Niinwi

I never understood how foreigners could come and tell us where to die and where to live. Where to be buried and how to breed. - Tanya Tagaq, Split Tooth

This episode originally took place in May when we're surrounded by images of mothering and idealized caregiving. We should be thankful to those who raise us and in the Ojibwe tradition, the children choose their parents. We exist in spirit world before we come here and that choice provides an agency to children that is respected in our stories if not always in practice.

The first time I heard this teaching was at a summer camp for kids who are in foster care and it is a hard thing to hear in that context. What does it mean that these kids chose parents who could not safely care for them? The elder sped past it on his way to the other point he was trying to make, but I have no recollection of that. Just this show stopping teaching that he did not unpack.

I did unpack it much later with a friend who pointed out a few things to which I have added my own thoughts based in the stories I've read and the others I've talked with. This choice is based in, among other things, the kind of knowledge we have in spirit world which means we see more clearly, perhaps a familiarity. They are people we knew here too but we knew their best selves, their balanced selves. And perhaps we had things to teach them, which is consistent with what our stories teach us about children knowing things about spirit that we've long forgotten.

But there are also other people in our lives who are part of these choices, people who we become connected to, or maybe reconnected to, as a result of our parents. Surely those caregivers are also part of that spirit-world calculus and deserve recognition. And finally, there is the mess that colonialism has made of our lives and the ways in which it has constricted our choices, those constrictions showing up as distortions in our lives, imbalance if you will.

The vast majority of people involved with child welfare are involved because of poverty and the many ways in which poverty prevents us from taking the breaks we need, or accessing supports. They are involved because of a racist system that is not racist because of individuals, although those individuals certainly exist and I could tell you stories. Racism is an overarching system of heirarchies and you can measure those heirarchies by looking at which groups live long and healthy lives, and which ones do not. So I would argue that many of those children in care are there because of the system itself and not because their parents are unsafe. The parents are themselves made unsafe and precarious, which justifies the removal.

And that is a serious thing to have been part of. A devastatingly serious thing which is part of why I started the Nii'kinaaganaa Foundation. I can't undo the harms that I've done, but I can do something about ongoing harms and every month we support organizers who are building their communities as well as simply keeping individuals housed.

This conversation about refusing the partiarchy is about forging our own way through this system. It includes women and queer people because we're the ones who are most harmed by this structure, the ones who fail to measure up. We talk about being able to show up as our authentic selves, Daniel said in an earlier conversation discovery is dangerous and it's true for people too. Showing up as our authentic selves can get us in a lot of trouble. I've talked before about the sermon that started this whole trajectory, it started with the recognition that certain people were not safe in that place, not if they showed up as their authentic selves. If they aren't safe, I'm not safe. None of us are really.

But we can do something about that. We can join with others, find safety amongst ourselves. Create our own spaces that are safe because we are hostile to those who would make us unsafe. We can refuse.

Episode 5 Bad Indians Book Club Niinwi, us but not you

Patty Krawec: This is Patty Krawec, your host and the author of Bad Indians Book Club Reading at the Edge of a Thousand Worlds. This podcast series, which formed the basis of the book, brought together marginalized writers and the people who read them. In Anishinaabemowin, we have two ways to say us, niinwi is us but not you. Giinwi means us that includes you.

In this conversation with authors Taté Walker and Seán Kinsella, we talk about gender and what marginalized writers have to teach us about an us that doesn't beg for inclusion within the very systems that pushed us aside. This conversation also included Nick Thixton, Robyn Bourgeois, and Angela Gray. The recommended books were: Halfbreed by Maria Campbell, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall, Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq, The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America by Sara Deere, Reproductive Justice: The Politics of Healthcare for Native American Women by Barbara Gurr, FIERCE: Essays by and about Dauntless Women which includes a piece by Taté Walker, A Two Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder by Ma-Nee Chacaby, and How We Fight White Supremacy: A Field Guild to Black Resistance by Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Ranken. 

We are going to be talking about refusing the patriarchy today. I started off thinking about Mother's Day and thinking about mothers and then thinking about what does it mean to live in this world as a mother when you don't necessarily fit that mold? Because lots of people take on mothering roles, right? Without necessarily being what we might think of as a conventional mother. So lots of people taking on mothering roles, lots of people living outside of what we would think of as a gender binary. And so I'm, and we often talk that way about women and LGBTQ people, like we're all lumped together into one group.

And so then I started doing that. I'm not sure that's really okay either. But then I started thinking, okay, how are we all navigating patriarchy? We're working our way through it. And then I didn't really like that because that sounded too much like patriarchy's legitimately in charge of everything and it really isn't.

So then I thought, okay, now we're resisting the patriarchy. And still, that sounded wrong. That sounded, there's still this big authority. And then I remembered a conversation I had with Briana Ravelo. We've had her on the pod a couple of times, and she talks about refusal and the politics of refusal. And that's how I landed on refusing, because we are going to live our own lives in our own terms as mothers, as not mothers, as people who provide care in our community. We're gonna do that on our own terms and the patriarchy can just do whatever it needs to do. I'm gonna go around and have everybody introduce themselves.

Jenessa Galenkamp: So I am Janessa. Hello. I read Tanya Tagaq’a book and it was really good. It was really hard to read. I remember I got it and I was like super pumped. And I told Patty I got it and she's yeah, it'll be a heavy one. And I was like, okay. And it was really heavy, but it was really good. It was beautifully written. I'm really happy that I was able to read it and some of the things that I was, thinking about when I was reading it, one thing is I feel like I need to reread it again to like fully like grasp, like I feel like there's some really deep themes in here that kind of maybe went over my head a little bit on the first read.

But one of the things that I thought was like interesting was there's two things. She has a poem in here that's written in her language and I think it's really cool and powerful that she doesn't give, there's no translation for it. It's just there. And I'm like, that's, I was like, oh, that's really neat. I feel like when I read a book, I just want everything to be like given to me, which is very selfish.

Like I center myself a little bit when I'm reading a book and I was like, oh, this, it's not about me. They're not giving me the translation. This is just here. It's beautiful. And then the main character in the book is she becomes a mother. She's a girl who becomes a mother. And I remember I was reading through it and I actually went back and reread 'cause I was like, who is the father? She never says who the father is. And I don't know why, but for some reason that was really unsettling for me. And I was like, why is this such a big deal for me? Why do I need to know who the dad is? I was like, oh. Anyway, those are just two, two thoughts that I had about the book, but I was like, I don't need to know everything. I don't need to know who the dad is, and I don't even know why. That's why that's such a big why. Why? Why is that important for me? 

Angela Gray: Hi, this is new. I've never done anything like this before, but I've been on her show before, so I'm really pleased. I read everybody's bio, so I'm very excited about all of you and getting to hear from all of you.

