#34 | No Accountability Without Community -Taiaiake Alfred (Kahnawà:ke Mohawk)
Photo credit: Sarah Stein
“There is really no other way...to realize what it is to be a father, uncle, a brother, a partner, a good man - other than tracing the roots back to the central teachings of what it is to be part of a family.”
My guest today is Taiaiake Alfred, an Indigenous scholar and activist.
He is the recipient of numerous awards, including best column writing for the Native American Journalists Association, as well as a National Aboriginal Achievement Award. Taiaiake is an author, governance consultant and former university professor known for his keen focus and commentary on Indigenous resurgence and decolonization.
In our conversation today, he shares of his early years as a young man in the US Marine Corps and what it means to be a warrior in a dominator system. He explores the origin cosmology of the Mohawk peoples and the capacity to find harmony within a complex system, and he reflects on fathering his three sons and how his understanding of leadership has shifted over the decades.
Finally, on the question of toxic masculinity, he names the necessity for the soil of rooted community to live true accountability - as there is no good man without the health of the land.
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SHOW NOTES
Overview of academic and activist career
Taiaiake, the one who crosses over
The Inconvenient Indian and being “part of the furniture”
The colonial project of North America
Story of being recruited into the Marine Corps
Masculine validation from joining the military
Seeking the imperial model of Warrior
In Mohawk, a warrior is “one who is carrying the burden of peace”
Role is embedded in a context of women’s power
Tracing the responsibility to community as family
The origin story of the Mohawk
A cosmology that strives for harmony instead of one right way
Navigating fatherhood
Exploring mature masculine leadership
The true accountability without community
“A plant without soil”
Good ancestors for the ones to come
