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The Red Nation's logo from their website.

The Red Nation

The Red Nation is a leftist, Native-led organization of Native and non-Native activists advocating Native liberation. Based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, The Red Nation’s aims for “the liberation of Indigenous people and the overthrow of colonialism and capitalism" by confronting issues of police brutality and general injustice to the indigenous people in Albuquerque and indigenous people on a national level. Note that "The Red Nation" (therednation.org) is not affiliated nor associated with "RedNation" (rednation.org), an online forum on Native-American related topics.

Police Brutality in New Mexico

In 2014, New Mexico had the highest rate of police killings in the nation and the Albuquerque Police Department remains to have one of the highest rates of fatal police shootings. Historically, New Mexico's native communities have seen various forms of violent crimes and discrimination. In April 1974, three white high school students from Farmington, New Mexico murdered three Navajo men to a point where they were "burned and beaten beyond recognition." Today in Albuquerque, "Native people are more likely to be poor, more likely to be incarcerated, and more likely to experience violence than any other group." There is even a part of town in Albuquerque that the Albuquerque police call the “War Zone” that is inhabited by homeless Natives; one person even explained that "[the police brutality] is a war waged by police against Native people." In response to these injustices, The Red Nation formed to address the "marginalization and overlooking of Native struggles within mainstream social justice organizing" as well as to call attention to the destruction and violence towards Native life and land.

"Areas of struggle"

The Red Nation has four particular missions, or what they call "areas of struggle" in which they center their organization's goals:

1. Indigeneity is a political condition that challenges the existence and domination of colonial nation-states-- a struggle for the defense and livelihood of Native peoples and lands.

2. Liberation centers on the repatriation of Native lives and land. They say that the liberation is not about ‘healing’ or ‘getting-over-it,’ but a struggle for material and structural transformation.

3. Resistance continues the long history of Native anti-colonial struggle by reviving active resistance as fundamental to liberation.

4. Coalition is to mobilize for widespread action and community engagement for Native struggles for liberation [through protest, campaigns, and... ]

"Anti-Indian Common Sense"

Because Albuquerque is a border town, it is labeled by The Red Nation as "an important site in the production of anti-Indian common sense." Anti-Indian Common Sense, or “anti-Indianism,” was coined by Dakota scholar Elizabeth Cook-Lynn where she defines it as “that which treats the Indians and their tribes as if they don’t exist.” One use of anti-Indianism as "common sense" can be attributed to Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist theorist, who described “common sense” as an ideology not necessarily actively theorized but "more like a knee-jerk response." An example of this response is how people don’t necessarily think Indians aren’t supposed to exist, but they still can’t confront the existence or the persistence of Indigenous life in cities because they feel the Natives "don’t belong there."

"10 Point Program"

The Red Nation developed a list of demands and grievances they call the "10 Point Program" in which they vocalize their demands from the American government, society, and America's economic and political systems. The points, ideas, and claims are taken from their pamphlet, "TRN Pamphlet Manifesto":

1. The Re-Instatement of Treaty Rights

From 1776 to 1871, the U.S. Congress ratified more than 300 treaties with Native Nations. A provision in the 1871 Indian Appropriations Act withdrew federal recognition of Native Nations as separate political entities, contracted through treaties made with the United States. As a result, treaty making was abolished; and it was established that “no Indian nation or tribe within the territory of the United States shall be acknowledged or recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty.”

[They] demand the reinstatement of treaty making and the acknowledgement of Native independence. [They] demand that Native Nations assume their rightful place as independent Nations guaranteed the fundamental right to self-determination for their people, communities, land bases, and political and economic systems.

2. The Full Rights and Equal Protection for Native People

Centuries of forced relocation and land dispossession have resulted in the mass displacement of Native Nations and peoples from their original and ancestral homelands. Today in the United States, four of five Native people do not live within reservation or federal trust land. Many were and are forced to leave reservation and trust lands as economic and political refugees due to high unemployment, government policies, loss of land, lack of infrastructure, and social violence. Yet, off-reservation Native peoples encounter equally high rates of sexual and physical violence, homelessness, incarceration, poverty, discrimination, and economic exploitation in cities and rural border towns.

[They] demand that treaty rights and Indigenous rights be applied and upheld both on- and off-reservation and federal trust land. All of North America, the Western Hemisphere, and the Pacific is Indigenous land. [Their] rights do not begin or end at imposed imperial borders [they] did not create nor give [their] consent to. [They demand] rights to be enforced pursuant to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and the historical and political doctrines of specific Tribes.