The book that I have been reading, and it's called How We Fight White Supremacy, and I've been reading it on and off for a year for two reasons. I've been reading a lot of other books, but I keep coming back to this book because it's written from all Black writers from the states, and there are just connecting points for me in how I live my life and raising my son on my own, who's Black, Indigenous and feeling isolated and, partly from my upbringing, be raised in a white family to being here and not having a community. So I've felt, and particularly this last year, that real need for community and this book has given me that.  There are, there's points where I laugh, there's points where I cry. When this woman was describing her experience with a coach calling her Aunt Jemima, I went back to my childhood and my white mother dressed me as Aunt Jemima for Halloween and just, and feeling okay I'm not like the only one. And I think that with everything that's been going on this year and watching my son have some not great experiences with the police here in Vancouver, it's just allowed me to land in a place where a Black voice, it's Black art, there's really great comic strip in there.

There's what it talks about an all Black store that sells Black dolls, which I had my first Black doll until I was like five or until I was 10, didn't even know they existed. And talking also about the connection of Black hair from an African standpoint where it was really hair defined what tribe you came from, it defined status. It was a way, a means of communication and by how the inceptions of hair that I've had from my Tina Turner look to now dreads and Grace Jones for a while and that I'm really dating myself there. All of that, it really explores that idea of identity and then watching my son who's had the big afro and his cornrows and trying to figure out his Black Indigenous identity through his hair and those connecting points.

So I just keep going back to this book for those reasons. I read it and keep reading it and keep reading it, and it was just a lovely gift from somebody. That really felt would be good for me. And so I appreciate when people give you books 'cause it really is an act of love. 

Seán Kinsella: [introduction in Cree) I am Seán Kinsella, aayahkwêw, and I just introduced my clan, which is migizi.

I'm also, you can't really see it 'cause of my hair, but I'm wearing little migizi earrings on tonight and that's my adopted Ojibwe clan because I'm actually Plains Cree and Soto and Métis. And we didn't necessarily have clans in the same way, although I hear whisperings that when we're speaking about refusing patriarchy, that there's some oral histories there about clans we may or may not have had.

But I've been on this territory, which is around [inteligible], and I was born in Toronto my whole life. And over time I developed relationships with folks here and developed enough that was honored with an adoption. So that's important I think, to introduce myself. 'cause it tells you who I stand with on this territory and it tells you a little bit about who my family are.

My family is also folks who signed and relatives who signed treaties four, six, and eight. So that gives you some geographical representation if you know where those treaties are, just around the Plains and the Battle River Cree as well. So the, I've read two books on this list, Half Breed, which is a seminal Métis work and The Two-Spirit Journey by Ma-Nee Chacaby.

Both of them I think are, speaking of Split Tooth. So just an aside, I am also still reading Split Tooth, but Split Tooth is one of those books that is so beautiful that I can't bear to finish it. And similarly, and I know he's been on this program before, there's a Fantasy trilogy by Daniel Heath Justice as well that is the same that I just, I read it so slow because I don't want it to end because as a work it's just so beautiful and something that when I was younger, I really wished that I had more access to in terms of that kind of literature and that kind of thinking and world building. I think within both Half Breed and Ma-Nee’s book, they are difficult reads.

They are folks who have experienced a tremendous amount of violence due to patriarchy and finding a place in the world, in a world that doesn't want them to exist. And so for road allowance people for folks who have that history, and that's a pretty hidden history. Like a lot of people, I think when they read Maria Campbell's work, that's maybe the first time that they've ever even heard of the fact that was a thing, that was a policy and that it hopefully makes you dig into some of the history there around what created sort of road allowance people and why Métis and our bigger kinship structure of Métis, Soto, Cree, people were removed from our territories.

So that's a piece of it. And I remember I work at Centennial College and I was part of a textbook that we put together, like an open source textbook. And one of the chapters that I wrote was a two-spirit chapter, and we had the privilege of interviewing Ma-Nee as part of that chapter. I remember part of that interview was her really defining Two-Spirit, which is really cool to be in the room for. 'cause I had read the book, right? So I'm like, oh, this is really neat to see how that reflects. But I remember Ma-Nee’s words of just that have always stuck with me of her grandmother telling her that this idea of being Two-Spirited, of not fitting into those very easy boxes and binaries, that it's gonna be hard.

It's gonna be a hard life. And I think about, and particularly for myself, and when I introduce myself, I told you that I was, oh, which is a Cree way of saying one who kind of sits between those genders. I can empathize with that idea that it is a hard, it is a hard life. And so I think it was really important for me. But I also like know Ma-Nee from circles and like in the Two-Spirit community in Toronto, when she comes down to visit with us, I think. As a representation is critically important and as a book was really important. And I think it's also recognizing too, that there aren't a lot of, there aren't a lot of Two-Spirit elders around or people who are talking about that in that way.

And I think so. So I think Ma-Nee is such a treasure. And then I also think that what Ma-Nee talks about in her book, because I know a little about, about, about her as a person, like those things also haven't ended, right? So it's not like the book ended and it's like a happy ending. It's also mainly as a person who right now actually needs community support around medical stuff. And we're seeing calls that go out for that. So I think what's also, I think about, it's this interesting thing of getting to read these amazing Indigenous authors who are such pillars in our community, but then also recognizing that they're humans and they're people who also have experienced a lot of refusal of patriarchy in lots of different ways.

So that's what I'll say about those for now. But yeah, those are very powerful books. 

Nick Thixton: Hey, my name's Nick. I use they, them pronouns. I am a white Jewish settler on Coahuiltecan, Karankawa, and Sana land, which is Houston, Texas. And I am non-binary transgender and I use they them pronouns and I'm also bisexual and in a queer marriage.

So that's where I, that's where I come from and where I, my position in life and a lot of the work I do is actually around abortion access specifically for transgender people, but just abortion access in general in Houston, because it can be hard to access. So that's my connection to like refusing patriarchy.

I read Split Tooth and I read part of Reproductive Justice, and what was interesting about reading them together is that as Patty talked about reading books in conversation with one another, I accidentally did that because I was just switching back and forth because I have ADHD and it actually ended up dovetailing really well because at the end of the split tooth near the end, you have the birth scene, which I thought was one of a, just a really hauntingly, beautifully written scene and like that scene, like several scenes. But that scene in particular, I just could see it. And so her birthing experience, like she called the shots, right? Like she made a birthing experience for herself that was right for her and for her children. And it was the spiritual traditional, the spiritual, traditional birthing experience she wanted.

And she had both the emotional and familial support, but she also had this supernatural support of the Northern Lights and like the supernatural element there. And I contrasted that with, I read the chapter of reproductive justice about people talking about their birthing experiences and people had different things to say, but one, one kind of theme was deprivation with the Indian Health Service cutting costs and frankly, cutting corners with what they weren't offering. Like they weren't offering epidurals at they hospital. And so they didn't have all of the options and the very nearest hospital didn't even have the ability to do a c-section. So you've got this, you've got this issue where people are being prevented from doing the birthing experience that would be absolutely best for them by this government entity that this settler colonial government, that this kind of ongoing, ongoing colonization and ongoing oppression. So reading those two things in conversation with one another were, it was actually really powerful. And now one thing in that chapter in reproductive justice that I wanna say is that a lot of people like had some positive things to say about their birthing experience as well.

