Indigenous communities face all kinds of injustice—from violence to poverty to climate change. Yet their voices are often absent from policy discussions. We talk with Seeding Sovereignty’s Christine Nobiss about what it would look like to follow the lead of Indigenous people, and why violence against Indigenous women needs much more of our attention. (This episode discusses sexual and domestic violence—please take care of yourself while listening.)

Christine is a Plains Cree-Saulteaux writer, artist, and organizer based in Iowa. She leads several projects with Seeding Sovereignty, an organization empowering the political voice of Indigenous peoples.

Indigenous women have managed to tenaciously keep our culture together, and keep our children healthy, and our communities going. We are the walking embodiments of a social impact strategy. —Christine Nobiss, decolonizer, Seeding Sovereignty

We talk about:

• How Seeding Sovereignty empowers Indigenous peoples’ political voice
• How Christine got her start as an activist and organizer, what it means to be a decolonizer, plus what she’s working on now
• The power of tapping into younger—and older—generations to build an activist movement

Links:

• Twitter
• Christine’s column on Bustle
• Christine interviewing Elizabeth Warren
• Seeding Sovereignty
• SHIFT, Seeding Sovereignty’s political engagement program
• Accomplices Not Allies

Plus

• We dig deeper into the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in the U.S. and Canada
• We check in on the status of the still-not-renewed (!!) Violence Against Women Act, and why it needs everyone’s attention
• And a big fuck yeah to running a 10k together, and swinging by Federal Donuts after. (Fun fact: this podcast became an idea during a run!)