Transcript: JORDAN MARIE BRINGS THREE WHITE HORSES DANIEL on Running in Prayer /231
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Hello and welcome to For The Wild Podcast, I’m Ayana Young. Today I’m speaking to Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel.
Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel Once we can heal ourselves and move forward, we can then you know create a new generation, the next generation of our relatives, moving forward into the future who can be free from this trauma and this pain and this heartache that exists.
Ayana Young Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel is a citizen of Kul Wicasa Oyate (Lower Brule Sioux Tribe) as well as a passionate and devoted advocate nationally known for her grassroots organization for anti-pipelines/climate justice efforts, change the name/not your mascot, MMIWG2S and MMIP, and native youth initiatives.
Jordan is the founder and organizer of Rising Hearts, an Indigenous-led grassroots group designed to elevate awareness of Indigenous issues, and the intersectionality of all movements impacting Brown, Black and Indigenous communities. Currently, she is using her running platform to help raise awareness of missing and murdered Indigenous relatives by dedicating the miles she runs to a missing or murdered Indigenous person.
Well, Jordan, thank you so much for joining me today. As we were chatting earlier, this is a real honor and I've definitely been a fangirl for a while, so this is just such a beautiful way to spend this rainy day with a roaring fire being able to spend some time together. So thanks for joining us.
Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel Lila Pilamaya, thank you so much for having me.
Ayana Young So yeah, I hope our listeners are familiar with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit, but in case some are not, I want to ground our conversation in the reality of what has taken place across settler-colonial states, like the United States, Canada, and Australia. One of the most commonly shared statistics is that in 2016, the Urban Indian Health Institute found that there were nearly 6,000 reported MMIW, yet only 116 made it into the Department of Justice database. Additionally, Indigenous women and girls are murdered and sexually assaulted at rates as high as 10 times the average in the United States, and 97% of their perpetrators are non-Native. And I think people are much more aware of this issue today because the media has been paying more attention, but I also want to recognize that there continue to be some serious misrepresentations in the media when it comes to this crisis. For example, there is still the underlying belief that this epidemic is exclusively taking place on reservations...Can you begin by sharing where the MMIP movement currently stands, and what are some of the main inaccuracies that need to be addressed?
Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel Yes, this is an issue, an international crisis, and an epidemic that is, you know, really impacting all Indigenous communities, and I want to say that one, I am not an expert, I am just an advocate, doing what I can to help uplift the advocates, the families, the people doing this hard work to end this injustice. And I'm really honored to have a platform to help do that and help, you know, be part of those steps in hopefully eliminating this crisis entirely. But first, I want to say that this movement of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, as I learned from Annita Lucchesi of Sovereign Bodies Institute, from a webinar that I listened to a little over a year ago was that, you know, this movement was founded by our First Nations relatives and really began in Canada because of the high rates of their relatives being taken.
And also we know the Highway of Tears that has given such visibility to this issue of, you know, their relatives being taken when they were hitchhiking or trying to walk to the next community, and that this has been devastating the families and has led to this injustice when it comes to law enforcement when it comes to the federal government in terms of what does accountability look like? What does justice look like? And, you know, showing the inequities and the problems that exist within these systems that are not supporting our Indigenous relatives. And so this began, you know, a few decades ago. And I'm happy to see that this movement has been growing and expanding. But also, it's been really heartbreaking to see how it has been devastating so many of our communities. And something that I always say too is, this either directly impacts us by us losing a loved one, I have a cousin Britney Tiger who was murdered, and we have, you know, countless more across our families. But this is something that either directly impacts us or indirectly impacts us because we know someone who's lost a loved one, who's still searching for their loved one and still fighting for justice for their loved one, or we know someone who knows someone, and we see the missing flyers being shared across social media. And it's just really heartbreaking to see that almost every single day.
So this movement began with our First Nations relatives and has been growing, expanding, and bringing in more people. Calling in more people to help support this movement, to support the families, to bring in funds to help support these efforts. And now we're seeing it grow in the United States. And you know, without the efforts of Sovereign Bodies Institute, Urban Indian Health Institute, National Indigenous Women's Resource Center, Alaska Native Women's Resource Center, and countless more coalition's and groups, they're all dedicated and focused on giving visibility to this issue, to ending gender-based violence in our communities, and to have these discussions, not solely be focused on Reservations, but this is happening in rural and urban communities, too. So that's something that I want to say too is that this isn't just, you know, isolated incidents on the reservations. These are incidents and realities that are happening everywhere, and in every city, in every town, in every county, in every state, you know, it's sadly happening across the world in different countries.
