Why Indigenous Solidarity Matters
One of the most difficult lessons I have learned through my work in Indigenous communities is this: when Natives fight Natives, white supremacy wins.
I have seen it happen in tribal politics. I have seen it happen in social activism. I have seen it happen in Indigenous language revitalization. People from one community fight people from another community. People from one dialect criticize people from another dialect. People who should be working together become consumed by internal conflict.
And when that happens, good work gets derailed.
This is not an argument against disagreement. Healthy communities can and should have disagreements. It is an argument against allowing those disagreements to become so consuming that we lose sight of the larger work: strengthening our communities, revitalizing our languages, protecting our cultures, and creating a healthier future for our children.
The challenge is to recognize how colonization has taught oppressed communities to turn against one another—and then choose a different path.
Colonization Does Not Always Work From the Outside
When we think about oppression, it is easy to imagine a powerful group standing outside a community and imposing its will.
That certainly happens.
But systems of oppression can also become internalized.
Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed helped me think about this dynamic. Oppression is not maintained only through an external actor. Oppressive systems can become embedded within communities and relationships.
We can begin to reproduce the very behaviors that have harmed us.
That can look like lateral violence: people within an oppressed group directing hostility toward one another.
It can look like internalized oppression: believing the negative things that others have said about us and turning those beliefs inward.
It can also appear as conflict between different oppressed communities.
These dynamics can be incredibly destructive because they consume energy that could otherwise be used to build something better.
Lateral Violence in Indigenous Communities
In Native communities, lateral violence can take many forms.
Sometimes it means questioning whether another person is "really Native" or Native enough.
Sometimes it means one tribal community attacking another.
Sometimes it means people from one Ojibwe dialect criticizing people who speak another dialect.
Sometimes it emerges through tribal politics or disagreements over cultural authority.
And sometimes it appears in more painful forms, including self-hatred, substance abuse, violence, or other consequences of internalized oppression.
We need to understand these patterns without using them as another reason to shame one another.
Understanding is the first step toward changing them.
Language Revitalization Requires Unity
Indigenous language revitalization is a particularly important example.
We are in a moment when many communities are working hard to strengthen the Ojibwe language and other Indigenous languages. We need speakers, teachers, learners, curriculum developers, elders, families, schools, and communities working together.
But I have also seen language revitalization efforts become divided by community, dialect, or competing ideas about who has authority.
Our languages have regional variation. That variation is real and valuable.
We should not allow those differences to become weapons against one another.
If one community is producing new speakers, that is good.
If another community is developing new teaching materials, that is good.
If another community is preserving a dialect or pronunciation that differs from ours, that is good.
Language revitalization should create more speakers, not more barriers.
The goal is not to prove that one community's way is the only legitimate way.
The goal is to make sure our languages live.
The "Oppression Olympics" Doesn't Help Anyone
I see similar dynamics in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work.
Sometimes people become caught in what I call the "oppression Olympics": competing over whose group has suffered more.
"My group suffered more than your group."
"My community's experience matters more."
"My issue should come first."
That way of thinking creates a competition where there should be solidarity.
Different communities have different histories. Different forms of oppression have different consequences. We should be able to recognize those differences without turning them into a contest.
Instead of competing for control of the microphone, we can listen to one another.
Instead of dismissing another group's experience because it is not our own, we can validate it.
Instead of walking away from a movement because it does not immediately center our particular community, we can look for opportunities to build alliances.
Solidarity does not require us to erase our differences.
It requires us to recognize that our differences do not prevent us from working together.
History Shows How Division Can Be Used
History provides many examples of powerful systems maintaining control by turning people against one another.
The British Empire, for example, governed enormous territories despite having a relatively small population compared with the peoples it controlled. One strategy of empire was to recruit people from one population to help control another.
Similar patterns occurred in the history of the United States.
Native people from one community were sometimes recruited as scouts or military allies against Native people from another community.
Black Americans, including Black soldiers, were also recruited into the U.S. military and participated in campaigns against Native nations.
These histories are complicated, and individuals made choices for many different reasons. But the larger pattern matters: systems of power can become stronger when people who might otherwise form alliances are encouraged to fight one another.
Understanding that history is essential to understanding Native American history today.
This Is Not About Blaming White People
It is important to be clear about something.
This argument is not about being against white people.
It is about being against white supremacy and other systems that dehumanize people.
All of us are harmed by systems of dehumanization.
Racism hurts people who experience it directly, but it also damages relationships, communities, institutions, and the people who participate in the system.
The answer is not to reverse the hierarchy and decide who gets to be the oppressor.
The answer is to dismantle oppression.
We should not be fighting over who gets to stand on top of an unjust system.
We should be working together to build something better.
From Competition to Solidarity
What would happen if we approached one another with more love?
Not sentimental love, but the kind of love that requires us to listen, support one another, and show up.
Love of ourselves.
Love of our communities.
Love of people in other communities.
Love that allows us to say, "Your experience is real, even though it is different from mine."
That kind of solidarity can change what is possible.
When we stop spending all of our energy fighting one another, we can mobilize resources.
We can strengthen Indigenous education.
We can support Indigenous language revitalization.
We can protect cultural knowledge.
We can create healthier communities.
We can advocate more effectively.
And we can give our children something better than the divisions we inherited.
We Don't Have to Reproduce What Was Done to Us
Colonization has left deep wounds.
But recognizing those wounds does not mean we are destined to reproduce them.
We can learn to recognize lateral violence and internalized oppression when they appear.
We can interrupt them.
We can choose collaboration over competition.
We can make room for multiple Indigenous communities, languages, histories, and experiences.
We can disagree without dehumanizing one another.
We can hold ourselves accountable without destroying one another.
That is part of decolonization, too.
What Indigenous Solidarity Can Look Like
Indigenous solidarity does not mean everyone has to agree.
It can mean:
Supporting another community's language revitalization efforts even when their dialect differs from ours.
Listening to another group's experience without immediately comparing it to our own.
Making space for Native leadership rather than competing for authority.
Challenging racism without creating new hierarchies.
Recognizing historical differences while looking for common ground.
Refusing to participate in "Native enough" tests that divide our communities.
Building relationships across tribal, racial, and cultural differences.
Putting resources toward solutions rather than spending them on internal conflict.
These are practical choices.
Solidarity is something we do.
Questions & Answers
What is lateral violence?
Lateral violence occurs when people who experience oppression direct hostility, discrimination, or harm toward people within their own community or toward another marginalized community.
How does lateral violence affect Indigenous communities?
It can divide communities, weaken political and social movements, interfere with Indigenous language revitalization, and redirect energy away from constructive work.
What can individuals do?
Listen. Learn history. Build relationships. Support other communities. Challenge dehumanizing language. Share resources. And when conflict arises, ask whether the disagreement is helping us build the future we want—or simply keeping us divided.
Our Future Depends on What We Build Together
The forces that divide us are powerful.
But so are the forces that connect us.
When Native people fight Native people, when marginalized communities compete against one another, and when we spend our energy proving who has suffered the most, we lose something much more important: the opportunity to work together.
We do not have to agree on everything.
We do not have to erase our differences.
But we can refuse to dehumanize one another.
We can listen.
We can support one another.
We can mobilize our resources.
We can strengthen our languages and cultures.
And we can fight oppression rather than fighting over who gets to be the oppressor.
When we choose solidarity over division, we create a future that colonization could not.
Recommended links for posting
Most relevant books
Recommended internal links
Suggested external reading
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire — particularly useful as background for the discussion of internalized oppression and lateral violence.