CW: genocide
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It's hard to get a perspective on the genocide of Indigenous peoples in north america. 90% of us were killed. 9 out of 10 of us were murdered. Think of 10 of your loved ones-- only one would have survived. Only one.

It's bittersweet to be the descendant of survivors of such intense genocide. It's an honour to learn and to pass on the knowledge our peoples kept, but trying to wrap my head around the horrific losses we faced and continue to face and the subsequent trauma... nearly unimaginable

And then those survivors were put through living horrors... rounded up and off our homelands by the RCMP, sent to residential schools to be starved and beat and separated from our communities, families, languages and cultures. No school should have a cemetery.

And today, actively denied healthcare, safe housing, safe water, rights to hunt and fish and trap, suppression of our languages and traditions. Urban, rural, and rez natives all suffer.

50% of kids in foster care are Indigenous, though we only make up 5% of the population. More than 30% of the prison population is Indigenous. And even in a city like Toronto, 96% of Indigenous people live below the poverty line.

Non-natives do not comprehend the extent of the genocide against us, or the severity of the harm we face in the continuation of that genocide through settler colonialism. Our situation is as urgent as it ever was.

Every single settler has to bear this on their shoulders. Please remind yourself every day the cost Indigenous and Black people have paid for you to be here. Rent is fucking due. Remind yourself of the privilege you hold. Use and share that privilege every way you can.

I have no qualms about making people feel guilty, about reminding settlers what we've gone through and continue to go through. Just because you didn't hop off the Mayflower doesn't mean you aren't culpable. Settler colonialism is an ongoing project towards our replacement.

I am one of the 96% of Indigenous people who live under the poverty line in Toronto, and I can tell you right now, unless I'm in a community space, the majority of other Indigenous folks I encounter are unhoused street people. It's a fucking travesty.

Not one person should be unhoused, but to be unhoused on your own homelands, unable to access the basics of life from the land that we owe everything to? That is absolutely unforgivable. Indigenous peoples worldwide deserve fucking justice.