Ruth Bader Ginsburg Was An Anti-Indigenous, Anti-Black #GirlBoss
TW: sexual violence, genocide, police brutality
Who did Ginsburg advocate for? As a cishet, white woman I benefit from any inkling of WoMeN’s RiGhTs she might’ve fought for, but I’m not delusional.
Ginsburg failed to advocate for ALL women. She failed to advocate for Indigenous and Black women. And we already know that none of us are free, until we are ALL free.
We can’t talk about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and fail to address missing and murdered Indigenous women. #mmiw Ruth Bader Ginsburg co-signed the construction of a 600 mile pipeline for natural gas under the Appalachian trail. Pipelines are a threat to Indigenous women because they bring sexual violence.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg co-signed violence against Indigenous women when she co-signed that pipeline. Pipelines lead to “man camps.”
“Man Camps” are comprised of thousands of male workers who have come to a territory to profit off the construction of a pipeline.
“Man Camps” are capable of more than doubling a population of an area with an influx of non-Indigenous oil workers, according to Honor the Earth.
The Sovereign Bodies Institute’s MMIW Database is the only up-to-date database tracking missing and murdered Indigenous women in the U.S. and Canada.
Violent crime, sex trafficking, and rape cases increase in these rural areas, particularly reservations, where white men basically can’t be held accountable by tribal courts. It’s a loophole in legislation, Jessica Rizzo reports for Vice in, “Native American Women Are Rape Targets Because of a Legislative Loophole.”
Abaki Beck also emphasizes these facts in her piece, “For Indigenous Women, More Pipelines Means More Threats of Sexual Violence.”
Indigenous women are 10 times more likely to be killed than the average national murder rate, according to the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women.
Indigenous women and two-spirit folks are erased and invisibilized from our society to the point that statistics about them going missing and being murdered (mostly by WHITE men) are intentionally hard to gather.
The systems of policing, of which you’re supposed to report crimes, doesn’t care about the humanity of Indigenous peoples. When have they ever?
Police were born out of slave patrols to protect property and resources for white slave owners.
Nothing has changed today.
In 2016, only 116 of 5,712 cases were included in the US Department of Justice’s official missing persons’ lists according to the Urban Indian Health Institute (UIHI).
When I found out through a text from a white friend that RBG died I had no feelings.
I still have no feelings.
It’s clear to me and it should be to you that as white women we can, and in many cases, do uphold settler colonialism.
Many will say “nobody is perfect.” I’m not here for perfection, and this isn’t about that. I’m here to hold myself and others accountable, particularly white women in powerful positions. RBG was a very intelligent person and she had many opportunities to stop being violent.
It’s never too soon or too late to hold someone accountable and I don’t play into respectability politics about not “speaking ill of the dead,” — a phrase that a 6th century Greek bro named Chilon of Sparta came up with probably to protect his rape-y, sexual assaulter besties.
That’s a silencing/tone-policing tactic of white supremacy. Your toxic record isn’t expunged when you die.
I feel nothing about RBG’s passing because I disavowed myself of allegiance to white feminism years ago when I began my journey of detaching from my attachment to the construct of whiteness.
Something that shook the foundation of my beliefs in this fascist system was listening to John Biewan and Chenjarai Kumenyika on the podcast, Seeing White, in which Chenjarai Kumenyika asks John Biewan, “How attached are you to being white?”
Our whiteness was made, created — a construct. But it has tangible impacts, benefits, consequences.
I’m also thinking about when Toni Morrison in an interview inquired, “If I take your race away, and there you are all strung-out, and all you got is your little self, and what is that? What are you without racism? Are you any good? Are you still strong? Still smart? You still like yourself? …If you can only be tall because somebody’s on their knees then you have a serious problem, and my feeling is white people have a very, very serious problem, and they should start thinking about what they can do about it.”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was attached to whiteness and I never saw her confront or challenge this. She’s not my hero. She shouldn’t be yours.
Ginsburg voted against the Oneida Indian Nation of New York seeking justice and sovereignty against the City of Sherrill in Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation. In the 1990s the tribe was buying back portions of their land that was originally set aside as part of their reservation. The city was arguing that they needed to pay taxes on this land, but reservations are exempt from state and municipal taxes. Either way, it’s egregious that in this country where Indigenous peoples were forced off their land, assaulted, and brutalized that they now have to buy their land back. Even more, land is not something to “own” according to many Indigenous cultures.