It wasn't all negative. A lot of them referenced here. A lot of the people interviewed did feel like they got what they needed. But it's just the background of knowing, the background of knowing that they are prevented from some things that would be really beneficial to them. So reading those two things together was really cool. Going back to Split Tooth, so normally I don't mind marking up books, but I actually put sticky notes in this instead. Which I do sticky notes on books that I mark up as well. But I put sticky notes on here because I want other people to read this and I don't want my thoughts to be on the page for them to, oh, Nick thinks this is important I'm gonna focus on this thing that they underline. I want people to approach this book for what it is on their own terms and get what it, from it, what they need to. And I will probably reread this book. It was a very difficult read because of some of the violence that the narrator goes through, and that is difficult to read, but it's just such a beautiful book and I've read a lot of books in my life and I don't think I've ever read anything quite like this.

So I would definitely recommend it. 

Taté Walker: Thanks for having me on. Appreciate being here.  [introduction in Lakota language]

Introduced myself in Lakota.  I am Mniconjou Lakota from Cheyenne River, Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, where I'm a citizen, but I live here in sunny Phoenix where it's a hundred and something today. I've been outside. I work for a local tribal school district, so we were out and about today, the last day of school and, but in my spare time, I consider myself a storyteller.

I should also note my pronouns are they/them, but as we talk about some of this, like disrupting of patriarchy, things like that, I, the they, them pronouns have been around for a while, but I've been, as I learn more about my Lakota foundations, I've been reclaiming a lot of the feminine aspects that I pushed aside for a long time as trying to disrupt, right? some of those cis heteronormative notions lots of folks have, and claiming the Two Spirits and then saying, no femininity. But like I said, as I've been learning more about my Lakota foundations, I've been coming back to my caretaker role as Ina or mother and have really loved that part of myself as I'm getting to know it better and better, especially as my own child is coming to understand their own identity and recently came out as trans non-binary and how femininity inspires, a lot of those decisions we've made in our family about queerness and learning about Two-Spirit ness.

So happy to be here. I apologize I didn't read any of the books, but I hope you mention my essay. So I've been a newspaper journalist for, geez going on 17 years now, boss. I feel old, I have to keep adding numbers, but it's been more of a freelancer for the last decade or so. And then in addition to that, been writing actual things in books, which is really.

One of those was the essay that was in Fierce, and that was 2018 published and we won several awards. It was a pretty cool, very intersectional collection of writings. Mine focused on Ptesáŋwiŋ, who is known as a White Buffalo Calf Woman. I think it's a story that's often told by even non-Lakota people. I even met someone down here in the Phoenix Valley talking about how their Southwest traditions have a similar deity.

So that's interesting. But Ptesáŋwiŋ, White Buffalo Calf Woman is somebody who I guess inspired a lot of any success I would have in my life. Whether it was storytelling or just like overcoming challenges was from those foundations. She's known in Lakota spirituality world, more for the gifts she gave to like our ceremonies.

So the Sacred Pipe is a big one that a lot of folks know her for. Also, like the. Tossing of the ball or puberty ceremonies, wiping of the tears, things like that were lessons that she gave us a couple generations ago. But one thing that's often lost in those tales is this innate matriarchal power that she's infused with.

Her first foray into human world really is essentially smiting down a warrior who is sent to investigate who she is. She's naked and he has impure thoughts. That's depending on the storyteller. It gets more detailed than that. But essentially he's, oh, naked woman, let's get it. And she's f you and totally just smites him.

He's nothing but bones and dirt and bugs. And again, people embellish it gets fun. And it was a story I heard when I was a troubled teen, if you will. I had just. Come out as I didn't have language like non-binary or Two-Spirit. I just knew I liked girls in addition to boys, but if you like girls in Bismarck, North Dakota, you were a Lesbian, capital L and they put you into a religious camp to go or hate yourself.

Anyway, so I was in a group home and they decided, because we had a lot of native kids in this group home, that we were, we should have native culture outings, if you will. So they brought us to a sweat lodge. None of us had really ever been to one. And the story of Ptesáŋwiŋ was told, and that part was brought out to the, to as highlighted, right guys, make sure you respect women 'cause they'll just kill you one day.

Not the right message. But it was funny and it lasted with me and it just always stuck with me throughout my life. That sort of feminist foundation, if you will, is what's, that's, I brought that with me through my entire life and Split Tooth is on my book list. So that's, I'm excited to hear more about it, get all the spoilers.

Robyn Bourgeois: Tansi, Oh, thank you so much for having me back at the space Patty. As you can see, this time I actually got dressed and didn't show up in my jammies like I did last time. I'm just so glad to be on this panel with all of you. Where do I start? I am Cree from Northern Alberta. My family is actually from Treaty eight Territory, so Seán , as soon as you said that I knew where we're going. I have connection in a few different communities in that territory. I am also connected through my children to the six nations of the Grand Rivers. That is also a very important part of our family. I am by day an associate professor in the Center for Women in Gender studies at Brock, but I recently was appointed our Acting Vice Provost of Indigenous engagement.

And here I'm so glad to be talking about this and Patty, I hope you don't mind. I've read so many of the books that we talked about or we're talking about and I spent a lot of time with. In The Beginning and the End of Rape by Sarah Deere, and I worked with Sarah and I could talk about that, but I've been, when I came to this today, I was thinking about what it's like to refuse patriarchy and what the consequences look like for people, because I've been experiencing that a lot.

Because, I wrote an article last April where I took a pretty big stand and maybe talked about white male terrorism and ended up having my life threatened, having my kids' life threatened, having my job threatened, you name it. And it's come back now to haunt me as the Vice Provost. And I recently been targeted by Jonathan Kay for challenging colonial patriarchy.

So I've been thinking a lot about that and what it takes and at an individual level, 'cause I've done this, I've been an activist longer than I've been an academic. I started working on violence against Indigenous women and girls like 20 plus years ago now. I myself am a survivor of the violence. I was sexually exploited in my late teens in Vancouver.

And so I've been fighting this a long time on the ground, first of all. And now I'm in this weird academic institutional setting where there's these big structural changes and I'm facing off, like I, this is, it just feels like a game, a constant game. And so when I was thinking about refusing patriarchy tonight, I was thinking about the consequences of that, which I think show up in the books.

So when I think about Maria Campbell and I think about her refusals of patriarchy at times and the consequences that comes with it's, that's what I've been thinking about a lot lately. And how do we resist that? And how do we do that to together so that we're not leaving people out by themselves to fight this horrible system that really does fight back in a big way, like I, and just vicious and cruel, and through technology and threatening every aspect of your life, like I never imagined that would ever happen to me.

I've been thinking about that a lot and how this connects and how brave we have to be as people to stand, take a stand. And for me it's all about my Cree teachings, which actually say you have to right? That if you see something that's wrong and it's gonna affect not only your children, but everyone's children and is gonna affect us in a bad way, you have to take a stand.

And so I'm always stuck in this moment going, I have to take the stand, put it, I'm gonna get death threats. I'm gonna be at a security level. So that's what I've been thinking about and what that means for disrupting all these systems of oppression. Because I just see so much how this keeps us all apart, right?