3. The End to Disciplinary Violence Against Native Peoples and All Oppressed Peoples

In the United States, more than three million people are incarcerated in the largest prison system in the world. Native peoples and oppressed peoples are disproportionately incarcerated and persecuted by law enforcement. Within the U.S. system, Native people are the group most likely to be murdered and harassed by law enforcement and to experience high rates of incarceration. [The Red Nation] claims this as proof that the system is "inherently racist" and that disciplines politically disenfranchise people to keep them oppressed and prevent them from challenging institutions of racism like prisons, police and the law that maintain the status quo. [The Red Nation] says racist disciplinary institutions contribute to the continued dispossession and death of Native peoples and lifeways in North America.

[They] demand an end to the racist and violent policing of Native peoples on- and off-reservation and federal trust lands. [They] demand an end to the racist state institutions that they see as unjustly targeting and imprisonment Native peoples and all oppressed peoples.

4. The End to Discrimination Against the Native Silent Majority: Youth and The Poor

Native youth and Native poor and homeless experience oppression and violence at rates higher than other classes and groups of Native peoples. Native people experience homelessness and poverty at rates higher than other groups and Native youth suicide and criminalization rates continue to soar. Native youth now comprise as much as 70% of the Native population in some places. Native youth in the U.S. experience rates of physical and sexual violence and post-traumatic stress disorder higher than other groups. Native poor and homeless experience rates of criminalization, alcoholism, and violence at higher rates than other groups. Because many Native youth and Native homeless and poor live off reservation and trust lands, [The Red Nation] says they are treated as inauthentic and without rights. [The Red Nation] observes that Native youth, Native poor, and the homeless continue to be marginalized and ignored within Native and dominant political systems, and within mainstream social justice approaches.

[They] demand an end to the silencing and blaming of Native youth and Native poor and homeless. [They] demand an end to the unjust violence and policing they experience. Native youth and Native poor and homeless are relatives who deserve support and representation. [They] demand they be at the center of Native struggles for liberation.

5. The End to the Discrimination, Persecution, Killing, Torture, and Rape of Native Women

Native women are the targets of legal, political, and extra-legal persecution, killing, rape, torture, discrimination, and disenfranchisement in North America. [The Red Nation] believes this is part of the ongoing process of eliminating women’s political and customary roles as leaders in Native societies. In the United States more than one in three Native women will be raped in their lifetime, often as children. Since 1980, about 1,200 Native women have gone missing or been murdered in Canada; many are young girls. Native women are at higher risk of being targeted for human trafficking and sexual exploitation than other groups. Native women continue to experience sexism and marginalization within Native and dominant political systems, and within mainstream social justice approaches.

[They] demand the end to the legal, political, and extra-legal discrimination, persecution, killing, torture, and rape of Native women. Women are the backbone of our political and customary government systems. They give and represent life and vitality. [The Red Nation] demands that Native women be at the center of Native struggles for liberation.

6. The End to the Discrimination, Persecution, Killing, Torture, and Rape of Native Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Two-Spirit People

Native LGBTQ2 people experience persecution, killing, torture, and rape within Native Nations and within dominant society. The processes of colonization and heteropatriarchy impose binary gender roles, nuclear family structures, and male-dominated hierarchies that are fundamentally at odds with Native customary laws and social organization, where LGBTQ2 people often held positions of privilege and esteem. The effect of this system for Native LGBTQ2 is violent. Native LGBTQ2 experience rates of murder, sexual exploitation, discrimination, hate crimes, homelessness and substance abuse at high rates. Like Native youth, poor and homeless, and women, Native LGBTQ2 continue to be marginalized and ignored within Native and dominant political systems, and within metropolitan-based social justice approaches that ignore the mostly rural-based issues of Native LGBTQ2.

[They] demand the end to the legal, political, and extra-legal discrimination, persecution, killing, torture, and rape of Native LGBTQ2 in Native societies and in dominant society. Native LGBTQ2 are relatives who deserve representation and dignity. [They] demand that they be at the center of Native struggles for liberation.

7. The End to the Dehumanization of Native Peoples

The appropriation of Native imagery and culture for entertainment, such as sports mascots and other racist portrayals, and the celebration of genocide for holidays and amusement, such as Columbus Day and Thanksgiving, dehumanize Native people and attempt to whitewash ongoing histories of genocide and dispossession. These appropriations contribute to the ongoing erasure of Native peoples and seek to minimize the harsh realities and histories of colonization. [The Red Nation] believes these appropriations are crimes against history.

[They] demand an end to the dehumanization of Native peoples through cultural appropriation, racist imagery, and the celebrations of genocide and colonization. They believe condemning symbolic and representational violence is an essential part of any material struggle for liberation.

