Terms and Conditions of Being Indigenous™

Last Updated: 1968 ^#

Please read these terms carefully before proceeding with life in a colonial world. By continuing, you agree to the following:

1. IDENTITY VERIFICATION

1.1 You may be required to prove your Indigeneity via:

• Tribal enrollment (if you’re lucky enough to meet blood quantum requirements).
• Blood quantum (see: nahullo ^# ways of thinking).
• Appearance as judged by strangers, coworkers, and ICE agents on the Navajo Nation.
• Fluency in a language that was systematically banned and whose banning was enforced by cutting off tongues in boarding schools.
• Your ability to explain where you are “really from” to someone whose ancestors were the socially acceptable kind of illegal immigrants.

1.2 You agree that any deviation from the public’s expectation of “Indian” may result in interrogation, fetishization, erasure, death, or all of the above.

2. LAND USE AGREEMENT

2.1 You acknowledge that you must now pay to live on land that was stolen from you. This goes double for those belonging to tribes removed by Andrew Jackass Jackson.

2.2 Your access to said land may be restricted to casinos, cop cars, uninhabitable stretches of dirt, and postcards sold at the smoke shop.

2.3 A land acknowledgement may be substituted by “well-meaning” white people in place of actual reparations or land return.

3. TRAUMA CLAUSE

3.1 By existing, you inherit generational trauma, which may include (but is not limited to):

• Forced relocation and removal. ^#
• Residential schools.
• Genocide.
• Broken treaties. ^#
• Missing and murdered relatives (this applies doubly if you are a woman).

3.2 You are expected to survive, thrive, and tell your story in an Instagrammable way, preferably with a hopeful ending. You may NOT demonize the actions of the United States that killed the Indian to save the man. You have been saved.

4. CULTURAL USAGE POLICY

4.1 Your regalia, languages, songs, and medicines may be:

• Appropriated for fashion statements and EDM festivals.
• Misrepresented or excluded in textbooks, legislation on curricula permitting.
• Sold back to you through drop shippers and individuals violating the Indian Arts and Crafts Act with no punishment.
• Banned by the government at any time.

4.2 You agree not to be “too angry” about this, or risk violating the Civility Clause (see Section 6).

5. CELEBRATION AND SILENCE

5.1 You will be called “resilient” while being denied basic necessities.

5.2 You will be invited to speak on panels regarding monolithic Indigenous culture during Thanksgiving Native American Heritage Month November.

5.3 You will be ignored the rest of the year. Complaints received during this time will be discarded.

6. CIVILITY CLAUSE: COMPLIANCE AND RESISTANCE

6.1 Resistance is permitted under the following conditions:

• Must be peaceful, you are no longer a savage.
• Must be poetic, flute music accompaniment is encouraged.
• Must not disrupt commerce, pipelines, or political agendas.

6.2 Noncompliance may result in surveillance, criminal charges, death, or increased pillaging.

6.2.1 In some jurisdictions, even compliant individuals may be subjected to Starlight Tours ^# if law enforcement does not like the way they look.

7. TERMINATION CLAUSE

7.1 Your existence has been prematurely declared “extinct” by textbooks, census takers, and Supreme Court rulings.

7.2 In spite of this, you are still here.

8. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

8.1 The United States of America is not responsible for:

• Broken treaties.
• Lost languages.
• Loss of land.
• Loss of life.
• Stolen children.
• Enslavement.
• Reparations.
• Generational trauma.
• Their actions. ^#

8.2 You are encouraged to heal yourself through culture, community, and performing unpaid emotional labor for those too lazy to do it themselves.

By continuing to breathe, you agree to these terms.

If you do not agree, remember:
You were never meant to survive under these conditions anyway.

Yet you do.