Black and Indigenous Solidarity in Social Sciences: Leaning into Our Nuanced Racialized Identities and Healing Together

Abstract

Our co-authored piece contributes to Black and Indigenous solidarity juxtaposed to our nuanced and convergent lived experiences as racialized people. Lauren and I (Nate)co-explore how our racialized identities and stories may complexify Black-and-Indigenous-led movements. We say “racialized” to acknowledge white supremacists’ racecraft to subjugate Black and Indigenous people. Lauren, an Indigenous educator activist, and I, a Black scholar activist, both with white maternal lineage, connected after storying about our journeys to, through, and beyond the teaching profession. Black and Indigenous educators have centered theories of we are not free until we are all free. Our knowledge contributions further complexify freedom-for-all by offering Black and Indigenous knowledge on nuanced ancestry within the U.S. racialization project. Conversational data stemmed from an educator activist collective project where Lauren and I had many conversations about our similar and unique journeys toward our justice orientation. Our conversations yielded many Black and Indigenous solidarity learnings. These co-learnings included: building solidarity through weaving our unique stories, extending nuanced understandings of racialized experiences, and co-regulation in societal spaces not made for us. We conclude with implications in continuing to build solidarity in social science.