Black and Indigenous Solidarities Medicine for the Resistance

Black and Indigenous Solidarities
With Robert Warrior



Patty: 
So we're here with Robert Warrior. And so funny story, Kerry, I'm reading this book Crossing Waters Crossing Worlds by Tiya Miles. It was for Aambe book club, History a couple of months ago back in February, and I can't and, as happens a lot of times, you know, when I'm reading books or essays, I always think “is that person on Twitter, I got to find them,” you know. And so I'm going along, and I see Oh, Robert Warrior, and I'm really enjoying this essay. And so I log on to Twitter with the intention of seeing if I can find Robert Warrior. And in my notifications is like, Robert Warrior just followed you. *laughter* No way, I was just about to look for you. So that's Yeah. So there's a nice, nice, nice little bit of synergy there. I don't know what I might have been going off on on Twitter that got your attention, but
Robert:
I think it was on I mean, I think it was on Afro Indigenous issues or something like that.. That's a bit identity in general, I can't remember.
Patty: 
But that was something that, I mean, really, thanks. You know, this is this is why relationships are important, right? You know, because it's relationship that I have with Kerry, and then, you know, and other, you know, and other people that I'm getting to know, you know, just really how important these conversations are between our communities, and recognizing that our communities are not discrete categories, either.
Robert:
Great points,
Patty:
Not only are people in the Black diaspora Indigenous in their own right, in other ways. But people who are Indigenous to here also had relationships with Black people.
Robert:
Exactly, sure
Patty:
Also, you know, so we're, we're relatives in all kinds of ways. And, and, you know, one of the points that Tiya made when we talked with, you know, when, when she was on, Aambe, on the book club, was how there's gaps in gaps in our stories, and the story in our own stories. I mean, we all about what passes for mainstream education and the gaps that exist there, and how we're just not present. I just went off on a Twitter thread about Grapes of Wrath. And, you know, and how Steinbeck almost gets it, so close to understanding connection to land, you know, but where are the Indigenous people? On whose land, they're living? Oh, we're dead, like the snakes.
Robert:
Wow. Right.
Patty:
You know, so I go off on that relationship to land because like, we know that we're not in white literature in white education, but we're also missing from each other's stories. That was the point that Tiya made was, you know, in Black Studies, there's gaps where Native people should be. And then Native studies, there's gaps where Black people should be.
Robert:
Right, right. Well, I mean, I think that's a terrific point. And I think that I mean, so much this this conversation in general this topic I think, requires a lot of a lot of grace on the part of the people who are having the conversation, a lot of compassion for why people don't know the things they don't know. And and that people can only start where they start from and and we're trying to make the conversation better, we're not trying to have a perfect conversation right off the bat.
And so it but they can be really difficult and Tiya is such a genius and such a wonderful person, such an amazing scholar, but also just an amazing writer. And how she has she's able to, to in her first book and Ties That Bind, tell the story of this one little family and illustrate through through Shoe Boots and Lucy, that story that is just so powerful. You know, it's not very often that I cry in in when I'm reading a book but you know, When, when, when Lucy at the end of it is freed. Finally, when she's a very old woman, you know, I just, I just cried because I just it just the weight of her of her servitude had weighed on me through the whole thing, you know, and the way that she had to persevere through all of that. And then to