And how we don't link these things together and don't make those connections and then don't fight together. And so that's where my head is tonight and thinking about the topic. And so I think I'll stop there 'cause I'm really eager to hear what other people have to say. 

Patty Krawec: When you take a stand, like you had said, it reverberates through all of these books in terms of sticking up for yourself and standing. There's a price to pay, there's a price and sometimes that price lands on other people, lands on children, it lands on other relatives, it lands on partners. I was just thinking there's either the three quotes that I pulled up from Sarah Deer that was looking for quotes coming up where she talks about rape in the lives of native women is not an epidemic of recent mysterious origin. It's a fundamental result of colonialism, a history of violence, reaching back centuries. She says rape is a more fundamental threat to self-determination of tribal nations than the drawbacks federal, than the drawbacks federal reform can ever be. The trespass your body, like they trespass this land as she's quoting Ryan Redcorn in that, and sexual violence and the violence that we are threatened because even when we're not overtly experiencing that transgression that yes, all women also Two-Spirited non-binary people are also targeting in much the same way. The threat of that is all that can be enough, right? We don't need to actually physically experience it. The threats that land in our email boxes that land in our Twitter dms, it's a very convenient way to threaten, and so it was just I found her book really extraordinary.

What, I know we, we've talked about the books that we've read, but now that we've heard what everybody has said, is there anything in the book that you read or in what you've heard that is striking you and in maybe a different way or that kind of surprised you, something that was unexpected in the book that you read, or what your, or the essay you wrote as you approached your essay and you were all thinking it would go one way. Was there something that surprised you in what you read or what you wrote.

Seán Kinsella: I don't think there was any, it was neat to see Ma-Nee’s story. I don't know that there was anything that surprised me in it. I think the tenderness, I think of her grandmother, I think did, and I think in particular, like in the context of the story and her life, her grandmother was a person who accepted her.

And I will say as a two-spirit person, that was actually quite heartwarming because a lot of times some of our most intimate rejections are from family members. And this was grandmother and a knowledge keeper who just accepted Ma-Nee for who she was and how she was. And then try to explain to her sort of what life was gonna be like and to prepare her.

And I think so much of the rhetoric of traditional people is around a gender binary. So much of that rhetoric is around very cis normative and mono normative pieces. I think something that, that I really. Admire about Ma-Nee, and I think it goes into this sort of refusing patriarchy is just that, that she's a human who just lives her life and kind of refuses to do what other people say.

And so carries on in the relationships that, that she wants and has a relationship with a variety of people and is like very clear about and frank about what that looks like and sort of those relationships. So I think that was a thing that that surprised me. And I think it reminded me because I think Ma-Nee is also someone who grew up with folks who were quite isolated in the bush.

So it reminds me of a little bit like how I think of folks in my own family. Like I have an ancestor whose name was a Ogimakwe, which translates basically she was a like a chief and she was a self-appointed chief. So she just, I wanna be a leader now. And that's what she did. And her sons ended up being trading chiefs and I think there's this interesting sort of connection that I can talk about a little bit later to other things that I'm thinking about.

But I think that notion of having relatives that accept you of having a place. I think particularly for a Two-Spirit narrative that was not expected because so many of the narratives that we have around Two Spirit identities, and I can think of other, even for lack of a better term, younger Two Spirit authors, that a theme often tends to be like rejection. And you have to create your own family and no one on the reserve's gonna accept you. No one, a community is gonna accept you. And I think it is actually why, I think for those of us who are older, not that I'm old, but olderTwo Spirit people, why we have to radically accept youth? Because you can see that really, and I don't think this is overestimate, like over stating the point, I think Ma-Nee’s grandmother like really saved her life.

And I think that's the role that we have as a responsibility for folks who are non-binary and gender non-conforming. And as I said earlier, aayahkwêw is how I identify because really like when we can play that role in someone's life like it, it really is saving them. And that's I think, something that surprised me.

Patty Krawec: Angela,  I know you didn't read one of the books on the list, but read a book that speaks to you in terms of relationships and safety. And as you were talking Seán, I was thinking about something that came up in the reproductive justice book where she's talking about, I think it was in that book. I know I'm getting these mixed up, because we talk about cultural competency and it being contrasted with cultural complacency and a place where we can exist safely as opposed to around the experts that are competent and how to deal with that.

So as we're talking, that was what I was thinking about, creating these places of safety where we can be. And Angela, you've talked a little bit about that with your son trying to create a place of safety. So what surprises you or tugs at you about the book you read? 

Angela Gray: Just to, I didn't say much about myself in the beginning, so I'm just gonna briefly do that.

I grew up in Ontario, Belleville Ontario, and was adopted into a white family with four other Black kids. My twin brother being one, and we were a product of being taken from our mother who was a non landed immigrant and we're a part of a social experiment that was happening in Toronto, particularly in the 1960s that carried over into the early seventies.

I'm now here in Vancouver, have been here for 22 years and have had the pleasure of raising a beautiful boy who I see parallels in terms of our struggle and isolation that has brought me to doing. I started out in human resources and now moving through, did study addiction counseling and have decided I just wanna write.

So I think writing is an act of refusing the patriarchy. I really believe that, and I think that this, and I think artists in general and activism is that. And so this book speaks to me on that level. It surprised me in terms of the idea of writing exactivism because. How I'm not necessarily somebody that goes out and protests, but I do, I think that what we're doing today, I think that speaking out on in podcasts and openly using the words white supremacy is an act of refusing the patriarchy. So the title at first, it, that's spoke to me when it was given to me, but really that in it's about connecting with my people that I'm not necessarily connected to who are fighting some of the same things even though they're in the state, we've been experiencing these things here too, right? There's a collectiveness around trauma and lack of safety, but also resiliency. So it was just really great to see the resiliency of Black folks in this book doing what they are inspired to do to support all other, and not just Black folks.

So that, I think that surprised me very much of the book, that it's not. It's all-facing, it's all emotional facing and I appreciate that 'cause it brings that up for me and allows me to be, it's allowed me to be more real about myself and my experience. And I think that's why I keep going back to it.

Nick Thixton: I went into Split Tooth thinking that it was like a straightforward like memoir and it was not, it was really different from what I was expecting as far as like I wasn't really expecting like the supernatural element to it. I'm not sure if supernatural is even the right term, but the other worldly communicating on different planes with different, with different aspects of the land and different aspects of the environment. And so I definitely wasn't expecting that. And I read some articles about it to try to understand a little bit more and people compared it to Daniel Heath Justice's Wonder Works from Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, the concept of Wonder Work that kind of defies categorization in like a colonial sense.

And that truly, I read that and I was like, oh, that really explains a lot to me as far as like just, it was so completely different from anything I had read before. I guess I, I don't, I'm hesitant to say exactly what surprised me because I'm hesitant to spoil the book. I think part of the journey of the book is being surprised by what happens. But I was surprised by the way that she approached motherhood and her motherhood journey, that was all very surprising to me. And I'll leave it at that. 

