Tecuani / Natan / Unsettling America

[RedRightHand]

That crap you posted on social media, "Oh we have lost this, we have lost our ancestors ways, oh us poor white people, waily waily" was a bunch of white tears bullshit.

That's the kind of crap white people get up to to justify stealing other people's cultures instead of doing the work of honoring their own ancestors, and their own ancestors' ways.

White people who reject their own earth-honoring ancestors in order to try to steal others' aren't "orphans" - they're liars and predators.

His dramatastic writing also uses white people as the universal "we": "Oh, we're so spiritually damaged you have to save us, you have to let us steal." It's the voice of white supremacy pretending to be "woke." Just another exploiter fooling people nons like you. And like so many times, you are now promoting him because you like how he makes you feel. Shame on you.

Natan, you are continuing to use your website and facebook to promote this type of appropriators and exploiters, as longs as they work this particular angle. Are you really this easily fooled, or are you just looking for a loophole yourself?

When Natives have gone to your site to tell you to stop this you don't let their comments through. And here on the site you have been deceptive about who you are.

[RedRightHand]

This is the crap Natan posted. When he got pushback he tagged NAFPS.

https://www.facebook.com/ab.irato/posts/1768354983243634

Natán Rebelde
Yesterday at 13:42 ·

Elderhood is a consequence of life’s limits.
...
We are living through a time when there are more people dying, more creatures, more plants, more cultures, than ever before. We are surrounded by more death—and of course we feel that tremendous presence of death all around us. The debts of generations past have accrued to us, but not the wisdom. Our inheritance of obligation, of reciprocity, has broken. And we are left with the dying, but no understanding of how to be with it.

Your longing is one of the manifestations of your ancestry. A consequences of our abandonment is that we’ve lost all sense that we are longed for by our ancestry, too. A time before you is singing for you ~ a longing for home that becomes miscast as a search for freedom.

http://forthewild.world/listen/stephen-jenkinson-on-closing-time82-1

[Tecuani]

Apologies, that was a quotation from the link I was posting, the For The Wild podcast that interviewed him. My lack of quotation marks probably caused confusion, sorry. But for the record, I do think that white people reconnecting with their ancestors and healing their ancestral wounds *in a genuine way* is a necessary thing. If you think that's just white tears, I'll have to live with that.

[Tecuani]

I left the post on social media up, despite him being problematic, precisely because I am open to being wrong, and letting that be seen, so others can learn from my mistakes. I got push-back, but I think that person offered it on good faith. I am happy (though disappointed) to learn the truth.

I have never intentionally ignored comments on Unsettling America, assuming that's what you're referring to, but admittedly, I don't do the best job reviewing and approving comments to begin with. If there are concerns about the existence of the project itself, I'll look for those comments. I certainly never censored such concerns intentionally.

What I have been looking for, however, is a way to decentralize that project and step back from it, so a team of folks, consisting of or led by indigenous people, and perhaps with (un)settler participation, if the team decided to go that route. I am not over-attached to personal control of the project, and will try to be better about receiving critical feedback (for instance I remember recently the posts from Pegi Eyers came into question, but many still remain on the site). I have started doing so on social media, but have yet to find anyone with the time to take on the blog.

Thanks.

[Tecuani]

Sorry, that weird sentence should have finished: "...so a team of folks, consisting of or led by indigenous people, and perhaps with (un)settler participation, if the team decided to go that route, could control or abolish the project.

[Tecuani]

Also, I wouldn't have tagged NAFPS on fb if I didn't think you'd connect those dots. I am trying to be an accountable accomplice, but I understand you probably don't think I am doing a very good job at this point. Anyways, I come here and a tag the page on fb with the full knowledge that I will be receiving challenge and criticism.

[Tecuani]

Not sure if I've ever posted about this specifically here, but I should clarify: I own whiteness because I am definitely white passing and thus receive the associated socialization and privilege. But I am bi-racial/of mixed heritage. My father's side is European/white and my mother's side is "Mesoamerican" (not sure what nations, that was lost with displacement, but "Central American" indigenous). I don't say this to justify anything or make any claims to indigeneity, but because you say I have been deceptive about who I am. This also seems to be in relation to my role as founder and curator of Unsettling America, which was intended both as a signal boosting mechanism for indigenous voices speaking about decolonization, but also for non-indigenous (white, black, etc.) voices to speak about what decolonization means to them. Inevitably, much of this will end up being problematic as fuck, particularly the content from white people. We've posted a lot of responses to other content we've posted as well, facilitating critique and debate. My intent is definitely to approve critical comments, but again, I don't do a good job at that, and will work to do better.

[Tecuani]

(My inspiration for Unsettling America was Unsettling Minnesota, which included both indigenous and settler perspectives. Waziyatawin was part of UM, and it might have been based on a class she taught, but I might also be wrong about that part.)

