P.C.I.S.

Making noise, redefining language, wielding raucous imagery—these things serve an important role in our collective quest to decolonize relationships to our oppressors, our lovers, ourselves. Sometimes, you have to destroy and rebuild from the essentials.

indige•zine caught up with three Indigenous creatives who use their art to disrupt the boxes   that dictate the way Natives love.

Tatiana Benally

Age: 24

What she does: Hailing from the Diné Nation in Shiprock, New Mexico, Tatiana lives in New York City as a working-class student of anti-colonialist practice, resiliency, and movement. When she’s not freelancing as a media artist or barista-ing in Flatbush, she’s helping to organize events like the Indigenous Creatives Festival with Manhattan’s American Indian Community House, making interdisciplinary art and music, curating the meme page Asdzaaproletariat, frequenting a Diné communist reading group, and much more.

How do you define love?

Love is an organic and necessary connection between human beings. Love is also complex, powerful and is certainly not perfect. There are many notions of love, but the most important love is one that is conscious and respectful of the conditions we are living in.

A noteworthy quote by [political theorist and philosopher] Hannah Arendt addresses the power of an anti-colonial love as:

“Love, by reason of its passion, destroys the in-between which relates us to and separates us from others … Love, by its very nature, is unworldly, and it is for this reason rather than its rarity that it is not only apolitical but anti-political, perhaps the most powerful of all anti-political human forces.”

I find this quote so beautiful in recognizing the power of love in building solidarity and its nature to be anti-colonial. The only thing I would argue is that love is absolutely political in our time. Destroying the “in-between” that [Arendt] writes about, things like individualism and social constructs, could be read as bi-products of capitalism and colonialism. Love is anti-colonial strength in our times.  

In which ways do your concepts of love and creativity meet in your life?

For me, this is mostly observed in the healing process of expression. I often turn to creativity as a way to grapple with feelings of ennui or as a tool to explore the roots of my feelings in times of confusion. Other times, I am just plain happy and the art that I make is then a document of a time that I felt full and warm. The healing power of creation is medicine for the maker and hopefully for people who connect with the art. That’s love.

What’s one toxic thing about romance and relationship you’ve had to unlearn?

The idea that it is cute or normal to be owned by someone (i.e. “She’s mine,” “You belong to me,” etc.) Language and behavior with possessive logic are only another vehicle to integrate colonial notions of property and other outward rippling capitalist-centric lifestyles into practice. From the many recognized and unrecognized Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) cases, to everyday practices of consensual intimacy being breached in relationships.

Love should be founded on mutual respect and compromise, and exist without power dynamics. The purpose of love is not to be used to cushion one’s oppression, nor as a tool of coercion into capitalism. We need to do better.

What is your most potent practice of self love as an indigenous woman?

Existing unapologetically. There is so much joy in embracing who I am and what I do without fear. It is wholesome and pure and everyone needs to do so much more of it.

Dio Ganhdih

Age: 31

What they do: Dio is an Akwesane hip-hop artist with brash, bold flows packed with humor and wit. Born and raised on Haudenosaunee Territory in Upstate New York, they’re also an educator and speaker whose work centers their experience as a queer, gender non-conforming Indigenous artist seeking community amongst their intersections. They’ve made music with Anishinaabe electronic artist Ziibiwan, Peguis First Nation producer Exquisite Ghost, mestiza hip-hop artist Chhoti Maa, and many others.  

How do you decolonize your love?

With reflection and accountability of my own toxic behaviors. I take my own internal spiritual temperature and sit with self to process past traumas and explore new paths of healing. The impacts of colonization are thick and dense. Without question, colonization confuses the love that I want and contradicts my intrinsic ability to love. I work to unpack and unfold the whitewashing and heteronormative culture I was surrounded with and inevitably influenced by growing up in a small town and Native community.

As a queer indigenous musician, how do you protect your spirit?

I protect my spirit by trusting my intuition and using my powers for good. I use smoke, sweetgrass, tobacco and prayer. I attend ceremonies and carry with me traditional medicines from my people. I work with teas, herbs and plants which offer external protection and vitality as well.

If you could tell your teenage self one thing about self-love, what would it be?

Teenage me: Believe it or not, you have everything within you to provide yourself with the love, attention, and the validation you are seeking. You will never actually fill that void until you learn how to embrace yourself fully. Dig deeper and push past that binary—you got this! Konarronkwa!

