We struggle for justice for Pacific Northwest Family Circle Loved Ones and All Stolen Lives murdered by police. We do this on the stolen land of indigenous people including the Multnomah, the Chinook, the Clatskanie, the Kalapuya, the Mollala, the Atfalati, the Wasco, the Wishram, The Yakama, The Cowlitz, the Clackamas, the Kathlamet, and many more not named here.
Indigenous people thrived on this land since “time immemorial” before the arrival of colonizers. For 10,000 years, land currently called the United States sustained 50,000 generations of indigenous nations. The Pacific Northwest, especially, supported thriving civilizations. People spoke hundreds of languages and many peoples managed these lands through history.
It’s likely that 25 million people were killed, and others enslaved, in the genocide colonizers used to establish control over the land now called the United States. Later, indigenous populations were, and continue to be, controlled by forced sterilization. Despite this, thousands of indigenous people descended from local tribes and elsewhere continue to live in what is called Portland, Oregon. Nationally, they continue to experience the highest rate of police violence.
Killing people to get and protect wealth is at least as old as the founding of the United States. When today’s police kill Loved Ones, they are participating in a long arc of violence used by the government to secure the safety and wealth of a handful of over-privileged people. May our understanding of the history of government-supported violence perpetrated on indigenous people inform the struggle for justice against police violence. May we receive justice. May we serve and support the people on whose land we are either relatives, occupiers, or both.