First, A Day of Rage Against Colonialism
The soft but persistent sound of sidewalk chalk scratching against concrete filled Downtown Reno’s plaza yesterday. It intertwined itself with the hum of outdoor voices, chants and rap music played over a loudspeaker, a child’s scooter clattering as it struck cracks along the sidewalk, revving motorcycle engines, and the Truckee River roaring like white noise in the background.
Native Americans and allies gathered Sunday afternoon to color the concrete in support of Indigenous Peoples Day of Rage Against Colonialism. The agenda for the full-day event preceding Indigenous People’s Day included a morning river cleanup, the artistic reclamation of the plaza, and a march on UNR’s Mackay statue later in the afternoon.
“[Rage] may sound like a heavy word, or an intense word,” Avory Wyatt, one of the event planners said. “But this is how we do it, with cleanups, art murals.”
This community-building approach garnered support from a wide array of people. Alongside Native American participants, the event was well-attended by the LGBTQ+ community, AntiFa, local artists, and white allies.
“It’s a way for me to connect my ancestry to today, and show my resistance to colonization,” said Ruby Barrientos, a Salvadoran artist who helped fill the Downtown Reno plaza with sidewalk chalk drawings. “The people that inhabited the Great Basin prior to the European invasion were the Numa or Numu (Northern Paiute), the Washeshu (Washoe), the Newe (Shoshone), and the Nuwuvi (Southern Paiute),” the Reno Sparks Indian Colony says. Indigenous People’s Day on October 12th to honor Native American peoples was officially acknowledged as a holiday by Reno last year. Photo by Sydney Oliver.
Deep Sobriety
While the day was filled with welcoming eye-crinkles that hinted at smiles shared from underneath masks, it was also touched by deep sobriety, especially during the march on the statue of John Mackay, at the north end of the University of Nevada Quad in front of the Mackay School of Mines.
“The truth is that, for a long time, we’ve been dying. We’ve been dying, and we’re just trying to live, and just trying to thrive now,” Dwight George, one of the event planners, said during a public speech.
Someone had just turned off the music coming from a portable sound system—audience members listened solemnly, some snapping their fingers or Mhm-ing as Dwight spoke. The relative silence broke for applause as he said, “If anything, we’ve always been here, and we will always be here.”
His twin brother, Everett George, who works at a youth shelter that takes in native children, also spoke publicly. He mentioned how isolated life can be on a reservation. “When I talk to [the kids] about going to a different city, they treat it like I went to Paris,” he said.
“In order to ‘prosper’ in America—you can’t really do that on a reservation,” Everett said. “We have each other, and that is it. We don’t have any other land to return to, we don’t have any other place to go back. This is it. This is it right here.”
Many event attendees donned unique t-shirts. Beside the slogan featured above (“The wrong Amazon is burning. The wrong ICE is melting.”), another event attendee’s shirt read “Merciless Indian Savages,” a direct quote from the Declaration of Independence. Photo by Sydney Oliver.
The Significance of Marching on Mackay Statue
One line Everett repeated several times: “It’s very weird being Native American.”
Avory also spoke, touching on the upward battle against history that Native Americans face. He gestured to his pocket, and said that, in his wallet, he has a card documenting his native blood.
“If we’re not more than one fourth native, we’re not native in United State’s terms,” he said. “They track the blood of horses, they track the blood of dogs, but what they don’t tell you, is that they track the blood of natives.”
He also mentioned the significance of marching on the Mackay statue. In the 1800s, miners arrived in Nevada. They profited off of the land, and killed local natives to do so.
Throughout the day, attendees passed around a flyer carrying a QR code for a petition to take down the Mackay.
“The reality is, we drink that water. We literally drink that water,” Orlando OH (above) said while tracing out the raised arm in his sidewalk chalk mural. He was glad to help with the river cleanup earlier in the day, but dismayed at the amount of trash event attendees fished from the Truckee. Photo by Sydney Oliver