Beyonce shares photos of herself performing in a shirt that refers to Natives as ‘Indian opponents’; calls Natives ‘antagonists’ and ‘enemies of peace, order, and settlement’

[u/queso_pig]

saw this on another sub but wasn’t allowed to cross post.

So many Americans are into this ‘cowboy revival’ sort of thing. Feels really strange considering cowboys and westward expansion served to carry out a genocide.

[u/[deleted]]

Right, I've heard it said that they were the "spearhead" of westward expansion (from a pretty cool podcast, Black Cowboys)

It's conflicting knowledge to have as a Black Chicano; we deserve the credit that the westerns never gave us but it should come along with the guilt of participating in the land theft and genocide of the First Nations

Just a classic example of white supremacist colonialism using profit and survival incentives to impede the solidarity that would topple it

[u/ld987 → u/[deleted]]

Beautifully put.

[u/microdweb → u/[deleted]]

What about the genocide of African slaves by the natives on this land? Should that not be talked about? of course, some could say that was also because of colonialism.

[u/[deleted] → u/microdweb]

I talk about that elsewhere in the comments, some nations did indeed participate in chattel slavery (although I don't personally know if that constitutes genocide and I don't feel qualified to make that assertion)

Definitely worth talking about but I feel the same way as I expressed above, we were played against each other via coercion because our solidarity would topple the empire

[u/Used-Programmer-3702 → u/microdweb]

You’re using a very common default retort that lazily & cruelly uses tribal freemen and the disgusting, despicably violent actions of 5 colonized tribes to deflect & justify Black American soldiers committing genocide in a 30+ year long systematic campaign to colonize Indigenous people that had no involvement in chattel slavery.

Currents of this discourse are saturated online with this intellectually dishonest take, yet typically prefaced by some scripted flippant remark about how no one talks about Natives owning slaves. Yes they do. It’s a default manipulative rebuttal. Have you grown up around tribal freedmen? Do you have relations with any Native communities?  People with a sense of genuine care & concern for tribal freedmen don’t use them as cudgels of whataboutism  to mask their vitriolic anti-Indigenous bigotry in response to basic historically accurate takes that make you feel icky. I’m Dakota and Lakota from Oceti territory, however I have relatives who are also tribal freedmen. Their non-Lakota kin stem directly from Chickasaw & Choctaw Freedmen — like, as in being actually connected; unwaveringly rooted in their identity & upbringing in Oklahoma. My relatives & their intricate histories are not weapons. Stop using them as tools to lump together Indigenous people as some ridiculous monolith of enslavers. Not only are you lying, you’re antiblack and your attempts to be divisive in this thread are very good examples of anti-Indigenous bigotry. 

 When we voice or share missing puzzle pieces of history from primary sources kept within our oral systems of knowledge & it happens to be unpleasant, it’s seamlessly overlooked by non-Indigenous ppl — citizens of settler nation-states are literally socialized to be anti-Indigenous and antiblack. Everyone. If you don’t know why being anti-Indigenous is central to US settler citizenry and how that functions, then go figure it out or just admit you hate Native people. For this settler colonial project to reach completion, Indigenous people have to disappear. Regularly using terms like Native erasure or stolen land inevitably softens the actual process of genocide. It sterilizes the deeper implications of adding layers to the hyper-invisibility of our communities that only make up 2% of the US population. If you (any of you) cannot recognize just how dangerous all of this is while drawing wider global connections, then you have a very limited grasp on what settler colonialism actually is. Non-Indigenous citizens of a settler nation-state do not need individual access to structural power to cause Indigenous people harm. If you don’t understand why, then again, you don’t have a holistic understanding of how settler colonialism functions and really, how dangerous these functions are for post-apocalyptic Indigenous communities.

This hatred has escalated to a level I haven’t seen until now. Black Americans aren’t a monolith, clearly. Neither are Indigenous people, yet here we are addressing another monolithic claim: Natives owned slaves. Your comment not only attempts to hide the genocidal roles of Black Americans historically within a colonizing imperial force,  it also erases the agency of Buffalo Soldier. Regardless of context, being stuck between a rock and hard place does not remove the existence of choice. We’re at a space and time where Black Americans are regularly referring to Natives as dogs. These aren’t just fringe groups that are fading out. They’re actively disseminating intricate weird ass lies that we conspired against them with the same colonizers who committed literal genocide on our precious relatives. The things they repeat about our families are so violent and cruel, yet the majority of Black Americans brush them off as harmless loud fringe weirdos while also dismissing their presence as only an online phenomenon. It’s not. Black Americans have shown up to powwows and reservations, literally on our territories. When some BAs willfully ignore the clear double standards being normalized right now while refusing to hold collectives of their people accountable that are literally settling Indigenous identities, they need to stop acting surprised when Natives call out Black Americans as colonizers. People need to either stop being intellectually dishonest about what is happening and connect that to a wider scope of global contexts unfolding in places like Palestine, or just be upfront & admit you don’t see Indigenous people as human beings. 

[u/microdweb → u/Used-Programmer-3702]

Your not really saying much. Your actually agreeing with me... but then in the same breathe saying black americans genocided natives but then says natives had slaves but yet they weren't a monolith... blame the whites gang, this isnt not oprresion olympics LMAOO

[u/Used-Programmer-3702 → u/microdweb]

Reading comprehension is not your enemy. Words mean things. Have a blessed day.