Gwen Benaway

What she does: Gwen Benaway is a trans girl of Anishinaabe and Métis descent. She has published three collections of poetry, Ceremonies for the Dead, Passage, and Holy Wild. Her fourth collection of poetry, Aperture, is forthcoming from Book*hug in Spring 2020. Her writing has been published in many national publications, including CBC Arts, Maclean’s Magazine, and the Globe and Mail. She’s currently editing an anthology of fantasy short stories by trans girl writers and working on a book of creative non-fiction. She lives in Toronto, Ontario and is a Ph.D student at the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto.

How have you used language and poetry to decolonize the institution of love?

I don’t know that language or poetry really can decolonize love. For me, poetry and language are an embodied reflection of a living, not an artifact nor a tool as commonly used by Western mentalities. Language and poetry arises from the love and the living, but can’t liberate us in and of itself. I use poetry and language to explore and narrate my embodiment and intimacies, but decolonization happens through what you do, not what you say. I think people get tripped up on that point, thinking that their language will be their liberation, when it’s their relationally and doing/living that is the revolution.

What is one misconception about desire and relationships you wish you’d known when you were younger?

I wish I had known that it was possible to live inside multiple intimacies and not focus so much on monogamous intimacy as the ultimate relational bond. What I’ve learned is that non-sexual intimacies are very powerful and important, as are polyamorous intimacies. I have several intimacies that I’m present in which are love affairs, but none of them supersede each other. That feels really comforting to me.

I also have several deep intimacies which are non-sexual and fill a lot of spaces for me in terms of kinship and care. I think when I grew up, I just saw abusive monogamous relationships and internalized that as normal. Now, I look at extended networks of kinship, care, and multiple intimacies as my safe normal. I also wish I had embraced my bisexuality sooner but I guess some things take time to grow.

What advice do you have for fellow Indigenous trans people trying to tell their story?

My advice to other trans Indigenous folks is to stand in your language, traditions, and kinships, but also embrace your own sense of selfness.

Transness is complex. It doesn’t have to be one thing. It can look and feel like many different paths or ways of being in the world. I think it’s important to see your ancestors in your transness, but to know that you can innovate around yourself as well.

There is still a lot of transphobia around us, but we are going to find a way through it towards a different future. Never be afraid to be traditional, but never be afraid to not be traditional (or adapt traditions).

What is feminism? In this short, accessible primer, bell hooks explores the nature of feminism and its positive promise to eliminate sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. With her characteristic clarity and directness, hooks encourages readers to see how feminism can touch and change their lives–to see that feminism is for everybody.

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A groundbreaking work of feminist history and theory analyzing the complex relations between various forms of oppression. Ain’t I a Woman examines the impact of sexism on black women during slavery, the historic devaluation of black womanhood, black male sexism, racism within the recent women’s movement, and black women’s involvement with feminism.

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In Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks–writer, teacher, and insurgent black intellectual–writes about a new kind of education, educations as the practice of freedom. Teaching students to “transgress” against racial, sexual, and class boundaries in order to achieve the gift of freedom is, for hooks, the teacher’s most important goal. Bell hooks speaks to the heart of education today: how can we rethink teaching practices in the age of multiculturalism? What do we do about teachers who do not want to teach, and students who do not want to learn? How should we deal with racism and sexism in the classroom? Full of passion and politics, Teaching to Transgress combines practical knowledge of the classroom with a deeply felt connection to the world of emotions and feelings. This is the rare book about teachers and students that dares to raise critical questions about eros and rage, grief and reconciliation, and the future of teaching itself.

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A sweeping examination of the core issues of sexual politics, bell hooks’ new book Feminist Theory: from margin to center argues that the contemporary feminist movement must establish a new direction for the 1980s. Continuing the debates surrounding her controversial first book, Ain’t I A Woman, bell hooks suggests that feminists have not succeeded in creating a mass movement against sexist oppression because the very foundation of women’s liberation has, until now, not accounted for the complexity and diversity of female experience. In order to fulfill its revolutionary potential, feminist theory must begin by consciously transforming its own definition to encompass the lives and ideas of women on the margin. Hooks’ work is a challenge to the women’s movement and will have profound impact on all whose lives have been touched by feminism and its insights.