Ayana Young Thank you for the introduction, and addressing some of those questions. For over a year you’ve been using your platform as an athlete to raise awareness for MMIP by taking the time to learn the names and stories of individual missing Indigenous relatives and saying a prayer for each one with every mile you run, combining marathon running and prayer. And I’ve talked about the financial connections to this epidemic and the role of policy and data collection in addressing it on the podcast before, but I’d really like to ask you to speak about running as prayer and the power of prayer when it comes to MMIP. How does the act of running, which in the context of marathons might seem like a very individualistic and competitive act, actually serve as a way to move energy in solidarity with those who are missing?
Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel Yeah, I'm a first-generation runner. So running has been my life, and it's in my blood, and it's in my family, it's tradition, it's a way of healing. It's a way of growing and learning. But it's also you know, all I know how to do, and it's something that I love so much. And, you know, it just got to a point where, as I've been on this journey of learning more about this epidemic, first learning about it back in 2014, really, when there were names that I could put to this injustice at a Reject and Protect Keystone XL pipeline protest happening in DC, that's when I started learning about the man camps, and the pipelines, and the violence, the high rates of violence that are happening from these man camps in Indigenous communities in Canada, in the United States, and other places around the world that are being impacted by dirty infrastructure projects. And so that's really what, you know, began my journey of trying to learn more about this issue.
Then, I started connecting the dots as I've seen it throughout my life of, you know, all the funerals that I've attended and learning more details about those funerals and what happened to them because I was younger and you know, just an innocent kid, you know, your family wants to protect you from those details. So I just started asking more questions and started seeing that this isn't just a new movement or an issue. This has been happening since forever, since 1492, since colonization, and, you know, it just got to the point whereas I've been learning and trying to sign up for all the webinars that I can, trying to donate, or share or retweet, or talk about these issues, these stories, their names, you know, in the spotlight on social media, it got to a point where it just felt like, no one outside of our Indigenous communities cared. It felt like Indigenous people are expendable, and that we are nothing, and that we are invisible. And it just got to a point where it's just frustrating. And after having organized, you know, panel sessions featuring experts and families, for, you know, the communities to learn from and to be able to support, or speaking on podcasts about this, or, you know, dedicating my bib numbers to #MMIW or #MMIG, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, it just felt so frustrating that I almost gave up on trying to keep advocating because it felt like no one cared about us and it felt like only Indigenous peoples are the only ones talking about this. And it was heartbreaking to see this injustice and heartache happening every single day.
When the Boston Marathon came last year, in 2019, I was at a point of, you know what, I give up on trying to, like, keep showing this and talking about this, I'm going to do something different. And that's where I decided to run in prayer because I had run in prayer runs before and been part of prayer vigils and helped organize those. And seeing other groups organizing prayer runs for like, Bears Ears and Protect Oak Flat, I just really felt that was good medicine, and a good way to be able to honor either the lands or the people in that context. And so I wanted this prayer run to be only about them, even though it was a dream of mine to be at the Boston Marathon, and to run that course, and, you know, be part of that energy and atmosphere, which I've you know, always wanted to have, this is more important in being intentional and creating the space to find their names, have a list, carry their names and those prayers with me, and to verbally say it out loud, their name and the prayers and prayers for their families, to hope for justice and healing, and prayers for our communities so that we don't have targets on our backs anymore so that I don't have to keep asking the question “Am I next? Is my mom next? Are my cousins next? Is someone that I love dearly going to be next?” That this constant fear that kind of looms over many of us, especially me, as I'm learning more, you know, reading the statistics and the data, it's really scary. And so I wanted this program to be solely for them, to be able to honor them to be able to, you know, say their names and let them know that I am, you know, among so many that care and that are trying to do something and have not forgotten them.
It was just the best way that I could use my running as you know, running intersecting with advocacy, the two things that I have based my life on. And now being able to intersect and do them at the same time was just kind of like a lightbulb moment, and couldn’t believe that I hadn't you know thought of this before, especially bringing it into a competitive platform, where I tried to keep running as just for me because I still have my running ambitions and goals and still would like to make the Olympic trials and the marathon. And I think those goals are still just as attainable even when running with a new purpose.
Ayana Young That's beautiful. And you write, “The handprint represents the silenced voices taken from our communities from violence. It weighs heavy. Over time - this has led to anxiety attacks, depression, and nightmares. Finding their names & their stories was sad and I didn’t sleep great. I’m learning how to continue this in a healthy way - emotionally/physically.” And I know so much emotional labor goes into this work, but I think to learn individual stories and carry their names with you as you physically move, to dedicate your presence as a reminder, must open collective wounds that are so deep, and by denying this epidemic, or erasing it, we’ve made it so that Indigenous women not only have to work to bring relatives home, but they themselves also suffer from the very work of it. So my question is around responsibility and accountability, one; how do you hold yourself accountable for protecting and caring for yourself, and two, whose responsibility is it to shoulder the burden of this information?
Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel That the first question is something I'm still figuring out and I'm not really good at it. I spread myself thin and I give more than 100% to everything that I do. And so being able to take care of myself has been really hard, because this is something I care so much about. And one thing that I did to take accountability and to begin this path of healing and understanding and figuring out how I can move forward and run forward in a good way, to be able to keep doing this, you know, was going to therapy and finding an Indigenous therapist, someone who comes from my community, someone who looks like me, someone who understands colonization, and this epidemic, and so many other issues that are happening, just made me feel so much more comfortable and you know, feeling like I could actually really confide in someone that gets it.
And so, we have been talking about these prayer runs and finding out that one, I am an empath, and that I carry on these emotions, and take on these emotions, and how heavy these stories are. And sometimes seeing the comments coming from the families of, especially when they've been, you know, fighting for decades, to find the answers and hold law enforcement and the government accountable in doing their job is just something that I took on and carried with me. And I just want to do so much. And for me, it just felt like I had to keep running. And so by the end of 2019, you know, I experienced injuries for the first time ever, like in my entire running career because I was basically running myself into the ground. But at the same time, the only time I felt like I was able to be happy and feel a sense of purpose was running. But at the same time, it was like a double-edged sword. So I just was experiencing a lot of these mental health issues, and, you know, working with my therapist and setting boundaries for myself, I took two months off from running completely and took it day by day and was literally like asking myself every day, are you ready to run today? Nope. Okay. And I just had to get to that moment where mentally, I was ready and emotionally ready, and spiritually ready to go for a run again. And so now, I feel like I have a new plan of how I can do these prayer runs and help give visibility to this issue and to help uplift the voices for the voiceless, and the advocates doing this work in a better way, while also being mindful of those boundaries that I've set, which means maybe, you know, taking the notifications off my phone or, you know, muting the notifications of some of the MMIW groups that I am part of, not that I’m not going to see that information, but not being inundated with an update popping up on my phone, or in the message chats or anything like that.
And so it's me having to be proactive to go into those spaces, to get an update of what's going on and what's happening. What's the latest policy update, you know, who's this missing flyer for? And where are they, you know, how can I help? What can I share? So it's setting those boundaries, and it's a, it's a slow-growing healing process for me, and healing is not linear. But I feel like I'm finally moving forward in a better way, especially a year from now to this very day, I was not in a good place. And so I'm really happy with this progress.
For the second question, in terms of who needs to be held accountable, and who could be helping, it's law enforcement it's the federal government, and, you know, they have a federal trust responsibility to be supporting Indigenous communities. And, you know, we have to start dismantling, and, you know, breaking those barriers of institutionalized racism that exists, especially within law enforcement and in the government, you know, some of these issues that we're seeing of why these cases have potentially maybe gone cold is due to the racism that exists in law enforcement, and the families, you know, doing all that they can to try and demand help and get help, especially in those first critical hours of when a loved one is missing. And sometimes a lot of our relatives and community members are met with that racism and that hostility and that prejudice and those stereotypes, those already created narratives of who Indigenous people are and they choose to not help us and so it's the families it's the advocates that are on those frontlines, organizing the search parties doing whatever they can, in those first few days in those critical hours, when law enforcement should be there from moment one, from the moment that the families contact them. And it's the funding that should be allocated to Indigenous communities and the programs, the domestic violence, and sexual assault programs, the safe housing shelters, all of these programs should be funded continuously.
And, you know, with the Violence Against Women Act, in the last year, it's been really disappointing to see that being used as a kind of like a political football in terms of the budget, when it's about really the safety of women. And that should not be, you know, compromised, or negotiated, or diminished in any sort of capacity, and that should always be permanent, rather than reauthorized every x amount of years. Because we need to protect our women, we need to protect all women in all of our communities from this violence that is happening. And so not only do we need help from the law enforcement side, we also need help federally from our government and to actually listen to us, to see us to involve the families and the advocates on these task forces that have been created, or programs that are created because they know what is happening. They know, you know what is needed. And we can't fill those roles with people who have no connections to the MMIW and MMIR, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives, community. We need those voices in those spaces and at those tables. So I would hope to see in the future more accountability in terms of that of including our community members that have been part of this work for so long to be part of those discussions.
