Three panelists discuss George Floyd, colonial trauma, violence and property destruction. Mona Jenkins is the steering committee leader for Mass Action for Black Liberation director of development for The Homeless Coalition. Jennifer Knickerbocker is the Grants Coordinator and Board President of the Urban Native Collective.
This conversation was recorded May 30th 2020 at 3pm, prior to reports of white supremacist groups infiltrating protests and enacting their own agendas to undermine legitimate Black Liberation movements. While the views expressed here by individuals do not necessarily represent the views of UNC, UNC defends and supports the right of oppressed and marginalized people to protest, march, and engage in civil disobedience in pursuit of justice and freedom.
How Do the Struggles of Black Americans Relate to Those of Indigenous Groups and Other People of Color?
Mona Jenkins: Black Liberation is not possible without liberation for all. In making a connection with those who have suffered from racism, patriarchy and colonization we can successfully overcome the false narrative of separation. When ICE is raiding our cities, they are destroying our city, our families and our neighborhoods. We are not each other’s enemy, we should seek and make connections with each other and move forward together to seek that liberation together.
Jheri Neri: The constant and continual struggle against colonization is connected to the Black Movement and the struggle they have had in this country for the last 300 year, and all of this goes back to white supremacy and its origins. And while people often say we make things about race, race is not a concept we had in Black or Indigenous communities, we didn’t create race. That was something that was created and enforced upon us in this country by the colonizers. In saying that, it how people try to keep us separated, whether thats the Black or Indigenous communities, but our struggle is connected.
Dawn Knickerbocker: When we are talking about solidarity, we have to acknowledge the land as a first step, and to acknowledge we have all experienced colonization in some form or another. The Indigenous People of Turtle Island experienced settler colonialism where people came in and imposed systems that were not in sync with this land we live on. Black people from Africa and from other places experienced extractive colonialism. They were extracted from places where they knew the foods, and talked to the land, where they had history and love and relatives. They were placed here and used as commodities. And that process has continued to this day. Right now what we are witnessing is no different from what slavery was then: Now our slavery is in prisons, where black and brown people are enslaved to dig their own graves. That is where solidarity lies, in acknowledging the pain and suffering of the people who are here.
Who Did It Better MLK or MALCOM X?
Mona Jenkins: It’s interesting that those who are committing the violence against us are the ones who are saying we should stay within peace. Trying to control how we respond to the violence and that is a controlling of the mind, and the spirit, and a controlling of our physical bodies. I am for defending ourselves. I have no problems with arms. Because we are defending our people and we are defending the land. What has happened recently is an outcry. It is an outcry because so much has been taken from us.
Jheri Neri: Our contemporary communities are based on the individual. Colonialism and capitalism are the same thing. The concept of the individual was brought here by the colonists. The individual is the center of that system and the community is externalized, everything is based around the individual. Everything that happens within that individual’s community is based on the outside. Within the Black and Indigenous communities the community is alway the center, and people acted in a manner that put the community first. So it’s hard to explain to someone who does not come from that culture how the community belongs in the center. Colonization and resistance to colonization, and property damage go hand in hand. This has always been an act of resistance to colonization. Historically any time there has been an oppressed people, whenever they have struggled against those oppressors, they have never been able to ask their oppressors to stop oppressing them. They have always had to result in a way to barricading themselves, or damaging property or lighting things on fire.
This is more than an individual action here. This is not an individual action, it’s similar to a flock of birds, because the whole movement of the birds is flowing as one - and thats how the community and a movement works. So when that community or movement starts lighting things on fire thats part of the rage and the movement.
See we have been denied the ability to mourn, the millions of people that have been murdered in the name of capitalism so that colonialism can exist. Everything that this country is built on is at the expense of either Black or Indigenous People and in that mourning process there is anger. But we aren’t allowed to experience anger or experience rage, or to break things, but meanwhile we are mourning 95 million ancestors that were killed. So our relatives, our grandparent, great grandparent, they weren’t allowed to mourn, they were subjected to the Jim Crow era, Boarding Schools, and we have been constantly fighting to live under this system and the government and we have been denied that ability to mourn, and until we can go through that process this isn’t going to end. We have to.
How Does Trauma Play Into the Experience of Black Americans, Indigenous People and other People of Color?
Mona Jenkins: I am thinking of all the trauma we experience, and one thing that bothers me the most is how its spun. When we say our children are resilient as if thats something positive, when all actuality that is saying you have experienced trauma very much by those systems, we know you have been traumatized, but yet you still keep going. And we constantly have overcome barriers, and we face it in every aspect of life. Whether from childbirth, accessing food, accessing clean water, accessing housing and it continues and it continues to the point where our health fails. And here we have COVID19 and we see that its affecting Black and Indigenous communities at a higher rate because of the trauma. But yet we are not able to heal, we are supposed to keep going and smile while we do it and with such gracefulness without having any anger whatsoever. Its just comical that we are disregarded. And I think this is why there is violence. Because it is that outcry that “We need to be heard, we are valuable” and we need folks to hear that.
Dawn Knickerbocker: I want to address a little bit about what Jheri and Mona said about rage, and violence and even protection. For a very long time Black and Brown bodies have defending the right to just be alive. And that has been met with violence. And meantime people say this is a Christian nation. And even if you look into those documents, into the Bible and other places. You see Jesus walking in, he does not walk in peacefully, he walked in and flipped over tables. It is known that you must flip over the tables in order to demand that things change. We also, as Indigenous and as Black people, we value our relationships more than we value things. Target was set on fire because they were not allowing people who had just been burned with pepper spray to purchase milk to wash their eyes out. If my ancestors are looking at me today and watching me, they would want me to burn it all down, thats my feeling, I’m speaking from the heart when I say “sometimes we have to burn it all down”.
