Indigenous futurisms is a genre of Native literature that has become "dangerous", "harmful" & "forbidden" by Natives who believe that our voices, cultures & stories should remain unchanging. They believe that Indigenous imagination & creation must be restrained and policed.

What they fail to understand is that there is so much power and healing in the way that we imagine, re-imagine, create and even re-create our past, present and future experiences, cultures, traditions, languages and existence.

They fail to understand the real life pathways to potentials futures of promise and hope that are created outside of the realm of literature that open up when we are free to imagine, create and build new worlds for our people now as well as future generations.

I understand how it can be scary for Natives who never dared to imagine more than what was beyond their reality or scope of what reality could or should be. Hope is dangerous when all you've experienced and know is the fight for survival.

I know because I spent most of my life living that way, never imagining a future for myself or even thinking about who I wanted to be because I wasn't supposed to live past 19, I was suicidal and too busy just trying to make it through day by day.

So, I underatand why it is terrifying and uncomfortable because it makes you realize that your life could have been so different, that you had choices and opportunities, that you had the power all along to do and be more.

I think that's why it is so hard for Natives who view Indigenous Futurisms as a threat, as blasphemy because how dare we not be complacent, stagnant and how dare we challenge everything they know and believe. How dare we not be content with just surviving, how dare we thrive.

I love Indigenous Futurisms, I love the power, hope & overwhelming love that is in every word written, in every story told. I love the authentic represenatation of the messy, infallible but powerful and beautiful depths of our humanity.

But most of all, I love the undeniable truth of Indigenous Futurisms that is we have always been, we are and we will always be.

And damn typos that have me like represenatation instead of representation.