Ayana Young Yeah, that makes so much sense. And In a piece titled Jordan Daniel’s Unrelenting Race for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, author Sierra Mondragon bring up the term “survivance” in context to your work, and Gerald Vizenor writes; “Survivance is an active sense of presence, the continuance of native stories, not a mere reaction, or a survivable name. Native survivance stories are renunciations of dominance, tragedy, and victimry." but you point out that healing also needs to be an active part of survivance. Can you talk about the importance of healing while simultaneously working to build a future where Indigenous lives are protected from violence?
Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel Yeah, I think we need to recognize that we have a lot of trauma in our communities, that has been very present and ingrained in our DNA since colonization, since contact, and everything that has happened since the genocide, the violence, the wars, the disease, the boarding schools, residential schools, and everything that's part of it. We have relatives today, including my grandfather, who passed away but was in a boarding school, we have relatives today that still can't even speak to what they witnessed and to what they experienced during those times. And this trauma, generational trauma is passed down, and it has these wounds. And I think now, especially for me, as I've been learning more about these new words and terms and things to label that I've always been wondering are what this means or what is this, you know, it's, it's shed light on the collective healing that we all need to do, that we've experienced or have seen within our families, and to be able to, you know, once we can heal ourselves, and understand, you know, our lived experiences and what we've gone through and understand our relatives and what they went through and our ancestors, even more than just knowing that it was genocide, or it was a war, or it was just boarding school. Once we can heal ourselves and move forward, we can then you know, create a new generation, the next generations of our relatives moving forward into the future, who can, you know, be free from this trauma and this pain and this heartache that exists, but at the same time, this trauma and what we've gone through, and the things that we are learning from our families and communities, it's also what motivates us to be dedicated and devoted to that heart work, that motivates us every single day to for a better future, to want better for next generations, to want to see a future free of violence where we do not have this epidemic existing anymore, where we are not grieving for our friends and families. Whether you're Indigenous or not, it is something I've seen also with our Black brothers and sisters, we all have this similar trauma that has been rooted in colonization, and systems of oppression and racism and white supremacy that have impacted our lives. And when we can get a better understanding of that and find the root of it, and recognize where it came from and how it came there. We can then move forward in a better way.
Ayana Young The I Will See You Again in a Good Way, Progress Report on MMIWG2S people in Northern CA talks about the tremendous ripple effects of missing relatives, including the crippling economic tolls that incur; if there has been a murder it’s the cost of funerals, embalming, and cremation, if there is an actively missing person - the cost of ground searches and awareness campaigns. Capitalism punishes so many during periods of loss and mourning, especially Indigenous, Black, and Brown communities. Can you speak to the burden of cost and some ways that community can mitigate this?
Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel You know, I see this as a very community grassroots effort, and that's what it is, it's what I love to see, but also, that just creates that extra burden and that responsibility for those families, you know, needing to do what they can to be able to, you know, lay their relatives to rest or to be able to continue searching for them. I love seeing when these campaigns are started by friends, and, you know, friends of the family, or organizations to help, you know, mitigate those costs to help, you know, eliminate some of that responsibility and that heartache. And I think it's really beautiful, and something that I hope that continues or there can be a special fund that's created federally and a government program that can help, you know that would be so incredible to see. But you know, it was my relative Britney Tiger, you know, her mom is still going to court dates, and is still creating vigils, and t-shirts, and just trying to keep Britney’s memory there, and to keep her physical, and to keep calling and demanding justice. She is amongst so many, thousands of families, that are doing this and all trying through creative ways to try and give visibility not only just to their relatives, but they're also trying to give visibility to this movement and to this epidemic.
I think when this awareness keeps growing, we see more people coming in, more people asking how can we help? Or where can we donate? What can we do? I think it is just really beautiful. And it's something that I really appreciate seeing. And so I think when we can all come together as communities to support the family. So we can hopefully eliminate some of that responsibility, so that they can grieve in their own way, or that they can heal in their own way, without having to worry about a GoFundMe, or, you know, the costs of a funeral, or search parties, or flyers, or anything that you need to support them. You know, I think that's the best way to support the family. But this is something that is really heartbreaking to see all the time, especially more recently, as I've been seeing on social media with more relatives gone missing, but luckily, they've been found safe, but it was the emergency response of, you know, we're launching this campaign, or we're trying to raise funds to get the family to go visit that city and go find their loved one. And yes, they had the best outcomes possible. They found them and they're safe. But you know, it's those emergency response actions that need support right away.
And for me at least, it’s using my platform and those that support me, and I hate using the word “followers,” I call them supporters, those that support me, you know, I want to share these campaigns, and hopefully, you know, help support those emergency response actions in finding their loved ones and their friends because, sadly, this is happening during a pandemic, it hasn't stopped. This epidemic is a public health issue. This is happening not just in Indigenous communities, but it's happening in our Black and Brown communities, and Muslim communities. This is happening, you know, across the board, and this is something that needs visibility and needs to be addressed. And we need to, you know, call people in to understand the history of this violence and what it's rooted in. And the systems that perpetuate this violence and the words or the narratives out there, or stereotypes out there that help perpetuate and normalize this violence in our communities, I think is needed. And it's happening. And the unlearning process is happening. And the re-learning from us is happening, which is so great. And it's building community. And so that's also the part of the work that I'm really dedicated to, is building community, and making sure that those outside of Indigenous communities can understand what is happening, especially not only the heartbreaking stuff, the adversity, the issues that we have in our communities, but also being there to celebrate the amazing things in our communities, because that's also the other aspect; we are resilient, and we are so beautiful, and strong. And we keep moving forward. And we keep up with the heart work that's happening. And that's also the other stuff that I like to amplify too, is just all of the good work that is happening.
Ayana Young Yeah, that's so important as well. And in the past, when communities bring up MMIP, or perhaps more broadly when it’s discovered that local law enforcements have been sitting on backlogs of rape kits, for example, it’s resolved by increasing funding for police departments under the guise of providing better training or hiring more people to increase the capacity to address these issues, and this is so frustrating because if this past year has shown us anything, it’s that public outcry does not make law enforcement more sympathetic to the communities they actively target, in fact, it actually just causes them to retaliate more. So I’d like to ask you how MMIP should be addressed in a way that doesn’t rely on the cops, but instead builds networks of care? What does pursuing justice for MMIP mean within networks of care?
Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel I think it's about you know, one, providing this content, these issues, the statistics, and the data, I think being led by Indigenous researchers and advocates supporting the families. I know there are those phrases in terms of “decolonizing the data”, “decolonizing research” and I know that Sovereign Bodies Institute and Urban Indian Health Institute are both doing that, and that’s incredibly important, and they look at the bigger picture of not just, you know talking about what is happening with law enforcement, and the lack of funding that they get, or the lack of training, or how their systems, when they're filling out a police report of a missing person or one of these cases, if they don't check the accurate box, Native American or American Indian and Alaska Native, or however it may be, it'll default to Caucasian. And that's how a lot of our relatives also go missing in the data.
And Annita puts it perfectly; our relatives go missing three times in life, they go missing in the data, in life, and in the media. And so I think those three right there, those tiers are the actions that we need to take in terms of building a community, building awareness through the media, making sure that this is visible, and that this is seen. And not just the cases that you know sometimes do make it nationally or internationally, but we need to make sure that this is visible across the board, and that all families are getting the support that they need in terms of visibility and the support that's coming in, we also need to make sure that this is addressing data, the statistics that they're accurately being reflected, and that they can work with Indigenous researchers and, you know, statisticians, or however they’re called, and working with these institutions to make sure that this data is accurately reflected. And so that's a lot of the work that Sovereign Bodies is doing, they’re working with law enforcement programs to help correct these reports, to make sure that these relatives are being accurately reflected and depicted, and so that they are not going invisible and being lost in the data.
Then, you know, creating community in terms of having the community be part of those search and rescue missions or being part of the fundraising campaigns, because it is a grassroots movement. It's grassroots-led. And so I think change always happens from the bottom up when people realize we have the collective power to impact and call for change, that law enforcement and other systems and levels of government will have to listen to us, especially when we all come together. And so when we can bring the people together and talk about this issue, have them understand it, hopefully, you know, eliminate those stereotypes and the prejudice and some of the narratives out there, have them get a better understanding into the scope of this issue and listening to the families and the advocates, then we can collectively come together and say, “This is what we want. This is what we need.” This is what we deserve in terms of who we elect locally, to the congressional level, or who we elect into, you know, the sheriff's department as the sheriff or who, you know, we are working with in terms of law enforcement and the government. And so I think, when we can get the community informed, and to be more attentive to this issue, and realize that this is happening every day, this doesn't take a pause, it doesn't take a break. This is continuously happening and bringing these conversations not only just within the MMIW movement, but also bringing it into the Me Too Movement.
Something that I started talking about when I first moved to Tongva lands, to Los Angeles, California, I was speaking on Me Too platforms and rallies, and I really appreciated other Indigenous sisters talking about MMIW in that space, and it made me realize that, no this is all of our missing relatives Me Too moment too. And that also, we need to take it back a couple hundred years, even further than you know Pocahontas was our first Me Too, she is the first MMIW that we can think of and that we need to help reframe her story and not have it be romanticized or over hypersexualized to fit a Disney format or narrative that’s out there, we need to actually talk about her story for the facts and what it was, and what happened to her. And so I've seen that conversation grow and expand in different conversations with so many different people and communities, having a better understanding of what it's like in our Indigenous communities of what we have to go through, and what we have to advocate for, and why we advocate. And so I think when we come together as a community, and that are more informed, we can then you know, push and call for the things that we need that we deserve to hopefully eliminate this epidemic.
