Native people comprise a wide variety of cultures, languages, traditions, and beliefs. It is safe to say that Native people occupy any number of political and philosophical communities, dispelling the notion that Indigenous people are monolithic. Furthermore, Native people are a strong and consistent part of the working class. Many are steelworkers, miners, forest firefighters, social workers, nurses, teachers, and construction workers, to name only a few. These occupations do not define the culture or discern one’s destiny but indicate that Native people are integral to the working-class whole. While the liberation struggle begins with the reacquisition of our Indigenous languages, ceremonial practices, and community organizational customs, therein lies a greater task that is consistent with the development and mobilization of class liberation among all working people. In fact, it is not uncommon for Native people to show support and solidarity for other oppressed communities like Asian, Black, and 2LGBTQIA+ people. We see and understand how and why these communities suffer.

During Standing Rock, we saw a juxtaposition of socioeconomic conditions come to bear while occupying Native land in resistance to global capitalism. We saw state violence brought upon the people of the Oceti Sakowin encampment and all who came in solidarity to support their efforts. Representing a cross-section of the American working class, the encampment lasted for nearly ten months, and while then President Trump forced its closure and moved the DAPL project forward, victories would be seen in courtrooms three years later. This mass mobilization of people at Standing Rock demonstrated that Native liberation is the essential key to class liberation from the relentless destructive nature of American and global capitalism. Indigenous struggle struggles signify the fight against forces that have historically sought supremacy over the power of the people. While every tribe has their unique struggles specific to them, the solidarity demonstrated between tribes is exemplary of how mass struggle can be sustained.  

We cannot separate capitalism from colonialism, and what’s more, we cannot separate imperialism from either capitalism or colonialism. The three are synonymous with each other and are outgrowths of the same racial, socioeconomic, and class oppressive apparatuses that wield the lash of US hegemony. This began with the colonization of Indigenous lands globally by imperial forces from Spain, France, and England, and has resulted in the United States empire which occupies not just land, but also the psyche of all working people. The global power of modern-day imperialism is seated here in the United States whose reach has ravaged the world, especially in “Latin American” countries. This has generated a crisis caused by sanctions, and puppet governments implanted by American imperialists, forcing mass migrations of Indigenous people from Honduras, Columbia, and Guatemala to the US border to seek asylum. The battle against (neo) colonialism is a battle against capitalism and imperialism. The battle against these forces is the fight against climate change, the destruction of Native culture and land, and ultimately our struggle for liberation on a large scale! 

John Trudell (Santee Sioux Tribe) was excellent at reminding us that our ultimate objective is to reclaim and maintain our humanity. Native liberation means that by honoring and celebrating our Indigeneity we are in fact proclaiming our humanity. We must see ourselves in the greater struggle against imperialism and its tenements. While many will disagree with this notion, as they don’t see Indigenous people as a part of proletarian struggle and view class liberation outside of Native concern, I offer the reality that decolonization must be inclusive to all oppressed people if it is to be successful and worthwhile. When Frantz Fanon wrote of the Algerian fight to liberate themselves from French colonialism in his revolutionary book The Wretched of The Earth, he made it clear that the struggle was for both Arabic and Black workers. He clearly illustrated the trauma and pain caused by settler colonialism on the entirety of the Algerian people. Today, we see the rise of Indian farmers and workers fight against the ruling class in India as a mass movement for socialist change in their environs. We must also take great note of the impressive Native movement in Bolivia. There we saw Evo Morales, an Indigenous leader who embraced Marxist/Leninist ideas and applied them to the Indigenous material conditions of his people. They were not only able to successfully establish a workers’ state but they also sustained a coup performed by reactionary forces and overthrew imperialist infiltration of their government through the power of the people. 

The axiom here is that without a cross-national, inclusive, and multi-disciplinary approach to liberation, there can be no true praxis for decolonization; this is because if the focus is exclusively on Native struggles only, we may fail to see the overarching powers of imperialism at home and isolate the movement to identity. This is not to say that Natives should give up our struggle for self-determination and simply hand over the reins of our movement to others, but rather to strategize and orient the gaze of Native liberation to the larger goal of smashing imperialism. This is so that the scope of our struggle extends beyond settler borders, especially to Native nations in the global south. What’s more, we must see how Native liberation applies to the Indigenous people of Africa who are presently witnessing growing operations of the U.S. military on their ancestral lands. Imperialism is no respecter of international borders, nor should we! 

Relatives, we face a powerful, well-funded, and deeply manipulative machine of colonial imperialism that uses racial and sexual chauvinism as a means of control over the masses, while we slavishly work under the guise of class mobility. However, when faced with the realities of said mobility it seems we must always sacrifice ourselves to the imperial industrial complex in order to see any way out of our oppressive material conditions. We sacrifice our identities as Indigenous peoples and, ultimately, our humanity. All working people, regardless of ethnicity, and many others face the same oppressive structures. If we are to have victory over this, we must continue to adopt a means of organizing and mobilizing that will ensure, not just successful stratification of liberation, but its sustainment long after. If we look at the sophisticated methods employed by the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Intelligence, during the COINTELPRO against the American Indian Movement, the Black Panther Party, and then again during Standing Rock with Tiger-Swan then we understand the need for sustained liberation and not merely short-term alleviation of oppression. The ruling class will not simply allow us to liberate ourselves and establish a new world. The fight must continue and be bold and disciplined if it is to be successful and sustainable. If we are to know freedom from settler colonialism we must move beyond victory and witness a new world. 

“We say that if you dare to struggle, then you dare to win. If you dare not struggle, you don’t deserve to win.” 

-Fred Hampton, 1969