Black Indian Quotes

“Before the Five Civilized Tribes—the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole—were forced to leave their homes and tribal lands in the Southeast, many had assimilated in order to save themselves, to keep their land. They cut their hair and wore western clothes and adopted white ways to make whites feel “safer” around “Native” Americans. They owned hundreds of slaves, who walked with them during the Great Removal to Indian Territory in Oklahoma and Alabama. Slaveholding Indians? I never learned about that in school.”
― Shonda Buchanan, Black Indian

“Tribal Councils at first didn’t see the need to keep written records, until Chief Tecumseh created a Cherokee language in relation to English. Tecumseh realized that his people had to prove who they were to be counted or validated in white society. And then he assumed a written language would protect them, but he was wrong. Even though their ancestors had roamed the land for thousands of years before Columbus, nothing would protect them from the British, Scots, Irish, French, Dutch, and Portuguese who descended with greedy, land-hungry eyes.”
― Shonda Buchanan, Black Indian

“And yes, because of racism, prejudice, and discrimination, a sense of privilege came with passing or claiming Indian blood, but only after American Indians had been defeated across the country. Before that, being one was dangerous. But we were not “claiming” it. Our records said so. Our DNA says so. And we were dangerous. That inherited anger, the drinking—wherever it came from, enslavement or stolen lands was our ruin. I look at my family in that funeral home: we didn’t feel exotic.”
― Shonda Buchanan, Black Indian

“All my aunt’s stories have gone with her to the grave, lost to her daughters and me, the niece who needs them. Tears run hot and sour into my open mouth.”
― Shonda Buchanan, Black Indian

“I choke back a tingle in my throat. I pray that time speeds up. That I won’t sneeze. That this will soon be over and I can go home, to my home, Los Angeles. Where I am the daughter of no one. The niece of no one. Where I am only “Yaya Afiya,” Yoruba-speaking Nigerians say, mother of Afiya.”
― Shonda Buchanan, Black Indian

“Like God, we did not go to church.”
― Shonda Buchanan, Black Indian

“Me, I don’t know no better. My sister is pissed to the highest pisstivity; you can see the steam emanating from the crown of her head.”
― Shonda Buchanan, Black Indian

“would rather have his thumbnails pulled out than flip patties at Burger King out on Stadium Drive. His undercover bouncer’s job pays him twice as much in less time and reputational harm.”
― Shonda Buchanan, Black Indian