Lilia D. Monzó

“Refusal involves no longer accepting the negation of our ontological and epistemological clarity and the erasure of our histories of oppression and genocide but it also and importantly means the refusal to accept a liberal politics of recognition or reconciliation that acknowledges our existence as valued cultural identities and the “wealth” of our traditions while doing little to transform the structures that continue to disproportionately impact us materially.⁷⁹ For Indigenous peoples, refusal means accepting nothing less than sovereignty. We cannot forge survivance upon only an ideological acceptance of our right to exist as peoples but must demand the structural changes that must take place in order to support our survival—this means the elimination of structures that are actually killing us—capitalism, racism, sexism and other antagonisms—and that limit our ability to thrive economically, socially and psychologically.⁸”
― Lilia D. Monzó, A Revolutionary Subject; Pedagogy of Women of Color and Indigeneity