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Welcome back to The Clubhouse!

Coming off the heels of her working on Kahhori: Reshaper of Worlds #1 for Marvel, writer Kelly Lynne D’Angelo made a very important point on social media about people here in the U.S. being moved by a viral video of Māori lawmakers performing a haka in Parliament to oppose a proposed law redefining the country’s founding agreement between Indigenous Māori and the British Crown.

The issue isn’t people being inspired by this act of rebellion. It’s that D’Angelo noticed that U.S. citizens were finding inspiration abroad while seemingly ignoring Indigenous people here in the U.S.—during Native American Heritage Month of all times. Let’s get into it below!

As always, we’d love to hear from you. Tell us about the Native American activists and organizations that inspire you, as well as your ideas for future issues of The Clubhouse, or anything else that’s on your mind re: pop culture/media. Just reply to this email!

This Native American Heritage Month, Americans don't need a haka. We need to put our energy behind our own Indigenous peoples.

by Teresa Jusino

Back in mid-November, TV, musical, and comics writer, Kelly Lynne D’Angelo, who is Haudenosaunee Tuscarora and Muscowpetung Cree, posted the above thread on her Bluesky account in response to a comment a recent viral video of a haka being performed in a session of New Zealand’s Parliament. The haka was in protest of a proposed law redefining the country’s founding agreement between Indigenous Māori and the British Crown that the Māori community believes would set back Indigenous rights.

You may have been inspired by this haka, too. Māori lawmaker Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke began the haka while tearing a copy of the proposed bill, and several other of her Māori colleagues joined in. It was indeed inspiring!

But it’s comments like the one above that rubbed D’Angelo the wrong way. The commenter wrote, “Can they do one [of] these for us? Please? Will the Māori people please perform a haka for us? We need this kind of energy here in the U.S. right now!!”

D’Angelo responded: “Dear people of America: *this* is the kind of stuff you shouldn’t say in response to the Māori people and the US. You have Native and Indigenous people here, working *relentlessly* with our own practices and medicines that never go viral or get uplifted bc this culture refuses to give us the chance.”

The thread continues, and D’Angelo closes with the thought, “(Don’t get me started on how this is still asking Indigenous people to “perform” for your benefit, entertainment, and behalf, like monkeys. Once again, we’re “Show Indians” paraded in circus cages.)”

In short, we don’t need to be seeking inspiration in the performance of Indigenous cultures elsewhere when we have Native activists and organizations here in the U.S. who’ve BEEN doing the inspiring work.

With Native American Heritage Month coming to a close, and with Thanksgiving (a fraught national holiday if ever there was one, especially for our Native brethren) looming, let’s refocus our attention on the myriad Native and Indigenous peoples upon whose lands we are currently living.

If we want Indigenous inspiration, we don’t have to look any further than our own backyards. And if we want to support Native and Indigenous communities, we can start in our own cities. Natives in the U.S. aren’t “historical.” They are vibrantly alive right now, all over the United States, and they deserve our respect and attention.

Not sure where to start? The Native Ways Federation has a huge list of Native-led non-profits divided by state. Look into what Native activists and educators are up to where you live, and support their efforts with your finances, your time, or your signal-boosting.

Meanwhile, the Decolonizing Wealth Project has an Indigenous Earth Fund, which supports Indigenous-led organizations and tribes driving solutions on climate and conservation issues. You can support the fund itself, or you can scroll down to the bottom of this page to see previous winners of the grant divided by state and learn more about local Native-led climate initiatives where you live.

The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center focuses specifically on ending violence against Native women and children through “culturally grounded resources, technical assistance and training, and policy development to strengthen tribal sovereignty.”

And since I’m Puerto Rican (and people tend to forget that P.R. is, at the moment, a colony commonwealth of the U.S.), I’d love to offer up the United Confederation of Taíno People, a non-profit based in New York and Puerto Rico whose programs for the preservation and protection of the Taíno and other Caribbean Indigenous Peoples “engage human rights, environmental health and climate change; sustainable development; land reclamation; sacred sites; food sovereignty; language revitalization; and cultural arts.”

Lastly, I’m going to remind you of Native Land, a site that will help you learn what tribes are native to the lands you live and/or work on. Engage your search skills, zero in on the Native populations indigenous to where you are, and make it a point to keep them in mind in all your activism.

We can’t expect to build the country we want to live in while ignoring the people whose relationship with this land runs the deepest.

Here are some recent posts over at TMS that you shouldn’t miss:

INTERVIEW SPOTLIGHT

Have you seen these interviews? Make sure you’re caught up with the convos TMS is having with the folks behind our favorite stories!

Chloe Bennet and Ronny Chieng talk about their new noir/magical realism show on Hulu, Interior Chinatown!

And here are some other chats that aren’t to be missed:

Thoughts? Ideas? Reply to this email to tell us how we’re doing and what you’d like to see!

Image from Kahhori: Reshaper of Worlds #1 variant cover by Maria Wolf.