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For Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I want to feature Jordan M, aka @nativein_la, a Lakhota athlete and founder of @rising_hearts. The painted handprint on her face represents the voices of her community, silenced by violence and racism. Jordan dedicated her 2019 Boston Marathon and San Jose half marathon races to the missing and murdered Indigenous women. She plans to continue her prayer runs until we see solutions, accountability, and justice.In her own words:“Violence against the Earth is violence against women. The first time I had ever heard of missing and murdered Indigenous womxn being an issue was in 2006, during my Native American Studies political activism courses about the growing number of First Nations Womxn and relatives going missing on the Highway of Tears. #MMIW, the deeper meaning, and hashtags became part of my knowledge in the last several years & it includes our men, elders, 2 spirit LGBTQIA family.There will be no future if those continue to be complicit, ignorant or racist when it comes to protecting our Earth. Many of us are out there on the frontlines, locking bodies down and occupying sacred lands to stop the greed that is bulldozing through to increase fossil fuel development and other extraction methods that rape our Earth. Many of us are speaking out and organizing. Many of us are documenting these tragedies. Many of us are fighting in the courts to protect human rights. Many of us are in the labs or classrooms studying the long-term effects of our human impact and climate change. These extraction methods and greed from governments and corporations are putting profit over our lives and our sacred resources. I want my future children & grandchildren to inherit a thriving, sustainable & livable future & not the problems of today created by 50 years of colonization that is stealing their future.”We must continue to elevate Indigenous voices to create a more sustainable world. #indigenouspeoplesday
