♡ I write my experiences with race, neurodiversity™️, gayness & transgenderism & all the romance attached. Primarily poetry & prose, but I’m branching out into articles, collages, & upcoming video content as well. All of my poetry is available on Patreon for $5, and your support is everything ❣️

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I finally wrote a response to the deeply repetitive arguments, criticisms, concerns I’ve received all my life when speaking on Black & Native intercommunity issues as a Black Native! But particularly, to the comments section of an article I wrote last year to critique the use of “BIPOC” as defined by a shared experience with colonialism or oppression, and the simple fact that a people cannot share an oppressive experience with another who live half-lives under the former’s governing & gatekeeping.

I wrote on the history of the only consistent clapback™️ my cries for allyship have ever received (the Buffalo Soldiers referenced in the above screenshot), what makes them nonfunctional as a weapon or deflection in this conversation, and the dissociative-like experience of people’s refusal to engage with Afro-Native oppression as a Native American issue because we happen to be Black as well. Here are some excerpts/quotes:

People find it incredibly difficult to understand that I am Black & Native American at the same time, never ceasing in one or the other…the obscene success of an ethnically & culturally blended peoples, “a savage foe combined with lawless Negro brigands”…

Conversation about Black Native Americans isn’t hard because it is inherently complex. It’s made hard by a deliberate erasure of our Nativeness. By the terms of a bizarrely narrow idea of racial identity that’s seemingly cobbled together from the legacy of a one-drop rule & Dawes rolls, we can only be Native or Black. Never both.

There is, perhaps, a moral dilemma for some in acknowledging the capacity for Native American wrongdoing while living in a society built atop our bones & stolen land. Though the Buffalo Soldiers don’t even begin to answer to Afro-Natives’ criticisms, it makes for a satisfying deflection.

Kihnindewa. Buffalo Soldiers & Identity Troubles: Native American History Rewritten (Again), working title because I just can’t settle

For now, this piece is exclusive to my $5.55 Patreon! If you’re looking to learn some Black (& Native) history directly from a Black Native this BHM or to connect & commiserate with another Black NDN (see my tags please 🙂), the support would be deeply appreciated and subscribing also gives you access to all of my poetry & other work. You could also consider tipping me if you’ve benefited from my previous article or other work on this subject, for my pain & suffering if you’re white or nonblack Native, or just to help me out this month.

I don’t want to talk about the monster, about the unrecognizable or the unfamiliar. There is a danger sitting across you & I in our most fearful moments...the intimate strangers who know best our vulnerabilities, those for whom we set the table. I want to talk about the man who feeds the monster. ...as his imperviousness to the same evils he let upon us finally becomes true delusion, as we agree that this violence will not save even one of us, I am glad that Jupe died.

Kihnindewa. Excerpts from I'm Glad Jupe Died: An Afro-Indigenous Reflection On NOPE (2022)

I have a lot of thoughts about the parallels between the Haywoods' story & real world afro-indigenous experiences, and how Jupe parallels real world dynamics between non-Black people of color & Black people (& anti-Blackness as an alleged means of survival). Especially the latter. So I wrote something about it!

Something is wrong with your heart The smell of burning hair. I want to ask Who will save me? Who...will suck out the poison? Silence can be ritual. “Something is wrong with this child.”

I lean into a hug, smiling into your neck and thinking

Of all evils in this world, Would I let your love kill me?

Kihnindewa. DON'T MAKE ME BITE THE HAND.

“You’ve imagined love out of thin air, reached into the sound of this reverberating ache and tried to pull out something holy, to turn tears to gospel. Listen: the beast does not cry. She doesn’t know what it means when you pray to her. We can leave this place together!"

“The intersection of a yelp and a heavy hand is no crossroads. We are not bartering.” And I am not waiting for you to meet me halfway, for you to remember that I am your little sister... I am your little sister and you love me... I am not waiting for mercy.

Kihnindewa. If you'd told me to jump

Kihnindewa. the myth-maker's daughter

Kihnindewa. venus, destroyed by global warming (a prelude)