The era of technology has created many opportunities for indigenous peoples to maintain culture and connection. It allows us to record our songs and dances and reflect. Allows us to call and speak with our relatives. It makes our hometown news far more accessible. It also possesses the danger of false narratives. It creates the illusion of connection and traditions. From my experience, I’ve seen a lot of native people speak with so much pride about their identity in private. When faced with the public, they sing a different tune.

Indigenous people who chose to not connect or reconnect with their culture and language in a meaningful way continue to perpetuate the modern silent war against them. Native peoples in North America have been violently brutalized for over 500 years. This hasn’t stopped, it just became sneaky.

I saw this happen in my own life not that long ago. Someone I knew had finally been able to pinpoint where her family had come from, as this had been lost due to prior colonialism. She told me she was Diné and Cherokee. I have no reason not to believe that she is from either of these tribes. Now I am not Diné or Cherokee. My people come from Quebec and the Great Lakes. Obviously our culture is very different. With that being said, some things have become pan-Indian. Whilst they originated with one culture, they’ve become widespread across Turtle Island. The Jingle Dress Dance is a good example, which is a sacred healing tradition originating from a vision to cure a sick child through prayer and sound. I tried to share as much as I could in good faith as she expressed the desire to reconnect.

I’m all for helping other natives reconnect. But in all reality, I have no say or authority on the matter. I shared what I knew was pan-Indian and encouraged her to reach out to her specific communities. I often reassured her that she was “native enough,” which was a concern of hers. In private, she was so excited to learn and was proudly indigenous. In public, the songbird didn’t quite… sing.

I saw how she behaved in public. And more importantly, how she addressed native erasure and racism.

Or rather, how she didn’t.

All the outrage she had about systemic indigenous issues disappeared. She was so upset and angry about the ongoing murdered and missing Indigenous women crisis, but when confronted with the opportunity to take a stand, she crumbled.

She had the opportunity to stand with me in the face of cultural erasure. Instead, she chose to criticize and chastise me on a FaceTime call when I chose to publicly speak out. She expressed that I should’ve handled the matter differently, in private, and that I was calling her out too. In all reality, it had nothing to do with her. She just happened to be quiet in the face of the organization she is a part of when they were continuing to perpetuate native erasure and colonialism. I’ve seen her defend this organization time and time again, both to me and other people. She is always criticizing how we choose to speak up.

She hadn’t crossed my mind for a while until the organization had begun perpetuating racism again. With her defending the racism, then subsequently saying she doesn’t defend them, and then the organization contradicting what she had said, it became a mess. I’ve peeked from afar, her “activism” continues to be about white people. Disabled white people, queer white people, but it’s always white people. I’ve yet to see her take a stand beyond her half-hearted Instagram stories about how she supports Free Palestine from over a year ago. I’ve seen her attend “No Kings” protests, dressed up and filming it like it’s a parade. Protests authorized by the state are often just parades. She lacks meaningful action beyond treating state-sanctioned protests like parties and a little Instagram post saying she does or doesn’t support certain things. She hasn’t changed, and that’s really unfortunate.

The way she behaves, especially with her platform and following, impacts the entire native community. Racial solidarity is vital in critical times like this. I truly hope she does change, mainly for her own soul to find peace in her indigenous identity. But as the saying goes, one bad apple will spoil the bunch. That is why I spit out the bite and threw it back to the orchard.