In Summary,
The “Intergenerational Connectedness and Trauma” piece in this toolkit is meant to be a signpost for the overarching theme in the documentary. Within the Indigenous movement and community there is a history of intergenerational connectedness and trauma due to the ongoing threat of U.S. colonialism and racial capitalism. This section is meant to lay a groundwork for the importance of the fight for the liberation of land and people, and the movement’s subsequent methods.
The “FYI Educational Piece and Timeline” portion was intended to provide you with a solid foundation of knowledge to help you better engage with the toolkit. The terminology section equips you with the tools and the language to speak on these topics, while the timeline allows us to contextualize our current moment within the broader movement.
Within the “Self Reflection + Discussion Question” section of our toolkit, the aim was to dedicate some time to reflect on the film. The reflective questions are more introspective for you to allow yourself as an individual, a body, to question where you are in the world. The discussion questions are only a starting guide in what you should be asking yourself and your peers. As a guide, we hope you take some time to sit with your community members and loved ones to really reflect the impact of not only the film but the value behind the work Warrior Women do.
Call to Action:
In addition to advocating for change in the material world, we must also look within ourselves and understand the ways that week can transform as individuals, in both our minds and hearts. Consider your positionality within the United States white settler colonial regime: what is your relationship to genocide of Indigenous people and the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous lands? In thinking about power and privilege, be willing to be uncomfortable and sit with that discomfort. Remember that learning and unlearning doesn’t happen overnight—it’s a lifelong journey.
After reconciling with the work you have to do internally, you should engage in dialogue with your friends, family, and community. Talk to your family about the Indigenous names of the land. Talk to your friends about the ongoing settler colonialism occurring everywhere across the world- not just at Line 3 but in Palestine too. Think about where you live and whether you are aware of any fossil fuel industry pipelines that could affect the environment and health of your community. Find any information available about the community response and find ways to help raise awareness. Be willing to sit in the discomfort of new information, and let your community teach you something new. Ask them questions about their relationship to their land. If you’re a person of color you might have a legacy of displacement in your ancestry- think about how that relates to the Indigenous people’s movement. The United States continues to enact genocide everyday that they continue to occupy this land, so it’s imperative to reclaim and maintain cultural practices. Talk about this with your family and see how you can do the same. Share the film and toolkit with people in your life who want to know more about the struggle for land and water rights. But most importantly, share with those who think this doesn’t apply to them. It is all of our responsibility to ameliorate and sustain the land we live on. Connect the goals of the environmental justice movement to the Indigenous rights movement. Think about how and why you can’t have one without the other.
Lastly, we encourage you to join our collective commitment. Joining in solidarity with one another is not something we can do simply because we would expect the same in return. We must recognize solidarity as the collective commitment to one another to create a central power on the premise that what we have experienced should not happen to anyone. After taking some interpersonal action by self reflecting and beginning to engage in difficult dialogues not only with yourself but your community members, we can all do our part in the greater picture. We must continue to unlearn the western methodologies implemented in our everyday lives. In recognizing that change happens over time, there are multiple ways you can begin your impact today. Think about the knowledge you’ve learned throughout this toolkit and contribute to survival schools or join a native organization of your interest. Challenge yourself to redistribute your wealth. It is important to recognize that we are all in this together.