Ayana Young Yeah, and for listeners who are interested in exploring these ideas deeper, I really encourage them to look at the incredibly comprehensive MMIWG2 & MMIP Organizing Toolkit that Jordan has shared with us. So we will link to that on the website and through social media.
I’d like to transition our conversation to discuss Indigenous visibility and invisibility in the media, beginning with the reality that MMIP activists have long been calling out how dominant media’s coverage of this epidemic causes additional harm, as many stories are not portrayed truthfully or heavily rely on violent language so that people don’t really think to look into these cases or follow up with them because their inevitability is implied. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about how we rarely hear about the stories of MMIP being found and returning to their homes. Can you speak to this and how this also really highlights the intersection between Indigenous and Black communities and Black-Indigenous folx in terms of how they’re actively erased and dehumanized in our media?
Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel Yeah, we are constantly always fighting our own erasure from so many different levels and platforms out there. But when it comes to the media, something that I always advocate for and demand, especially when I'm having the opportunities to speak with the media, and especially if they're publications or articles or anything like that, like I demand to see the edits and to see the final review. And sometimes I get met with a little bit of hostility and pushback and them saying that's not allowed, that you should just trust us in what we're writing. Because time and time again, after seeing so many other relatives and just other voices across so many different movements of what they're advocating for, have seen them tokenized or have seen them, basically kind of harmed where they were approached to get their insight and their point of view, but then the way the article is written, made them look like the antagonist or, you know, someone that was, I don't know, like evil or something in terms of what they were fighting for and labeling them as fighting against something. And so when it comes to just words, even simple words being used in these publications and media can do a lot of damage on who we are, what we advocate for, and potentially harm and hurt the movements that we are trying to give visibility to. I think the media needs to come to these conversations and approach the families, and approach the advocates, or anyone across our movements - need to approach us really carefully, they need to understand that there is trauma present, that these issues are incredibly hard to talk about. And we do not need to be tokenized, we do not need to have, you know, our loved ones or their loved ones being misrepresented.
Because as we have seen in some cases, you know, these writers or reporters tend to focus on maybe some of the potentially bad things they did when they were younger, that had nothing to do with them being an adult and then gone missing or being murdered, and how they show us or represent us, picking the worst photos possible that make them look bad. Instead of picking the beautiful photos of who they are, who they were. And this is happening time and time and again, you know, especially these last several months with the death of George Floyd, the murder of George Floyd, the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, and so many more that you know haven’t been in the media, I think we need to also call attention to the media and hold them accountable, and make sure that they're doing their job the right way, the best way, and in the most supportive and visible way. You know, they need to hear us, they need to listen to my or their lived experiences of what is happening. And they need to also have us be part of the editing process.
That's always what I talk about, and what I always try to speak to when I'm talking with them, because this happens so much. And it can either set us back in terms of what we're fighting for, and trying to give visibility to and bringing community in to support us, especially with how they may frame it or, you know, summarize the issue. And it could potentially put communities against us thinking that this is our problem. Or because you are who we are, you know, we were asking for it or, you know, we deserved it. And that's not the type of thinking we want out there or the kind of behavior we want. We need the support, we need the visibility. And we need a platform that can be there to support these stories, to support the families. And to have updates of what is happening, we need follow-up. We need to know if they've been found safe, or if the case is still going, what is happening in those cases.? We need the media, and the reporters, and the writers, to be committed to these stories, because these aren't just stories for publication, and for likes or clickbait. These are stories of actual people and their lives and their family, and the devastating impact that it has had on them in the communities and potentially for our next generations. And that's something that I'm really passionate about in terms of media, and the kind of visibility that they do for these stories and for the families.
Ayana Young Well, looking back, I think for many of us, the conversation on MMIP leads us to really ask why? Why is this still an issue? And what will it take to resolve it? But the reality is that there is no single solution because this is a symptom of a very sick settler society that seeks to take whatever it can to fulfill its own greed and predatory nature. In the MMIWG2 & MMIP Organizing Toolkit, Tia Oros Peters writes, “The Indigenous paradigm of Respect, Reciprocity, Responsibility, and Relationship to others, and to the Earth -- and for others and for the Earth – encompasses more than maintaining the integrity of our own lives, it includes the air, plants, water, and animals as much as our ancestors and those yet to be born. This framework for assuring a restored world in which all life is nurtured, flourishes and participates in its respective place within the cycle, lays an unwavering foundation for sustainable livelihoods and balanced world order and is a harmony based, holistic paradigm. It is completely distinct from Western or mainstream / settler thought. In its very collectivist nature – it is relationship based, it’s about sharing and achieving balance, it differs significantly from the individual oriented, acquisition-based, oppositional nature of Euro-centric thinking and being. A paradigm of taking.” And so I wonder if you can speak to this as a call to both dismantle white supremacy, and human supremacy, but also a call to rebuild a new future, and to use this epidemic that continues to occur to pray into the protection of Indigenous, Black, and Brown folks in both tangible and intangible ways?
Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel Yeah, that’s a beautiful quote by Tia, I think something that always comes to my mind when speaking about this injustice, and this issue, is we need to recognize this troubling cycle of violence happening not just against our women, but against our Earth, and listening to other aunties and sisters that are in this movement, and especially when they're advocating for MMIW, in the climate justice conversation, that we need to repair our relationship and how we treat what Unci Maka, what we call grandmother Earth. That the violence that has been happening on her is directly correlated with the violence happening on our women, and when we can repair that relationship, and stop harming her, we will stop harming our women in our community. And so I think that just goes across so many platforms in different ways of what that looks like and decolonizing our life and our systems, and what things can we do to step back and to, you know, have a better view and perspective of how we are all connected to each other, even just outside of Indigenous communities, that Mitákuye Oyás'iŋ, Lakota translation is we are all related. And for me, as I was raised, growing up I was raised as you know, not only fight and do what you need for your people, but also for all people. And that is something that we need to recognize, and we need to understand this really toxic cycle of violence happening. And when we can stop that, hopefully, we can stop the violence happening on our bodies.
And I think we need to have people who are not coming from Indigenous, Black, Brown communities, we need to have them understand how colonization has really impacted our communities and our lives. And we can't treat it like cafeteria food in terms of history of picking and choosing what we want to know and what we want to learn and how we want to view it, we need to understand that this country was, you know, off the genocide of Indigenous peoples. And, you know, after the removal and stealing of our Black brothers and sisters from their homelands, and enslaving them here, and to our island relatives too, you know, this has been happening since day one. And people need to understand how colonization has, the settler mentality of conquering, and, you know, self-entitlement and the need for more. And so, for us, we have been harmed by that system that has been created, that has been brought here to the United States, because we were seen as not enough, that our lives are more expendable because we don’t fit these colonial narratives that created this country.
We've been harmed by this system. And people need to understand that. And when we can understand that and accept that, then we can start doing the work of what else can we do? What can I do? What can I do within my family? How can I contribute? How can we be supporting these communities? How can we be supporting Indigenous Black Brown peoples? What else can we do? And so I think when we can understand our history, and accept it, and acknowledge it, and not believe what we see in the current textbooks, which are inaccurate, that don't tell the whole picture or getting a better understanding of what Truthsgiving is, rather than Thanksgiving, you know understanding our Mashpee Wampanoag relatives and their fight for their own lands and their own sovereignty right now, currently happening under this administration, and so many other efforts across the board, when we can actually understand the truth and learn from those communities and those voices of what is happening and get a different perspective, and we can, or they can allow themselves to feel how they feel and ask questions and kind of sit with this new knowledge of internal reflection of “Oh, how have I been perpetuating this potential violence, or this potential racism?” Or “How have I've just been part of this harm? What else can I do? How can I be a better ally? How can I be a better relative to them?” And so I think that's all part of the work that we are seeing here in 2020 right now, which is what I hope we continue seeing every single year, every single day, the same commitment, the same, you know, devotion to wanting better, a better future for next generations, and better for our relatives here today, who are constantly fighting and making their voices as loud as possible to be heard, and to be seen and supported.
Ayana Young Yes, yes. Well, Jordan, this has been such a beautiful, deep and potent conversation that I have just been so present with you every moment. And as we come to a close, I'd like to ask you about your organization, Rising Hearts, and how people can support yourself in this work.
Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Daniel Yeah, Rising Hearts has been around since Standing Rock and the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline. And just a quick story, I never saw myself in this kind of advocate role, or a community organizer, I always wanted to be part of behind the scenes in helping to make change happen. And it's been a dream of mine since eighth grade to move to DC and go work in policy and like help write laws. And, you know, that happened, I moved to DC, I got to work with so many incredible Native organizations and just found myself more connected and happier when I was working directly with the community. So I stopped working on the Hill and stopped lobbying, and started working with an organization where I got to work with communities and help support them in implementing their projects from the federal funding that they were getting, and just basically got to be a cheerleader to the work that they were doing, and being there as you know, support and it was just incredible.
