New frameworks of justice can be realized as we speak into existence a habitable future for life on this planet. - Dina Gilio-Whitaker

It begins with settler institutions (including science-based institutions) engaging Indigenous people in all their conversations, and the recognition of cultural and political sovereignty. Itʼs a simple matter of respect. And given that we have some tangible knowledge about how to effectively manage lands, draw on that. Just stop bypassing Native people as if we donʼt exist or as if we have nothing of value to contribute. I call it un-erasing Indigenous people. Of course the erasure is everywhere, but some places are more intense than others. California is one of the places where erasure is the most intense.

that is what settler colonialism does: it works really hard to hide itself, because its goal is to constantly disappear Indigenous people, and that doesn’t square with democracy and justice. That’s why we have this whole matrix of mythologies and lies about the foundation of this country that doesn’t get to the genocide and land theft, and that is the elephant in the living room in the U.S.

we have this concept of privilege that we understand through the lens of race, which again is also highly inadequate because the settler-colonial project was not about racism. It includes it, it involves it, but land theft and genocide was for acquiring land for the sake of land itself, not for the exploitation of bodies in the same way that chattel slavery was. So, these are really two big, different animals, and the problem is that they get conflated. When we talk about subsuming Native issues of justice under this umbrella of race, it is in a way that does harm and disservice to Native people and makes illegible Indigenous struggles for decolonization and justice.