As tensions grew over the course of the encounter, I pulled out my phone, along with several others. Our videos became the documentation of this latest example of bigotry against indigenous lives. But make no mistake, it is not the first, and sadly it will probably not be the last.

People are responding so strongly to these videos because they are so emblematic of the violence that indigenous people have suffered for over 500 years in the United States. We have been raped, relocated, trafficked, separated, degraded, demoralized, and massacred by the United States government and a culture of media, economy, education, and religion that has dehumanized indigenous people for the entire history of this stolen country. Presently, this country continues to poison indigenous people by defiling our water and pumping drugs and alcohol into indigenous communities; regulate native bodies through tribal numbers and blood quantum laws; and force assimilation (culturally, spiritually).
These are tactics of genocide. An ongoing, unrecognized genocide.

These videos are a brutal reminder of a very real unfinished battle that indigenous people are still fighting. We are fighting to be acknowledged, to be counted, to be part of the future. Quite simply, we are fighting to exist.

But these videos are also a testament: a testament to the bravery, dignity, grace, strength, passion, and power of indigenous people. Leaders like Nathan are essential to the survival of indigenous people because they hold experience of our history and traditions. Indigenous elders have given their lives to protect our identities, our sovereignty, our lands, our people, our ways of being, only to be met time and time again with violence — or at the very least, the smug, smirking faces of our oppressors like the boys of Covington Catholic High School.