In this episode, we (Sarah Lynne Anderson and Mark Van Steenwyk) interview Dakota scholar Waziyatawin. This is the first of a two part interview. For part two, go here.

This is an intensely challenging two part interview (part two will air in two weeks); we discuss how Christianity is intrinsically unjust, how justice requires the entire dismantling of civilization, and how denominations, if they are sincere in their apologies to Indigenous peoples, should take the first step of handing over unused lands to the tribe upon whose land they occupy. You’ll definitely want to forward that to your denominational headquarters. 

Waziyatawin is a Wahpetunwan Dakota from the Pezihutazizi Otunwe (Yellow Medicine Village) in southwestern Minnesota.

Waz currently holds the Indigenous Peoples Research Chair in the Indigenous Governance Program at the University of Victoria (British Columbia). Her interests include projects centering on Indigenous decolonization strategies such as truth-telling and reparative justice, Indigenous women and resistance, the recovery of Indigenous knowledge, and the development of liberation ideology in Indigenous communities.

She is the author or editor of: Remember This!: Dakota Decolonization and the Eli Taylor Narratives, Indigenizing the Academy: Transforming Scholarship and Empowering Communities, For Indigenous Eyes Only: A Decolonization Handbook,In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors: The Dakota Commemorative Marches of the 21st Century, and What Does Justice Look Like? The Struggle for Liberation in Dakota Homeland.

In this episode, co-hosts Sarah Lynne Anderson and Eliacin Rosario-Cruz interview Ched Myers, activist, educator, and the author of a number of books–inclucing “Binding the Strongman”.

Ched, a fifth generation Californian, lives in a small intentional community in Oak View, CA, an hour and a half north of Los Angeles. Over the past three decades he has worked with many peace and justice organizations and movements, including the American Friends Service Committee, the Pacific Concerns Resource Center and the Pacific Life Community. Today withBartimaeus Cooperative Ministries he focuses on building capacity for biblical literacy, church renewal and faith-based witness for justice.

In this episode, co-hosts Joanna Shenk and Mark Van Steenwyk interview Nekeisha Alexis-Baker (founder of JesusRadicals.com, activist, organizer, and thinker). Note: this interview was recorded months before the Iconocast became a part of JesusRadicals.com.