Terese Marie Mailhot. Photo from Facebook
We can be activists for indigenous rights and allies to the Two Spirit community, writer Terese Marie Mailhot (Seabird Island Band) observes after reflecting on the struggles facing LGBTQ people in Native and other communities:
I’m tired of the media’s obsession with ranking violence. Cumulatively, it was enough years ago to make schools unsafe. It has always been unsafe for LGBTQ people. Every day there is a missing Indigenous child’s poster on my feed. It feels like every day I see reports of another Indigenous woman’s body being pulled from a river or ditch. In total, it has been too much, and still not enough to take away the weapons we don’t need or protect the people who need it. There is a way to be an activist for Native rights and an ally for LGBTQ rights. When someone speaks, listen, and consider what it’s worth to acquiesce, to change the dialogue, to implicate white media outlets for the fact that they incite this type of ugliness. It’s the media that elicits a comparison of pain. It’s the white media that featured Trump ad nauseam, and it’s the white media that constantly gets it wrong. By loving one another and bearing witness to this tremendous grief, our voices become louder when we say, “It’s enough.” I took down the post clarifying which massacre was worse, because I don’t think I can participate in a discussion like that. When the shooting happened, the first person I thought of was my brother: a proud, Two Spirit man. I thought the news of this shooting would break him. How much of his life has been filled with grief and struggle?Get the Story:
Terese Mailhot: Being an Ally After Orlando (Indian Country Today 6/24)
Join the Conversation
Related Stories
Brandon
Ecoffey: Native people know tragedy and trauma too well (06/17) Gyasi Ross: Taking responsibility for our role in anti-gay violence (6/17)
Rosemary Stephens: Tribal people victimized by mass shootings (6/16)
Steve Russell: Congress is not required to buy the NRA's stupidity (6/16)
Doug George-Kanentiio: Native people bear terrible burden in U.S. (6/13)
Proposed rule brings LGBT equality to Indian housing programs (05/24)
Jennifer Denetdale: Navajo Nation commission examines gender violence (05/05)
Charles Wohlforth: Native artist embarks on Shapeshifters project (04/25)
