False Promises Link – Yet again settler politics is claiming to have the interest of natives at mind but in the end the acts of the affirmative plan will be to assuage fears and then continue the present absenting of natives within political discourse. This renders natives in the past and ignores the ongoing hellish existence of natives described in our Maldonado and Torres evidence.

Those who do fight are labeled as "too harsh" in our criticism; our words are deemed "not saleable" for Eurocentrics. We are told that, while "they agree" with our points, they won't be acceptable to others; we risk losing "credibility." Our strong Indigenous voices are not intending to make Eurocentrics comfortable or to court their approval but rather to defend our people and to celebrate our own cultures, practices, and traditions. Even so, when we make waves and stand our ground in opposing colonialism, we risk being marginalized by being excluded altogether. These waves represent "another day in the life of colonial oppression;" and they are some of the roughest, the ones that can wear us down the most. But we are not without help. Most fundamentally, as Indigenous peoples, we can call on the deep, abiding currents of our traditions, cultures, and communities. Some Indigenous peoples feel these currents more strongly than others, depending on the access we have to elders, traditional family structures, and culturally rooted communities. These currents align us to who we are as Indigenous peoples and help us respond in good, sustainable ways to the colonial onslaughts. Our culture, traditions, and communities give us energy, hope, and direction as we do our best to negotiate rough waters. Indeed, this is our challenge as we rethink justice—namely, to respond in an Indigenous way to whatever arises, including harms. If we are disconnected from who we are as Indigenous peoples, we will be out of balance in our lives and communities. Instead of turning to our Indigenous ways when troubles arise, we will resort to remedies that were designed by and for our colonizers. Yet because these are not our remedies, they will not address the underlying causes of harm. The "solutions" they bring will be superficial and symptom oriented at best and will extend the damage of colonization, residential schools, and assimilation at worst. The more we resort to them and use them, even to fight colonization, the more we depend on them instead of on our own ways. In the name of fighting colonization, we risk finding ourselves being gradually molded in the colonizers' image since using colonizer methods has a way of leaving its mark on us.