and technical assistance to end genderbased violence.”
Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women is “a member driven organization where its network of membership is engaged, every day, as a united force across New Mexico… all of whom are working cohesively towards stopping violence against Native Women and children in our tribal communities.”
National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center “provides training and technical assistance, educational resources, and policy development—all of which are rooted in traditional lifeways and beliefs—for Tribal Nations and advocates across Indian Country.”
Pouhana O Nā Wāhine “is dedicated to helping Native Hawaiians address domestic violence and related injustices through restoring their Native way of life rooted in their cultural beliefs, practices and ceremonies (or voices, languages, and teachings) and securing resources for a Native Hawaiian Resource Center on Domestic Violence.” I haven’t been able to locate a way to donate to their organization yet - I will update this post when/if I do.
*****
Today and beyond, I remember:
Emily Pike who was 14, a member of the San Carlos Apache Nation, and was supposedly placed for her safety and wellbeing in a group home at the time she went missing. Police said she was likely a runaway, and her mother didn’t know she was missing until a week after Emily had last been seen. “Four of Pike's cousins, all close in age to her, recounted a girl they knew as a funny, kind and happy person who loved animals, K-Pop and Roblox.” She was found dismembered, and no suspects have been identified.
Ariel Sellers who was 6 years old when her adoptive parents murdered her - they waited weeks to report her missing, forcing her 12 year old sister to keep Ariel’s death a secret. “The news outlets that covered Ariel’s disappearance did not identify her by her Native Hawaiian heritage, which was confirmed by her biological aunt; she was reported to be mixed Caucasian and white. Racial misclassification is a known hindrance to collecting accurate data on [Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Girls] on the mainland, according to the Urban Indian Health Institute, leading to “gross undercounts” that inaccurately reflect the scope of violence. The Hawaii task force faces the same challenge in its data collection.”
Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind, who was 22 and 8 months prgenant when she went missing. Savanna was “a citizen of the Spirit Lake Tribe of North Dakota…[who] lived with her parents and siblings in a tidy, working-class neighborhood in Fargo.” She was sexually assaulted, murdered, and her baby stolen from her belly.
Ashlynne Mike was an 11-year-old member of the Diné Nation who played the xylophone. Due to “misunderstandings and jurisdictional issues…an Amber Alert [wasn’t made] until twelve hours after her disappearance.” She never returned home, and she was sexually assaulted and murdered as law enforcement failed to begin a timely search for her.
Hanna Harris “ a member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, was twenty-one when she disappeared on July 4, 2013, in Lame Deer, Montana. The previous night she had gone to meet some friends. Like many Native women who vanish inexplicably, Harris was a mother, the devoted single parent of a ten-month-old son. Yet police didn’t feel the need to look for her, because she was an adult. ‘When I reported my daughter missing,’ Melinda Harris Limberhand said later, ‘I was told by the police chief, “‘She’s probably scared to come home.’” She was told she could search for her daughter herself.”
Ashley Loring HeavyRunner was a 20 year old college student and member of the Blackfeet Tribe who went missing in the summer of 2017. She has not yet been found, and the FBI didn’t begin investigating her disappearance until she’d been missing for 9 months.
MacKenzie Howard, a Tlingit villager from Kake, Alaska was killed when she was only 13 years old. There was no police response for 11 hours, so her community secured the scene overnight themselves. “It took 11 hours before someone from the Alaska State Troopers arrived on the scene, the Post reported. Investigators didn't show up until hours later, village residents said. ‘When there’s any fishing violation or hunting violation, [police are] here in full force — over a dead animal,’ Joel Jackson, a carver who helped gather people to guard the crime scene while law enforcement arrived. ‘To have one of our own laying there for [so long] was traumatic for everybody.’”
Chynelle Lockwood, known as "Pretty," was born in St. Michael, a Yup'ik community in Alaska. She was the second oldest of her 8 siblings, and “she played basketball and sewed…[She] liked to walk around the village and talk to anyone who happened to be around…[and] she hoped to study to become a nurse or medical assistant. She was 19 when she went for a beach walk near her uncle’s house, and never returned home.
Olivia Lone Bear, also known as Cedarwoman, was a mother of 5 and member of the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara (MHA) Tribe. She went missing in 2017, and the person who took her life remains free. Olivia is a part of the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women out of the Bakken oil fields. She was 33 years old.