[Tecuani]

So far, what I am drawing out from this is, for white people doing this work:

Embrace your own earth-honoring ancestors. It's not only shitty political praxis to appropriate from colonized people, but it's spiritually harmful.

In your embrace of your own earth-honoring ancestors, center anti-colonial and anti-racist discourse. Doing so helps avoid the appropriation of indigenous thinking (as opposed to the restoration of one's own ancestral, land-based, earth-honoring thinking). Work to fight white supremacy and abolish whiteness, which means abolishing settler-colonialism.

Be honest and accountable about who you are (who your people are, where you come from, whose land you occupy, etc.).

[Sparks]

It seems to me that this separate post about Stephen Jenkinson should have been the first post in this topic:

Wondering if folks know anything about Stephen Jenkinson. He doesn't seem to be claiming any indigenous traditions, but something feels new agey. However, white folks need to heal their ancestral wounds, so maybe he's doing that work? Just curious your opinions of him and his work, the feeling it gives you, etc.

I had shared the below interview on social media, to which someone responded:

"I can't go there with this guy. Not down with any more shitty white men appropriating shit. nope"

I hadn't gotten that vibe, despite his way of speaking. But if he's up to no good, I want to know. Thanks folks!

His website: https://orphanwisdom.com/

A recent interview: http://forthewild.world/listen/stephen-jenkinson-on-closing-time82-1

[Tecuani]

lol yeah this tangent was moved *from* that other thread, so...

[Defend the Sacred]

This stuff about the Unsettling America site is not just a tangent, as the non-Native who owns and runs the site continues to feature white appropriators as columnists, and not let through the comments of Indigenous people who have criticisms of the frauds he features.

[Defend the Sacred]

"Tecuani", you've featured white people who claim to speak for First Nations communities, when the only First Nations person they briefly knew denounced them. That's boosting colonial, appropriative voices, not Indigenous ones. It's white supremacist.

You've let a random white nuager speak for "Celtic" cultures when this individual has absolutely no connection to any of the living Celtic cultures and had to take a DNA test to decide that's what they were going to claim to be. You've featured articles by white people that are basically plagiarized from the years of work of Indigenous people on sites like this one, where they name well-known frauds that aren't even operating anymore.

Why do you do feature these sorts of harmful colonists? You've been called out on this numerous times, but you keep doing it.

[Sparks]

I'll quote myself from another topic. I titled my post there "Re: … Unsettling America" even if the all-over title is different and has changed. The posts before mine were titled "Naomi Archer - "Ana Oian Amets" - Awakening the Horse People".

Wait, I am confused. You're saying Unsettling America is run by a fraud? […] Where on this forum does it say Unsettling America is run by a fraud? It's run by a settler who's never made any claims otherwise.

Tecuani, in the above post post you indicate that you know who runs Unsettling America. In a recent post in another topic you seem to state that it is run by yourself?:

(My inspiration for Unsettling America was Unsettling Minnesota, which included both indigenous and settler perspectives. […])

https://unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com
https://www.facebook.com/unsettlingamerica/

The two Internet links at the end of my post are still very active, up to this day. And I still think that "Tecuani" is the person who runs them both. Furthermore, as indicated by his replies in the beginnings of the present thread, his Facebook profile is that of Natán Rebelde: https://www.facebook.com/ab.irato.

Intro
Mixed-heritage settler living on stolen native land, Diné & Ute territory; He/him pronouns; anarchist
Co-conspirator at Dirty Hands Collective
Rifleman at John Brown Brigades
Founder and Editor at Unsettling "America"
Co-Founder/Co-Director at Ludd-Kaczynski Institute of Technology
[Nine clickable pictures, then links to following sites]
unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com
southwestearthfirst.wordpress.com
guerrillanews.wordpress.com
incorporealcommittee.wordpress.com

Here are clickable links to the sites linked to in his Facebook profile (see quote above):

https://www.facebook.com/DurangoAnarchists/  —  https://dirtyhandscollective.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/JohnBrownBrigades/  —  [About: Armed Insurrectionary Anti-Racism]
https://www.facebook.com/unsettlingamerica/  —  http://unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Ludd.Kaczynski.Institute.of.Technology/ —  [About: An Anti-Civilization / Post-Civilization Think Tank]
https://southwestearthfirst.wordpress.com/
https://guerrillanews.wordpress.com/
https://incorporealcommittee.wordpress.com/

Maybe some of these connections are already known to administrators, moderators, and some veterans of the NAFPS forum. To me it was quite a puzzle to figure out.

[Defend the Sacred]

I think one of the most harmful things here is his continuing to feature settlers who promote the white supremacist idea that settlers can choose to self-identify as indigenous.

Settler self-indigenization is a serious problem - with settlers colonizing real fora meant for Indigenous voices, and using their white privilege to displace and disappear actual Indigenous people. It's a form of cultural genocide.

Settlers who think their nuage or pagan beliefs make them Indigenous are simply wielding the most colonial power of all.