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One of our country’s premier cultural and social critics, bell hooks has always maintained that eradicating racism and eradicating sexism must go hand in hand. But whereas many women have been recognized for their writing on gender politics, the female voice has been all but locked out of the public discourse on race. Killing Rage speaks to this imbalance. These twenty-three essays are written from a black and feminist perspective, and they tackle the bitter difficulties of racism by envisioning a world without it. They address a spectrum of topics having to do with race and racism in the United States: psychological trauma among African Americans; friendship between black women and white women; anti-Semitism and racism; and internalized racism in movies and the media. And in the title essay, hooks writes about the “killing rage"—the fierce anger of black people stung by repeated instances of everyday racism—finding in that rage a healing source of love and strength and a catalyst for positive change.

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bell hooks writes about the meaning of feminist consciousness in daily life and about self-recovery, about overcoming white and male supremacy, and about intimate relationships, exploring the point where the public and private meet.

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According to the Washington Post, no one who cares about contemporary African-American cultures can ignore bell hooks’ electrifying feminist explorations. Targeting cultural icons as diverse as Madonna and Spike Lee, Outlaw Culture presents a collection of essays that pulls no punches. As hooks herself notes, interrogations of popular culture can be a ‘powerful site for intervention, challenge and change’. And intervene, challenge and change is what hooks does best.

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Addressing questions of race, gender, and class in this work, hooks discusses the complex balance that allows us to teach, value, and learn from works written by racist and sexist authors. Highlighting the importance of reading, she insists on the primacy of free speech, a democratic education of literacy. Throughout these essays, she celebrates the transformative power of critical thinking. This is provocative, powerful, and joyful intellectual work. It is a must read for anyone who is at all interested in education today.

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Although it may not be the goal of filmmaker, most of us learn something when we watch movies. They make us think. They make us feel. Occasionally they have the power to transform lives. In Reel to Real, Bell Hooks talks back to films she has watched as a way to engage the pedagogy of cinema - how film teaches its audience. Bell Hooks comes to film not as a film critic but as a cultural critic, fascinated by the issues movies raise - the way cinema depicts race, sex, and class. Reel to Real brings together Hooks’s classic essays (on Paris is Burning or Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have it) with her newer work on such films as Girl 6, Pulp Fiction, Crooklyn, and Waiting to Exhale, and her thoughts on the world of independent cinema. Her conversations with filmmakers Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, and Arthur Jaffa are linked with critical essays to show how cinema can function subversively, even as it maintains the status quo.

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In these twelve essays, bell hooks digs ever deeper into the personal and political consequences of contemporary representations of race and ethnicity within a white supremacist culture.

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When women get together and talk about men, the news is almost always bad news,” writes bell hooks. “If the topic gets specific and the focus is on black men, the news is even worse.” In this powerful new book, bell hooks arrests our attention from the first page. Her title–We Real Cool; her subject–the way in which both white society and weak black leaders are failing black men and youth. Her subject is taboo: “this is a culture that does not love black males: ” “they are not loved by white men, white women, black women, girls or boys. And especially, black men do not love themselves. How could they? How could they be expected to love, surrounded by so much envy, desire, and hate?

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Drawing on both her roots in Kentucky and her adventures with Manhattan Coop boards, Where We Stand is a successful black woman’s reflection–personal, straight forward, and rigorously honest–on how our dilemmas of class and race are intertwined, and how we can find ways to think beyond them.

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In Sisters of the Yam, hooks examines how the emotional health of black women is wounded by daily assaults of racism and sexism. Exploring such central life issues as work, beauty, trauma, addiction, eroticism and estrangement from nature, hooks shares numerous strategies for self-recovery and healing. She also shows how black women can empower themselves and effectively struggle against racism, sexism and consumer capitalism.

A website attempting to outline the boundaries of Indigenous ancestral territories in North America, and the world over, could become a valuable educational resource, says its self-described “settler” web developer.

Vancouver-based web freelancer Victor Temprano says his interactive mapping website Native-Land.ca is his “dearest” project. He’s logged thousands of hours developing it, and says he’s working to turn it into an Indigenous-led non-for-profit organization and educational tool.

“The site wasn’t built so Indigenous people know their territories better — they know them plenty well,” said Temprano, who described himself as a settler in Canada.  

“A lot of settlers are not really aware of the situation with the land, and a lot of people are vaguely interested in it, but there aren’t many resources to explore it. I’m really happy to see that it’s becoming useful to Indigenous Peoples themselves.”