8. Access to Appropriate Education, Healthcare, Social Services, Employment, and Housing

Access to quality education, healthcare, social services, and housing are fundamental human rights. However, in almost every quality of life standard, Native people have the worst access to adequate educational opportunities, health care, social services, and housing in North America. Native people also have the highest rates of unemployment both on- and off-reservation than any other group in the United States. Access to meaningful standards of living is historically guaranteed under many treaty rights, but have been consistently ignored and unevenly applied across geography and region.

[They] demand the universal enforcement and application of services to improve the standard of living for Native peoples pursuant to provisions in treaties and the UNDRIP, whether such peoples reside on or off reservation and trust lands. North America is our home and [They] demand more than mere survival. [They] demand conditions to thrive.

9. The Repatriation of Native Lands and Lives and the Protection of Nonhuman Relatives

[They] must first be afforded dignified lives as Native peoples who are free to perform our purpose as stewards of life if [they] are to protect and respect our nonhuman relatives—the land, the water, the plants, and the animals. [They] must have the freedom and health necessary to make just, ethical and thoughtful decisions to uphold life. [They] experience the destruction and violation of our nonhuman relatives wrought by militarization, toxic dumping and contamination, and resource extraction as violent. Humans perpetrate this violence against our nonhuman relatives. [They] will be unable to live on our lands and continue on as beings recognized by the spirits if this violence is allowed to continue.

[They] demand an end to all corporate and U.S. control of Native land and resources. [They] demand an end to Tribal collusion with such practices. [They] demand that Points 1-8 be enforced so as to allow Native peoples to live in accordance with their purpose as human beings who protect and respect life. [The Red Nation] says humans have created this crisis and continue to wage horrific violence against our nonhuman relatives. [They assert] it is our responsibility to change this. [They] demand action now.

10. The End to Capitalism-Colonialism

Native people are under constant assault by a capitalist-colonial logic that seeks the erasure of non-capitalist ways of life. Colonial economies interrupt cooperation and association and force people instead into hierarchical relations with agents of colonial authority who function as a permanent occupying force on Native lands. These agents are in place to enforce and discipline Native peoples to ensure that [they] comply with capitalist-colonial logics. There are many methods and agents of enforcement and discipline. There are the police. There are corporations. There are also so-called ‘normal’ social and cultural practices like male-dominance, heterosexuality, and individualism that encourage us to conform to the common sense of capitalism-colonialism. These are all violent forms of social control and invasion that extract life from Natives and other oppressed peoples in order to increase profit margins and consolidate power in the hands of wealthy nation-states like the United States. [The Red Nation] believes the whole system depends on violence to facilitate the accumulation of wealth and power and to suppress other, non-capitalist ways of life that might challenge dominant modes of power. Political possibilities for Native liberation therefore cannot emerge from forms of economic or institutional development, even if these are Tribally controlled under the guise of ‘self-determination’ or ‘culture.’ They can only emerge from directly challenging the capitalist-colonial system of power through collective struggle and resistance.

[They] demand the end to capitalism-colonialism on a global level. Native peoples, youth, poor and homeless, women, LGBTQ2 and nonhuman relatives experience extreme and regular forms of violence because the whole system relies on our death. Capitalism-colonialism means death for Native peoples. For Native peoples to live, capitalism and colonialism must die.

Movements

The Red Nation has participated in many movements related to Native-American social justice.

In 2015, The Red nation stood in solidarity with Native Hawaiians against a thirty meter telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawai'i because of how sacred the mountain the telescope was meant to be built on was to the native Hawaiians. The Red Nation said they agreed with the Native Hawaiians that the project should not be done, claiming that Mauna Kea "should be protected from capitalist-colonialist violence." In August of 2015, The Red Nation led a march and rally to stand against racism by abolishing Columbus Day and instead replace the national holiday as "Indigenous Peoples Day." After two months, on October 7, The Red Nation and the Native people of Albuquerque obtained a victory as the Albuquerque City Council declared the celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day on the second Monday of October, replacing the traditional Columbus Day. In early 2016, The Red Nation held a "Day of Solidarity with Leonard Peltier," a man who became an international symbol for Indigenous liberation after serving forty years in federal prison for a crime they claim he did not commit. More recently, The Red Nation members showed support to the #BlackLivesMatter movement, saying that "it’s not about serving [ones]self as an individual," so they stand behind other oppressed groups of people, advocating that "solidarity is not hard" amongst oppressed people who face similar struggles.

Social media

The Red Nation has multiple platforms of communication, most of which are online:

Website: https://therednation.org/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therednation/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/The_Red_Nation?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLWlIHx5dZiPfCosHk0YqFQ

Email: contact@therednation.org