Patty Krawec: I think Tanya's comfort with the unseen and just how that was just such a, just another character in the book. There wasn't, yeah. I find that with some, I think I'm finding that more with more native authors now, that it's not approached as this kind of weird, spooky thing it's just another character in, it's just there. But I think Tanya weaves it in a really beautiful way and then maybe opens the door for more authors to be able to do that in their own writing as well. 

Taté Walker: Like I mentioned, that FIRECE came out in 2018 and since then I've been writing, I finished my first full length Thunder, Thighs and Trickster Vibes: Storied advice from your Two-Spirit Auntie and I finished that and it was supposed to come out in November, 2020. The publisher got COVIDed and it just got pushed back. And to the point where though, so I finished it like last February and had all my stuff in there and it, and I was in love with it. It's a baby pushing out, but COVID happened and then Black Lives Matter, which had been happening, but I just really, here in Phoenix, we got really into it.

Mascots had a whole different trajectory and then our, my own family having some issues, so like several chapters in there were just like completely destroyed and had to be like reworked and it just, it destroyed, I think evolved, if you will. Which you know is life, right? We're always in transition and the book was is just more on that.

Yeah. That's been rough. So with FIERCE though, so I was asked to write on. Anything related to like Indigenous feminisms. They're like, pick a, pick somebody that you would claim as your hero who folks don't know about. So I was like, and of course the first thing was “No, a real person.” I was like, they were, we have a pipe for proof of the one she gave us. And so that was the first fight was like she was real. Any questions? So that was interesting. And they're like we need citations. How many white people have seen Ptesáŋwiŋ? None. But I have citations from several elders across generations. But the biggest one was to me, was the pushback I received from editors on the sections where I wrote about the harms inherent within white feminism, which is of course white supremacy and action in so many ways.

And there was just a lot of we gave you Ptesáŋwiŋ, parentheses fake, but you were supposed to just talk about Indigenous feminism. We didn't want you to beat us all up. I'm a feminist and I am not. I'm white and I'm okay. And it became this sort of micro study of what I'm talking about is actually what you're showcasing here in your editorial process.

And thankfully we had a really great publisher who always had my back and we were able to push through all my sections without any editorializing there or censoring. But it took a long time to have these nice white ladies, nice white liberal ladies. Okay the discussion of things like the notion that being outside or being a caregiver, these things that we hold sacred within like our ancestral stories and relationship with things like land or childbearing or just ideas and concepts of gender expansiveness and how much those often fly in the face of white feminism of, I don't wanna be home, I wanna, I want half a share of the plantation that's white feminism in nutshell is that capitalist drive to own, if you will. And that's just not. I'm preaching to the choir here, but so my, my, my essay didn't, I wouldn't say it went super in depth into that stuff, but it was interesting to have the back conversations with the editors on how they were fitting into that model.

And so then when we had like the author readings and things like that, that conversation came up quite a bit just in terms of how does Indigenous feminism, isn't that an oxymoron, if you will? And No, I don't think it is. And I think maybe some people might start out with it being, I'm an Indigenous person and I'm a feminist and I'm gonna, I don't know, advocate for corporations to hire more women in whatever.

That's a bad example. But essentially like where we don't look at as intersectional a la Kimberly Crenshaw, and how that can still harm sort of these movements that we've started with things like, oh, like the conversations, for instance, with missing murdered Indigenous women, that's been really evolving to talk about missing murdered Indigenous relatives. And how we're just, we're keep trying. And I think that's the point. And again, when I go back to say Ptesáŋwiŋ and a lot of those teachings, it's always about change. It's always about how things are seasonal and evolutionary, right? Even our language, when I was a reporter, I did a story from a Blackfoot scientist who was working on a Mars mission and had his elder mother who was fluent in Blackfoot create a dictionary of NASA terms.

And it was really cool because she was like, of course we would have words for these. And people were like, that's not traditional and we get stuck in these. “It has to be this way. And so anyway, going back to the Ptesáŋwiŋ teachings of just allow yourself to evolve and it happens. So that essay definitely, I think was a starting point so it was my own evolution of what it is to be Indigenous feminism, what that represents, and how that changes and should change.

Patty Krawec: Thank you. Yeah, that I'm, I read Hood feminism recently and she talks about, one of the quotes from her was for women of color, the expectation is that we prioritize gender over race. That we treat the patriarchy is something that gives all men the same power, and that leaves us feeling very isolated because white feminism is arguably the patriarchy, like you said, and it's the drive to own. It's the 500 CEOs control all the world’s wealth Half of those CEOs should be women! No, that's not what, that's to save the world. That's not the kind of feminism that we made then. It's not the kind of things that's not that's not the redemption we're looking for. Dr. Robyn, in your research, in your books, 'cause I think you said you’ve read most of these, you've also done your own writing.

What surprised you? What did you go into something extracting and then what gift did you get from it? 

Robyn Bourgeois: I don't think, I don't ever know as a writer, I don't think every anything ever turned out the way I want, but it turns out the way it should be. Although I really am glad, Taté , that you raised this because I just went through this horrible thing with a journal article about decolonizing Me Too, where I took on white feminism in Canada, and after two years of negotiating with the journal, I finally pulled the article because I'm not willing to go there.

And that's what I think too. I'm gonna share that same perspective. I'm always surprised by the backlash, even though I know it's coming. Every time I'm like, it's gonna be there. Like you could say anything about white folks, it's gonna come back at you. But I'm always surprised, I'm, and how virulent it is and how forceful it is and how vicious sometimes it can be.

That's always an interesting struggle when you're writing something like this, especially 'cause I tend not to stray away from, I don't sugarcoat things I don't have interest in that. I've been really influenced by, I've worked with a lot of families of survivors who've said, we don't want you to exploit our story, but we also don't think people deserve like a sugarcoated version of what colonial violence is because we all have to live with it. So should everybody else. And I find the resistance is stunning. Editors, publishers, audience, all of that, students, faculty, you name it, is constant. And it actually, led me back to thinking about revisiting Halfbreed, because I don't know about all of you, but Halfbreed was one of those first books I read. In fact, I think I actually have a first edition and then to come back and realize it took what many years for them to actually release the version that was supposed to happen.

And it had me thinking about the problematics of writing, especially for marginalized scholars. The whole reason Maria Campbell is forced into the genre of autobiography is because at the time, publishers wouldn't print anything else. They directed all Indigenous peoples towards that category. In fact, that's one of the things that Emma Larocque has written quite a bit about, right? We're not good enough to write academic books. We're not good enough to write even nonfiction. We're stuck in this category of autobiography, which makes some sense as Indigenous peoples 'cause we're storytellers. But then what are the limits of that? So here's Maria Campbell telling this incredible story and then ends up silenced for so long.

And it's just, I, that's the kind of the challenge of this whole thing is what are the limits of what can be said and what can't be said, and who gets to decide that? And then what are the punishments for the people who break those boundaries of what can and cannot be said. And it that's, I think that's really interesting and it really revisiting HalfBreed made me think about that, how powerful that book was, but how it was also really for so long an incredible act of violence in many ways, because again, Indigenous women were silenced. I just think that's so profound and it's still happening. There's two examples in this conversation right now of folks who are experiencing that and I'm sure many more. So it makes me think about what is the world still going? What are we facing? How are our words to get to audiences if we're being surveilled and silenced and suppressed?

