THE RED NATION
The Red Nation is a coalition of Native and non-Native activists and organizers committed to ending violence towards Native life and land. The Red Nation Podcast, hosted by Nick Estes, features discussions on Indigenous history, politics, and culture from a left perspective. Episodes frequently feature guests and diverse voices on topics ranging from Indigenous resistance movements in South America, to coalition building, to Indigenous feminisms and sexuality.
Episode Discussion | audio
“Red Power Hour: Colonizer Down with Lou and Elena”
The episode titled “Red Power Hour: Colonizer Down with Lou and Elena”, recorded on July 12, 2020, explores movements to destroy and remove statues glorifying colonizers across the United States. Nick and the two hosts, Lou and Elena, first discuss ongoing Indigenous resistance towards Mount Rushmore. The site is located in the Black Hills, the cultural center of around 50 Indigenous Nations, and draws about 2 million settler ‘visitors’ annually. Despite inherent Indigenous sovereignty and countless demonstrations to reclaim the land, Nick highlights the irony of Indigenous people having the police called on them-- while on their own land. The case of Mount Rushmore is a glaring reminder of persisting colonization and active trespassing on Native lands, exploiting them as a tourist attraction boasting giant faces of colonist leaders.
Statues of colonizers on display across the country, while not as large as Mount Rushmore, also symbolize the endurance of colonialism through the glorification of colonist leaders. Elena Ortiz, a Pueblo woman from the Ohkay Owingeh village, recounts her experience on the frontlines of the movement to remove the statue of Juan de Oñate, a Spanish conquistador, from the town of Alcade. She spoke about the trauma endured by Pueblo people from seeing a beaming statue of a murder, rapist, and enslaver on their homeland. While recognizing that removing colonist statues is just a small step towards decolonization, Elena emphasizes the importance of removing symbols of white supremacy and genocidal violence. She says, “it’s not the statues, it’s the hate that goes into creating them”. Statue removal signifies the rejection of this glorification, which is an important and meaningful act of decolonization.
Lou, speaking about how settlers defend the existence of these statues, says “settlers say they don’t want to ‘deface’ historical monuments, but these monuments deface us, Indigenous peoples.” This settler backlash, resonating across all movements to tear down colonizer statues, highlights how deeply steeped colonialism is into the American conscience. Removing status and symbols that associate colonization with glory, pride, and patriotism is meaningful and critical to ending the reproduction of these violent ideals across generations.
As all of the speakers continued to reinforce, removing these symbols is a baby step compared to all the work that needs to be done towards decolonization of the United States. Definitions of decolonization vary. Tuck and Yang understand decolonization as the process of repatriation of land to Indigenous peoples,1 while Walia outlines decolonization as “the process whereby we create the conditions in which we want to live and social relations we wish to have”.2 As the speakers highlight, processes of decolonization require the support of non-Native allies ready to engage in resistance and discontinue the harmful reproduction of colonial ideals. Tearing down symbols of genocidal violence is a small, but important step.