I have been honoured with the Lakota name Mani Isna La, which literally translates as He Walks Alone and signifies that I have chosen my path but invite others who have chosen the same path to walk beside me. I am also a member of Lakota People’s Law Project

My Cherokee brethren would describe me as Gawonisgi (speaker) for Indigenous but also Dedeloquasgi (student)

It’s sad that all that most Americans know about indigenous culture is what they’ve seen in movies or on TV. Marlon Brando raised this issue when he declined an Oscar in 1973 in protest and sent a young Apache woman to decline it on his behalf while he attended a protest at Wounded Knee. 45 years later she was finally able to read the speech Brando had written but she hadn’t been allowed to deliver at the Oscars.

Sacheen Littlefeather reads the Oscar’s speech for Marlon Brando https://youtu.be/Zi_N1NDmSM8 via @YouTube

Indigenous people worldwide have suffered persecution, dispossession and genocide from the very start of European colonialism, and it continues to this day as we’re learning from the news of the graves recently discovered in Canada of indigenous children stolen from their parents to be “educated” in a foreign culture

Native activists are on the frontline in the fight against giant corporations in defence of Mother Earth and indigenous women are at the forefront of the battle. I’ll have more to say about that later.

My focus is on the indigenous people of North America, and I can’t even cover that limited topic adequately.

Canadian journalist Dawn Mc Sweeney has asked me to include this clip in which she acknowledges me as her source without naming me.

Forced Sterilization of Native Women Isn’t in the Past – FTB Fridays Clip https://youtu.be/WGZC4pRfJMA via @YouTube