I think that's, I'd hoped by the time I was 43 that the world might have changed. Maybe that's hopeful Robyn, who is an optimist, I feel like we're still fighting this and it's not changing and I shouldn't be surprised, and yet it still is this kind of violent assault again and just a constant ache. I think. In terms of where are we going and the manifestations and how this switches and there's just so much there. So that I think is what, where I headed with this. 

Patty Krawec: You referring to her story of sexual assault by the RCMP officer is she had in her, in, in her book originally, the editors pulled it out and then when she revisited it for the 25th, I think it's the 25th anniversary or like the most recent edition that came out and she's Hey, this is missing something.

This was supposed to be in there. And so she insisted to go back in and that version that I had. But yeah, the thing, because that's me, like who controls the story even when they’re our stories and even beyond editors like the power of the mob to force our employers to control us. For a long time I worked in child welfare and there were a lot of things that I couldn't talk about, not so much because it would always specific to certain clients, and I obviously know better than all their stories, but because it, but most of the time I went to HR, it was because something I had said on social media was reflecting badly on the organization.

And that's a way of silencing people. You can't talk about these things because we have this image where and all organizations operate that way. They have this image and thinking of Nora Loreto who got badly targeted by white supremacists and is basically unhirable as a journalist in Canada, and yet she's done some extraordinary research on the COVID numbers and where the outbreaks, and now journalists are using her numbers and they're making money off of it, but she's not, she's still banned Canada, in the US you get some stuff, but she's a Canadian journalist and all about Canadian politics.

So all these different ways. We're controlled in terms of what we can say. And even I can have my independent media on my little podcast, on my book club, these things that, you know, that I do and the things that I do with Kerry. But our reach is controlled, right? Whether it's on social media or wherever, there's always algorithms controlling reach. And those things are, we can refuse patriarchy all day long, but they still own access to evertythnig. So when we think about our communities, whether they're our communities as Indigenous peoples places where we work, our chosen communities, what do we want from them? What do we want from them that will help us to pick up on that idea of cultural safety and the ways in which we are silenced?

What do we want from our community?

Nick Thixton: I think, I honestly think the most important thing in a community is I think space to allow people to grow and be themselves. And also a space where we can hold each other accountable while still doing so in a nurturing way. Like I think restorative and transformative justice movements are really important when we're talking about community building, because I see a lot of really hurt, traumatized people hurting each other because somebody does something wrong and it triggers somebody's fight or flight response.

And I think we need to allow ourselves space to grow and space to hold each other accountable to keep each other, to keep each other safe or as safe as we can. Holding people accountable for messing up, but also doing so in a nurturing way so that people can grow back together. 

Angela Gray: I certainly like what Nick had to say about space because I'm having this challenge around inclusion that seems to be a part of the diversity, equity, inclusion stuff, and I hear it all the time in my workplace and it's driving me insane.

So I like the idea of space. Thank you, Nick. I think that there has to be, I think that we can be, I find people of color in general, very forgiving. I think we have to be as part of our spirit, Indigenous, Black. I just, that is my experience because of all the resiliency and I think that anybody has been in a place of other, we naturally, I, this is my belief, I don't know, but we naturally have it just.

An openness to the mistakes of others, because we have been suppressed and oppressed for so long. So if we are given a place of space to be who we are, there is that opportunity for transformation. The problem is that a system doesn't wanna give up that space. It's too threatening for them. And so what I would ask is, along with space is the opportunity for people just to be vulnerable?

Just to say, you know I effed up, pardon my language to do that. So how do we work this out so that I'm not keep, I'm not continuing to do this and keep continuing to activate your nervous system. I know that I have this in me, I know whatever it is, I know, but let's have the space, the openness to, to both be vulnerable in that I think transformative transformation can happen in that space.

And I, that's what I would like to see in all places. 

Patty Krawec: One of the books that I've read recently. We Do This ‘Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba and when she's an abolitionist, and one of the things that she talks about is getting away from this consequence mindset. Because of we're thinking about being account, we, when we think about being accountable is there's always consequences and punishment.

Nobody's gonna admit to doing anything. 'cause why wouldn’t I like to deflect as long as possible? Because I'm worried about losing my job, losing my friend, losing access to something, losing followers. I'm worried about punishment. But if we're thinking about real accountability, which is what rebuilds relationships, that's when we can move forward.

That's when people are free to admit things and to acknowledge that. 

Taté Walker: I think the biggest thing that came to mind was people need to listen. And that includes myself. We mentioned earlier, like young people, they have so much to say and beyond just our TikTok social media stuff. I think a lot of magic happens when we start letting them lead with these new ideas.

And as a 40 something, I would think I'm okay to say youngin’s, have something to say, but that includes folks that are often pushed aside and Two Spirits, elderly, things like that. But I like this idea of space and maybe wanna incorporate that into the idea of land back and be unapologetic about the demanding of our Indigenous lands back and what, and however that looks.

There's been a lot of really successful initiatives to reclaim land. A lot of it has to deal with, so we're in a capitalistic society, so there's a lot of exchange of money for that land, but it's happening and I just wanna see it happen a lot more. And when that land back happens, when it's returned to Indigenous caretaking, because I don't, I think. Much like we talked about with white feminism and ownership. This concept of what do you do with the land when we give it back to you? And do you, how does that look when I, when you say give me the land back, pretty simple I think. But there's this element of relationship that goes into our ideas of land back that lead to things like language reclamation, right?

Like when we start recognizing land as a relative, that language starts coming back to us. And I'm thinking of someone like Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer and Braiding Sweetgrass, and how just the land has a language to it. And listening to that as there's often a lot of growth that happens. And then so reclaiming that language land and getting the language back leads us to other relatives, whether that's nonhuman relatives or your family too.

I think there's a lot of really great things that are possible when we encompass the land with our community. There because I'm gonna wax romantic now and my name means the wind. Hey, just kidding. 

Patty Krawec: Land back though. Yes. Because if we're gonna have space, we need space and you have to have safe relationships. We includes the land and I just finished, so yeah. Robin Wall Kimmerer. Yes. When I just finished a really extraordinary book by Mari Jorestad, she's a Norwegian Hebrew scholar, and she wrote a book [The Hebrew Bible and Environmental Ethics] about the Hebrew that the old, Christians will call the Old Testament about how the whole, the world is alive, about how just the life and the agency of the land, the agency of the trees and all of that.

This completely other worldview that has really been stripped out of it. And it was just an extraordinary, it was really beautiful and I think Nick mentioned that they were Jewish and that there's a lot of. I dunno. Tribal thinking, I don't know. Maybe that's not the right word for it, in terms of talking about with some other Jewish people on Twitter that we have a lot in common in the way we do connect with land, which is not to go all Zionist on you because freedom for Palestine means freedom for everybody.

