Mar 20, 2019 - Core by Tara Houska

You mistake my kindness for weakness.
You mistake my silence for fear.
You mistake my patience for acquiescence.

I see your tainted path.

I walked to the bright light, and returned.
I carry the scars of abuse, of assault, of trauma, of the pole, of the buffalo in my skin.
I rose more powerful each time.

My spirit grows, nourished with the life-ways and teachings of the ancestors.
Humility, purpose, intent.
The eyes of the future shine with stars and promise.

My mind laps against the shore of my rocky heart, ready to whitecap in the growing storm of truth.

Do not forget. I won’t.

By Tara Houska

Tara Houska (Couchiching First Nation Anishinaabe) is a tribal attorney, the National Campaigns Director of Honor the Earth, and a former advisor on Native American affairs to Bernie Sanders. She advocates on behalf of tribal nations at the local and federal levels on a wide range of issues impacting indigenous peoples. She spent six months on the frontlines in North Dakota fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline, and is heavily engaged in the movement to defund fossil fuels and a years-long struggle against Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline. She is a co-founder of Not Your Mascots, a non-profit committed to educating the public about the harms of stereotyping and promoting positive representation of Native Americans in the public sphere.