And so as this is happening, you know, Standing Rock was happening and, you know, hearing the calls from you know, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, and the youth in Standing Rock talking about what was happening in those very, very early months, you know, really sat with me of “am I doing enough?” and having myself ask these questions. And then finally someone asked me, “Hey the Standing Rock youth are running over 2000 miles to Washington, DC, to oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline and deliver a petition to President Obama, do you want to organize something for them and welcome them to the city.?” And I had never organized anything in my life. I had attended rallies and protests and marches and everything and kind of always served in the observer role, or the volunteer role, or just being there to support. And I was like, sure, I guess I can try it out. And I worked with a friend of mine, and we got permits, we got police escort, we got funding to have food for the youth and organize some meetings just for the youth with some government officials that were close to this project and overseeing the permitting, and then the Department of Justice Army Corps and the White House. And so this is just an incredible opportunity to learn from and be part of, and to help just welcome the youth and they came, and it was an incredible day. And they were so inspiring to see them use their voice, and to put their bodies under this kind of, you know, intense, you know, repetitive, every single day, just constantly running of, you know, running for purpose, running with a purpose and running, you know, as a form of advocacy. That's where I started learning about running, connecting to advocacy, but for me had never brought it into a competitive platform. But that's where I started really appreciating our youth. So they are who inspired me to hold myself accountable and be like “Jordan, you need to do more like you need to organize, you need to, you know, help uplift their voices.” And so that's how our Rising Hearts really came to be, was out of the Standing Rock movement and hearing the calls for action and to support and to rally people to come together for Standing Rock and I have to give this new path that I've been on ever since, this journey that I've been on, like all the appreciation and credit to those youth, because if it hadn't been for them, I don't know if I'd be in this place that I am right now.
So I'm really grateful to them for showing me how important it is to stand up for something that you really believe in. And so all the credit goes to them. So that's how Rising Hearts came to be. It was really an answer to a direct call of action of elevating Indigenous voices, because in D.C., so many things were being organized, that I didn't see Indigenous voices on, especially speaking to this issue. And so I started inserting myself into those conversations and asking the organizers “Hey, where are the Indigenous voices? Where are the land acknowledgments? Where are the Piscataway Native peoples? I know them, we're here, like, why aren't - why aren't we on these platforms?” And so then that started networking and collaborating and you know, developing these amazing partnerships with other coalition's and groups and we all began working together. And we ended up co-founding D.C. Reinvest Coalition to help get D.C. to divest from Wells Fargo at the time, and just really led into these beautiful collaborations and building community. And that's what Rising Hearts is really all about.
So now that we’ve come to 2020, I’ve been seeing, and sharing spaces to speak about MMIW, but also speaking about, you know, the Missing and Murdered Black women from here in Los Angeles - I was on a panel and an rally with another family speaking for the 300 missing and murdered Black women in Los Angeles. And just being on stage with them, and having this moment of two communities that had been constantly traumatized and has been experiencing this violence and this injustice coming together, multiple families and multiple advocates speaking to this issue was just something that was like another aha moment, a light bulb of like, you know, I don't have to be just like speaking and organizing and running for Indigenous women and our relatives, I can be helping to give visibility to this injustice for Black lives taken too.
And so we're in 2020, everything's clearly visible. Now Rising Hearts is in a platform of building community, still uplifting and centering Indigenous voices, but also promoting intersectional collaboration, and making sure that we are being a good relative and a good ally, to the Black community, to the Brown community, to the Asian community, to all marginalized communities that have been harmed by these systems and making sure that we can learn from them and be there as support in whatever capacity that we can. And so I'm really happy that Rising Hearts is growing and transforming. We just launched her our new logo last night, we had a bonfire campaign with the logo on the shirts and the sweatshirts to help fundraise for our community programming that we have that we've been doing, like the Mitákuye Oyás'iŋ COVID-19 Relief Program, which we've delivered over 5000 masks to communities, and face shields. We also have Indigenous Wellness Through Movement series, because I wanted to see Indigenous wellness instructors in those spaces and to learn from them. And so it's building community that way and inviting this platform to everybody to attend it virtually to learn from Indigenous voices and wellness advocates, and also opening the platform up to inviting special guests and friends and allies to come teach sessions. So the funding is going to go to support that, it's going to go to support the Running on Native Land initiative, going to support the Running With Purpose community club team, as well as the Running With Purpose film series, and a variety other of programming and upcoming events that we are organizing, starting in January 2021.
Francesca Glaspell Thank you for listening to For The Wild Podcast. The music you heard today was by Lake Mary, Santiago Cordoba, Emily Ritz, and Arthur Moon. For The Wild is created by Ayana Young, Erica Ekrem, and Francesca Glaspell.