Just like land back for us does not mean bouncing everybody back to Europe with the exception of maybe a couple I can think of. But for the most part, it means about sharing the land in a good way. Living together in a good way. And if the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe live together in a good way. Anybody can live together.

Dr. Robyn, you have a lot of things you need from your community. Oh my goodness. 

Robyn Bourgeois: Thank you for that. I think I, the best way for me to protest actually is to think about violence. 'cause that's what I think about every single day of my life. And in that regard, I need accountability. Let me unpack that for a minute.

I still can't believe when I'm thinking about Sarah Deer's work, thinking about what Marie Campbell goes through, I want people to believe survivors. I don't want to have to fight anymore to convince people that I've experienced violence. Enough, like enough. And then I want people to hear that, and I want them to be accountable.

I don't want my community defending or protecting abusers, especially well known abusers. That is not acceptable. And it just perpetuates everything we're fighting against. It perpetuates patriarchy, it perpetuates colonialism, all of it. And I just, when I'm looking at the work we do around violence and that we still have to convince people every single day that we're being raped, that we're being trafficked, that we're being murdered, that all of these things are happening and they're still happening at this huge level.

And then our communities are like no this's just somebody who made a really bad mistake. Okay, but I still want you to be accountable. And here's the thing though, I'm with Patty. I am not, this is not, the response is not the carceral system, like at all. Not even a little bit. I really want us to think of new ways because it is still true at the end of the day that some of our Indigenous community who are inflicting violence on other people are, is because of this history of colonial violence and because of the way it's internalized and the way it's manifested and how violence at the end of the day gives us power and when you're disempowered, that sometimes can feel like power, right? And I struggle with that. And we're dealing with all kinds of problems. So we need something other than prison to be the answer to this. We need accountability and we need to ensure that our communities are safe. But there has to be another solution other than locking somebody up.

That's where I think we need to really think seriously about how do we respond as a community to these situations? How can we respond in a good way that first of all always centers the survivors. If you are not centering the survivors on your response, you are looking even more harm. So it has to be centered there.

And then you have to work and think about this, and we have to do this in a really good way. And here's the thing, I think as Indigenous groups, I'm just gonna throw that out there, that given our a hundreds of years of justice in our own systems, we might have some ideas about how that might work. I'm thinking about Cree Natural Law and how that might work.

We do have to, I agree with Seán. I think I can only speak for Cree interpretation of things, but I think we have to do a better job of just disrupting the gender binary within some of the way Cree teachings are taught. We're limited to male and female, and yet we know in Cree language there's at least six or seven different gender identities. And that's just the ones we know of. So I think we need to fight against that a little bit too. But I think you know this, the carceral system is not the answer is where I was going with that. And that we really need to think about what else could this look like? But I do still want accountability and I do still want survivors to be safe.

And I do want other members of the community be safe and not have people protecting someone who's known a known predator, just enough, enough. Aren’t our lives worth more than that. That's, I just, I can't get over that. 

Patty Krawec: So if we find another way of dealing with things, a way that centers the victim, that believes the victim, my God, how many adults would be saved if we listened to teenage girls when they showed us a somebody if we listened to young men when they told us somebody was dangerous?

How many future things? Oh, anyway, that's a whole other episode. Seán , what do you need from your community? 

Seán Kinsella: So I think I was thinking about, I think firstly the ability to be a whole and complete person, and that's in with its messiness, but also responsible to kin, right? So the ideas that are, especially for Cree and Anishinaabe folks, kinship is our foundational thing.

So the first question we ask is, where are you from? Which is not, where are you physically from? It's who are your relations? Who are your relatives, right? Because like in some ways we are literally all related because we have migration stories and may have come from similar places, but we're always trying to find family and always trying to find who we fit in with and how.

I think that idea of being a whole and complete person also comes back to that perpetual fear of violence and rejection, which is its own kind of, which is its own kind of violence. And I think especially as for me as a disabled like mixed person who doesn't ascribe to a gender binary, there's a constant worry about how much I can show up in the various spaces I come into. The mental thing is, okay, is this a place I can put lipstick on? Is this a place I could wear a ribbon skirt to? Or maybe I'm feeling like I wanna wear my ribbon vest today. That idea of being binary of fighting that binary is very confusing for folks because again, those are not necessarily teachings that have been maintained in the same way, and I think a lot about how. The land, right? When we talk about the land doesn't reject us, right? When you go and sit with creation, it doesn't go, oh, I'm sorry you don't fit into my binary notions of, and colonial notions of gender go away. The sun shines on all of us. The grass and the waters embrace us. These are foundational things that we all have the right to go and sit with creation and capitalism is about separating us from that, right? I spend like a lot of employed people, I spend all my day on a frigging zoom call right now with the sun just outside my window that I can see. And so I also think about how when we talk about that land back notion that we have to get outta these categories that the government has put us in and created on our behalf that separate us, right?

Whether we're talking about status Indians, whether we're talking about Métis or Inuit in these artificial categories that aren't really, that don't exist because ultimately we were all folks who had relationships with each other in like various communities where, all three of those people and kinds of people might've existed in one place. And how do you tell them apart right? Language culture, like. All of these things I think for a really long time were things that we managed and we had control over. And then the government has decided for since the 1870s, like how that works for us. And that hasn't worked for us. I think that could also be a whole topic in and of itself.

I think also allowances for other kinds of relationship structures. There's a history in my family that's very confusing because so many of my ancestors had multiple partners and trying to map out whose kids are who and who is cousins and that kind of stuff is very difficult. Partially because we were so far in the west that the church didn't get us for a while, so we weren't having church marriages until actually probably pretty close to in the early 19 hundreds kind of time. So then before then, there are relationship structures of all sort. And I myself am ascribe to a non-monogamous relationship kind of structure. Kim TallBear talks a lot about this idea of critical polyamory and so there's alternative relationship structures that we could look into and I would appreciate if those were like recognized and valued in our communities as opposed to, again, replicating these very colonial structures.

And then. I think the other piece I was thinking of that Angela had said about writing is activism. I like to write queer smutty erotic poetry. And that's one of the ways that I personally challenge patriarchy and I challenge notions around gender. And I literally have a poem that's in my hallway right now that's framed, 'cause it was part of an art thing that is about being like a seahorse and getting pegged, right? So this is, I like that phrase, peg the patriarchy, right? There's this whole idea of this work can be trans transgressive, but not really, because you can pull with those pieces. And I think again, it's about taking up space because patriarchy controls who we love and for Indigenous people, how we love and who we should be, and we're storytellers, right?

So I think about the truths that, that Maria talks about, that Tanya talks about, that Ma-Nee talks about. But that point of, I always love the notion of being careful what you ask for in our communities. Because someone asked them, I want you to tell your story. And that's what they got. They got a full unfiltered, this is the story and the question I have as a senior leader in an institution. 'cause I think much like Robyn, I have that weird senior leadership, Indigenous role doing indigenization work. I'm also like, how much can I show up in that space? Like how much do I talk about my smutty poetry side, right? And who can I talk about that to without discrediting myself as being taken seriously as say, an academic or someone who's also talking about these things.

