As We Have Always Done Quotes

“… settler colonialism will always define the issues with a solution that reentrenches its own power.”
― Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance

“Recognition for us is about presence, about profound listening, and about recognizing and affirming the light in each other as a mechanism for nurturing and strengthening internal relationships to our Nishnaabeg worlds. It is a core part of our political systems because they are rooted in our bodies and our bodies are not just informed by but created and maintained by relationships of deep reciprocity. Our bodies exist only in relation to Indigenous complex, nonlinear constructions of time, space, and place that are continually rebirthed through the practice and often coded recognition of obligations and responsibilities within a nest of diversity, freedom, consent, noninterference, and a generated, proportional, emergent reciprocity.”
― Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance

“Our presence is our weapon, and this is visible to me at every protest, every mobilization, every time a Two Spirit person gifts us with a dance at our powwows, every time we speak our truths, every time we embody Indigenous life.”
― Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance