'Let's take our daughters and dance': How indigenous communities are showing solidarity with Black Lives Matter in Milwaukee
Talis Shelbourne
At the end of Margaret Noodin's email signature, there are six sentences written twice — once in Ojibwe and once in English.
They read:
Black lives matter in heaven, Black lives matter on earth, Black lives matter in the streets, Black lives matter in every house, Black lives matter in all we do and decide.
The last one reads simply: "Apiitendaagoziwag mekadewizijig. Black lives matter."
It's one of the ways that Noodin, a professor of English and American Indian Studies and the director of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Electa Quinney Institute for American Indian Education, is showing solidarity with a movement that has highlighted what she called, "the militarized relationship that the U.S. has had with entire communities."
Another is by inspiring others from indigenous nations to perform a Jingle Dress Dance meant to bring healing as the country continues to wrestle with race and policing.
'Let's take our daughters and dance'
Noodin, who is of Anishinaabe ancestry, serves on the Milwaukee Water Commons board, of which Brenda Coley is the co-executive director.
Coley lives near East North Avenue and North Holton Street, where a mural of George Floyd was painted in early June.
Noodin said that when she asked Coley how she was doing, Coley told her, "'We are so tired. We are just so tired. But it can’t stop. It can’t be another sacrifice, another death, another loss; it has to be sustained.' They had a goal of sustaining peaceful protest for 200 days."
Knowing that would be an exhausting pace, Noodin said she and Kim Blaeser decided to give Coley "a day off," so to speak, and organized a Jingle Dress Dance. The dance dates back to another time of turmoil, particularly among indigenous populations.
"Kim and I have been doing jingle dancing since the pandemic started. The jingle dance is a healing dance that came out of the 1918 (Spanish flu) pandemic, and it became a very common part of the powwow dance."
Blaeser, an indigenous writer, professor and 2015-'16 Wisconsin Poet Laureate, knows the history of the Jingle Dress Dance and has written about it before:
When the father of an ill young girl prayed for her healing, the regalia we still fashion and the dance we continue to perform came to him in a dream. Following his vision, women created dresses adorned with metal cones that 'sing' with the dancer’s moves. When four women performed at ceremony, the story says the sounds called the young girl back. Growing stronger throughout the night, she finally joined the dancers.
An explanation of that tradition was part of the dance performed in front of Floyd's mural, where Siobhan Marks explained the teachings of the dress, offerings were made and a dance by those wearing the dress was performed.
Blaeser said she and Noodin were joined by indigenous people from all over the state (as well as some outside the state) and there were elders, women and men who brought their children and even a 3-year-old boy who danced.
At the end, Blaeser said the "AIM Song" was performed in Anishinaabemowin.
That AIM Song, named after the American Indian Movement, is itself steeped in a history of demanding social accountability.
According to Indian Country Today, AIM's leaders stormed City Hall and demanded that police charge two white men accused of stripping, humiliating, beating and leaving a Pine Ridge man named Raymond Yellow Thunder to die of hypothermia. Yellow Thunder's family of the Northern Cheyenne Nation gave the AIM leaders a song as thanks and that song became known as the AIM Song.
Shared suffering brings solidarity
"Anishinaabeg people believe in the Jingle Dress tradition as healing for spirit and flesh," Blaeser wrote. Knowing that Milwaukee's — and the world's — Black community is hurting is why she said she wanted to show support and solidarity with Black Lives Matter.
"We talked about how our indigenous communities have also been among those targeted by police, we are among those who have the highest percentage of the prison population and so on," she explained. "And so we totally understand that issue of law enforcement and the judicial system in the country."
Noodin said the need for healing from the coronavirus and the indigenous and Black community's shared history of being harassed by government entities inspired her to unite those two stories.
"So I just said to Kim, 'Let’s take our daughters and dance.' For us, it was sort of like, it'll be two women and their daughters; let’s give another woman a rest."
But then as more people learned about the dance, it grew, culminating in "multiple nations and multiple generations" dancing for a cause. "It became a way to signal to the Black community to say 'we care.' A number of people cheered and honked when we walked by," Noodin said.
Change, Noodin said, is something that must be fought for and the work of bettering society is not something that is ever quite complete.
"There’s been this real ever-present sense that things change constantly compared to a hierarchical world, where if you just do this and this, you reach a pinnacle and you will be happy. It’s constant change and vigilant maintenance of sustained relationships."
The last dance was so successful that Blaeser said the community has called for another, which they are planning July 31 at 4 p.m.
Blaeser said the dance is meant to heal and show people they all have a role to play.
"I think that people feel a little like, what can I do? They feel a little bit helpless," she said. "But I think this is a moment when we see that enough people banding together can shut down a mine (or) take down a statue. What we really need is for people to feel empowered, take a stand, not just sit back and watch things happen and realize that they could be part of the solution."
Contact Talis Shelbourne at (414) 403-6651 or tshelbourn@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @talisseer and message her on Facebook at @talisseer.
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