And I think there is such outrage and passion behind the witnessing of a police officer putting his knee on the neck of somebody for ten minutes while bystanders were begging for his life. You haven’t watched somebody die in that horrific way, so you need to open your eyes. You don’t need to retraumatize yourself. Personally, as an Indigenous woman, I did not watch the video. Our white and our privileged people need to see this and bear witness, to understand trauma. Right now we are all witness in what is happening.
Normally when we experience trauma we need to come together, while we are experiencing social distancing it is conversations like the one we are having today where we can know that the feelings we are having and the rage we are feeling is not in isolation. It is shared. When we understand that other people are feeling these ways too and it is genuine, then you know you are not alone. What is most personal is most universal. And as my grandmother used to say, “Two ears, one mouth”, we listen twice as much as we speak. And right now what you can do to help yourself and other communities is to listen, bear witness. Do not judge. Do not say you can’t burn something down, especially when it is stuff. I have heard reports from different shop owners. They have said “I have insurance. Good. Burn it down. Let it burn.” More things need to burn in my opinion. But in solidarity we can witness.
What Can Our Communities Do to Foster Solidarity?
Mona Jenkins: We are moving to a point where we have to police the police. And There are rules and laws within any state, and as long as you staying a particular distance and not interfering with what is going on, they cannot snatch that camera from you. And it only takes one person to start recording till another and another starts recording. Often times we want to do something but we question, what are the repercussions behind that, what is going to happen to us, but when we see someone recording, we feel safe and brave enough to record it. Like I said it’s absolutely necessary that we start policing police, and the colonizers tried to deny it. And now that there are videos and recordings of it, you can’t unsee what has been seen. You can’t. So many times, Black and Brown folx have been murdered, have been raped, have endured such trauma… And now we are seeing it live. And as traumatizing as it is, it has to been seen by white people and they have to respond, because that is what it’s going to take right now and them standing up in solidarity with us, in order for us to have liberation.
Dawn Knickerbocker: Thank you to everyone for coming. This has been a really wonderful opportunity just to speak. I think what we can all do, echos what Mona was saying: allow people of culture, people of color to not have to be retraumatized over and over again. Something that I keep hearing from white fiends is “I can’t believe this happened”, and I don’t hear that coming from communities of color, communities of culture. People of color are saying “of course I know this is happening” and if you are a POC, and I like to say People of Culture because it doesn’t circle whiteness quite as much, but if you are in that group, if you are somebody that has experienced marginalization, and you want to be able to take action, but you don’t want to retraumatize yourself, you don’t have to witness. Find others who can speak out with you, beside you, and can share the truth and reality of what is happening.
Jheri Neri: It’s important to understand that there are dynamics that are occurring right now. It’s not just that people are out in the streets breaking windows and breaking things, that simplifies it in a way that is not what is occurring right now. There have been scholars that have written volumes of books and thesis on these types of events. Uprisings are the desire of oppressed people to experience freedom, and that in a theological sense- breaking windows is an act of faith, part of a theology of resistance. Resistance is as much as a theology as religion. This has been something we believe in, even though we have never seen it. We’ve never seen Jesus, we’ve never seen God, we’ve never seen Creator - but we have faith in them, and resistance is the same faith. We have faith in something that doesn’t exist to us yet, and this is what this is a part of.
And when we are not at this stage, we need to be building community. We need to be building and living in the communities we would like to see. We need to make things better. We can’t just tear down a system, we have to think of a better way. What is a better way to live in a decolonized world? To create community? To create gardens and love each other and be part of something bigger? There is a new way. I don’t know what that looks like. But we need to find that and build that and live there. It’s about digging up the garden, tilling the garden and planting new sees. And as an old man, we’ve set that table and we’ve dug up the garden, and the young people are the seeds that we have planted, and it’s their turn to come up and change those things.
Additional Panelist: As a mixed individual, I’m Black and Indigenous. I needed this. I needed to understand what was happening. Because I grew up in a white community. I very was unaware of a lot of the trials my ancestors went through, until I moved to a lower economic neighborhood, surrounded by minorities. So I’ve experienced both sides of that coin, so I think offering resources for them to educate themselves is really important. Because I think a lot of my family and friends willingly stand by me and protest the injustices. But they are not always aware of what we are standing for. And if you are going to ask someone to stand, you have to educate them, and understand also that they are human and they have pride and they have to be willing to swallow that pride and also work to deconstruct the privilege in their minds. A lot of the things I’ve experienced is more of what I always viewed as a human privilege. I’ve experienced racism on several sides, I’ve experienced from my colored counterparts and my culture counterparts: they looked at me and said “You are too white to understand”, while I’ve also faced the white community and they tell me I’m too colored to understand. And it’s not true. I am human. I can understand. But you have to be willing to teach me, and you have to be willing to provide those resources.
Mona Jenkins: First of all, solidarity: Solidarity is relationship, you can’t just show up when its convenient for you; you have to show up every day. It’s showing up when we are celebrating. It’s showing up when we are going through the trials. And it’s showing up when we are educating ourselves to be in those spaces. Jheri and I show up in each others spaces all the time. And we provide each other with that space in order to learn. Me and Dawn, not that long ago we have held space together where we have grown. Offering that time, space, and opportunity to ask those questions - often time we don’t want to because we are scared to- we have to delve down into the nitty-gritty of things in order to understand what the basis is, and to understand how we move forward.