Surviving genocide, by whatever means, is resistance: non-Indians must know this in order to more accurately understand the history of the United Sta… - Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

U.S. leftists do not want to really acknowledge that they live within not only an imperialist state, but also one founded on being a colonizing state. Actually, indigenous land struggles had never stopped in the United States; social activists and leftists had little interest in Indians, and their struggles were simply not publicized, but beginning in the late 1950s they became more frequent and more widespread and began to be noticed, leading up to the Wounded Knee uprising in 1973.

the similarities of our experiences on the Left are greater than the differences: Most of the political activists I knew in that volatile period experienced, as I did, government repression, blacklisting, betrayals, and painful disappointments, but remain committed to social change and justice. (Prologue)

(Thanksgiving has) never been about honoring Native Americans. It’s been about the origin story of the United States, the beginning of genocide, dispossession and constant warfare from that time—actually, from 1607 in Jamestown—until the present. It’s a colonial system that was set up. 2016)