The outcome was 8–1, Ginsburg voting against the Oneida Nation. She was quoted as saying,
“Given the longstanding non-Indian character of the area and its inhabitants, the regulatory authority constantly exercised by New York State and its counties and towns, and the Oneidas’ long delay in seeking judicial relief against parties other than the United States, we hold that the tribe cannot unilaterally revive its ancient sovereignty, in whole or in part, over the parcels at issue.”
In 2018 it was reported that though half of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s clerks have been women, she has hired only one black law clerk since joining the court in 1993.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg supported eugenics stating for New York Times Magazine, “”Frankly I had thought that at the time [Roe vs. Wade] was decided,” Ginsburg told her interviewer, Emily Bazelon, “there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”
Kaitlyn Bird also got to the heart of the problem with liberal, “progressive,” politics stating on Twitter, “How fragile a system where one person dies and representative government, the future of millions of people, and the fate of human society dies with them?”
This points to how grieving Ginsburg’s passing is wrapped up in the glass house that is this white supremacist country. Her death wouldn’t be such a blow to you if you have been sober and clear this whole time about the country we’re living in.
RBG not only withheld Indigenous land and sovereignty, she also strengthened anti-immigration policies, the prison industrial complex, mass incarceration, and police terror. It doesn’t matter who is in the Supreme Court of Justice. They don’t work for us. They work for the settler-colonialist state in favor of rich, white property owners. Roe vs. Wade was a concession to quell people’s rage.
My heroes speak truth to power.
Ruth Bader Ginsburgs sat happily on her capitalist throne criticizing and demeaning Colin Kaepernik’s symbolic taking of a knee during the national anthem to make a statement about police brutality in the United States of Amerikkka, calling his heroic dislpay, “dumb and disrespectful.” Later, she offered a faux apology admitting she was, “…barely aware of the incident or purpose.” So, police killings and terrorism have been happening for forever, and as a judge on the Supreme Court of Justice — emphasis on the JUSTICE part — she can’t be bothered to be invested in racial justice?
So, who was her “justice” work for?
If anyone had the resources to understand and interrogate white supremacy it surely would be a justice of the supreme court. But again, I feel nothing about Ginsburg’s passing because I know that if you assume a powerful position in this government you’re not for the liberation of all. You don’t become a high-level government official, supreme court justice, or president by advocating for the overthrow of the fascist system we live in. You win your spot by appealing to the power structures that be. Anyone who actually challenges the system is jailed like Angela Davis, murdered like Martin Luther King Jr., assassinated like Malcolm X, or exiled like Assata Shakur.
I know that my bodily rights aren’t secured unless all peoples’ bodily rights are secured. We need to lose our faith in this system already. I’ve lost my faith in this system and I’m so glad. I’m so glad I don’t pour energy and faith into the system anymore. I’m so glad I don’t wear a veil over my eyes anymore when it comes to seeing this government, our history, and what’s happening right now with the uprisings.
We are in a war. We’ve BEEN in a war. White people, we’re now just collectively catching up. Losing faith in this system is the beginning of a beautiful awakening, a necessary and overdue reckoning with the fascist regime that rules our society — republican or democrat, it’s just two sides of the same coin of settler colonialism and it all has to go.
Those who sit on the supreme court don’t create change or contribute to revolution. Those who are voted into the presidency don’t create change or contribute to revolution. Our attachment and desire to believe in this system or even little parts of this system are holding us back.
Your grief about RBG reveals a lack of imagination. It reveals a commitment to scarcity. It reveals internalized white supremacy. This attachment to a figure of justice when that’s all she was — a figure…of your imagination. Because RBG did nothing for women’s rights because her actions were anti-Black and anti-Indigenous.
We need to heal and restore our imaginations, our intuition, and get back to our humanity and internal knowledge. Stop idolizing government elected officials, politicians, etc. Lama Rod Owens wrote on Twitter, “This is the apocalypse. This is a time of truth and unveiling. The light isn’t going anywhere. It’s just revealing itself fully to us now. If we don’t at least attempt to wrestle with the truth telling, delusion will consume us.”
We need to stop letting delusion consume us, and remember that there is no shadow without light.
Siete White on Tik Tok username @SieteSays explains in a video that apocalypse comes from the Greek word, “apocalyptein,” which means to uncover, disclose, or reveal. The true meaning of apocalypse is a disclosure or revelation of great knowledge. For us white people, we’re learning the truth about a lot of things right now that Black and Indigenous peoples have been trying to tell us for centuries.
Let’s let the deception crumble, get sober, heal our resistance to the resistance (of colonialism), and welcome the light pouring in.
Relevant:
The Fandom Around RBG Is Out of Step With Reality by Amanda Hess
Another Negative Obituary: Ruth Badger Ginsburg by Moufawad-Paul.