And so all of those pieces, I think are things that I sit with around, around trying to understand what I want from my community. And I, yeah, there's some good, I don't know if other folks can see this, but there's a talk about s muddy poetry always. So I do, I enjoy it. And we actually have an event at Glad Day regularly called Smut Peddlers that started literally because we just wanted to tell sexy stories to each other. So I'm always down for that. So just having that be accepted and not weird, not weirding people out, because in our community, sometimes, because of all that colonial violence and history, it does, right? We're not supposed to talk about sex. We're not, we're supposed to talk about, especially non heteronormative sex and especially not non-monogamous sex. These are all things that we're never supposed to mention in any company. So I think pushing back on those things, because so many of our stories, our traditional stories are fricking hilarious and so filthy. So filthy. That's a good note. I think. So I'll say miigwech then.

Patty Krawec: Actually I can confirm. I got a book, Patricia Ningewance is a language teacher, an Ojibwe language teacher from Lac Seul First Nation, and she put out a book of traditional stories from Lac Seul that she had heard as a child. These were things that shared as a child, and one of them is the skull, the rolling skull, which is apparently also a Cree story.And I'm reading through these stories and I'm like. These are naughty, we have stories for why penises are the size they are. Yeah, like this massive life size. I put it out on Twitter 'cause it was just so hilarious. But anyway, so yeah. So Seán and Angela and Taté, if you guys have a website where people can access some of your work, if you could put that into our chat and then we'll get that out there.

Because I think people are here for sweat poetry, so we're actually getting very close to our hour and a half, which is bonkers, these conversations. So just by way of a final trip around the circle, what book did you not read but you've heard about today and now you want to read it? 

Angela Gray: I want to read Half Breed. I did. I knew about Half Breed that I want to read that. But I also want to read Split Tooth. So it's a balance. 

Nick Thixton: I'd like to read Half Breed and The Two-Spirit Journey. 

Robyn Bourgeois: I'm also in for smutty poetry, so just saying I will also be stalking, but I Split Tooth. It is on my nightstand, but I've been warned and I have not ever felt strong enough yet to read it.

But after hearing everybody today, maybe it's time. So thank you. 

Seán Kinsella: I think I want to finish Split Tooth slowly, like again, it's, for me, it's really almost like poem by poem, so I'll commit to finishing that at some point. It's also just a beautiful book. It's beautifully bound and looks really pretty and I think Fierce is the other one that I'm really interested in.

I'm gonna see, or the true answer is whatever I can get on Kobo, that's not gonna take 12 weeks to come from the Toronto Public Library hold system.

Patty Krawec: For me I think that'll be Ma-Nee Chacaby’s biography partly because I think it's the only one on the list that I haven't read. But also I know Maya, and so I'm connect. I'm connected with, I'm connected with Maya, and she's a really interesting person. I really like her, so I want to hear from another Chacaby. I want to hear that story. I want to know. I want to know that story as well. And anyway, I'm just so pleased about all of the things that we talked about. You guys have given me a lot to think about, and you've given me smutty poetry, which outside of my comfort zone, really, three years of talking to Kerry, you think I'd be more comfortable with it, but no, I was raised white, so I'm doing my best.

Just any last words, Anybody? I really enjoyed all of the contributions that everybody has brought and given me and the way you guys play off of each other. And anyway. Yeah, you guys. As always, these panels give me so much to think of. Any last words from anybody? We'll start picking on people. 

Angela Gray: I just wanna thank everyone. I just really want to thank everyone for your, just your openness and your honesty and your truth. I just, it just lit my heart. Thank you.

Seán Kinsella: I just wanna say thank you chi-migweech for that. I will. Because we've talked about smutty poetry, and I would be remiss in not saying this, we were actually nominated for, we're a finalist for a Lambda. 'Cause we did a glad day 50th anniversary zine that a lot of my poetry is featured in. So we'll see if I can find the link for that. It's also got some very smutty photos in it. Just be aware that is a definite draw the shades and not for kid kind of situation or for kids, it depends on your parenting relationship.

So anyway, so I will throw that in the chat also, but I'm just really grateful to be able to have this conversation and to chat about all this stuff. It was a really good time. 

Nick Thixton: I also just wanna thank everyone. Thank you for inviting me to this space, Patty. I really enjoyed hearing from everyone and getting to know everyone just a little bit.

I do some abortion storytelling work as a transgender person who had an abortion, so if anyone's interested, I was in a documentary called Ours to Tell about abortion access in the United States, and I followed four abortion storytellers and we did a retrospective of our abortion stories and what that means for abortion access in the future. It's called Ours to Tell, and it's on YouTube, just if anyone's interested. 

Taté Walker: For having me on. So interesting love. I want to leave you with a quote. It follows what Angela had mentioned about writing as activism or writing as like your expression and outlet. And as somebody who considers themself a storyteller, I like to think of myself as living by this quote.

It's from a tweet of Teju Cole, and I'll drop his link there in the chat later. But in 2014, he wrote Writing as rioting and writing as writing R-I-G-H-T-I-N-G, and on the best days, all three. And so I really like this concept of how writing really is all encompassing and plays into a lot of the work that we're just constantly doing, almost inherently, right?

Especially when you consider yourself or consider the work you do as a form of storytelling, which I think most of what we do in life, especially if you're a caregiver, is right. Just that passing down of knowledge. So you're doing a great job, Angela, and all of you. So I appreciate being part of this space.

Thank you so much.

Patty Krawec: Thank you for listening. You can find me online at thousandworlds.ca where I write about traditional Ojibwe stories and how they connect with our lives, along with the books that I'm reading or feel relevant to the story. This podcast series and the book that emerged from it changed me the way that good books and the conversations about them do. Remember the first rule of Bad Indians Book Club: Always Carry A Book. 

These conversations originally streamed live and were recorded in 2021. Editing and transcripts completed by Tiffany Hill with the generous support of Dr. Eve Tuck, director of the Visiting Lab Lenapehoking. Our theme is biindigan, an original hand drum song composed and performed by Nicole Joy Fraser.

Baamaapii!

Excerpt from Booklist, a starred review which means the book is "outstanding in its genre": A fascinating advanced seminar about how to think, read, think about reading, and think about Indigenous lives.”

Preorder your copy of Bad Indians Book Club today in the US at Bookshop.org, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and in Canada: Indigenous owned GoodMinds, as well as Amazon, indie books, and Chapters Indigo. Get it wherever you get your books.

And if you want me to zoom into your local bookstore or bookclub? Talk with you on your podcast? I can do that. patty.krawec@gmail.com For larger professional settings you can email Rob Firing at rob@transatlanticagency.com

And I've got some launch events! Click the link to register. Registration isn't open for all events yet, if you are in the area you can save the date and a link will be added when it's available.

October 28, 6:30-8pm at the Peterborough Library in Peterborough Ontario.

October 29: 7:00-8:30pm at the Tweed Library in Tweed Ontario

November 17, 7:00 pm Burlington Lit Fest in Burlington Ontario.

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