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PRINCE: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Dugout. In this episode, we have another amazing interview We did an interview with Kyle T Mays. Jordan, do you want to give a little bit of background about who Kyle is and why I think you are especially interested in making this interview happen?

JORDAN: He's a scholar of Afro Indigenous history and culture, urban studies, contemporary social movements, and he's an associated professor currently at UCLA. And his work really bridges black and indigenous studies exploring the intersection of race, settler, colonialism, anti-capitalism, solidarity and what resistance looks like and has looked like in the United States in different communities.

He's an author of Afro Indigenous History of the United States and the City of Possessions Indigenous. Indigenous peoples, African Americans and the creation of modern Detroit, both I highly, highly [00:01:00] recommend. And throughout his interdisciplinary lens, he interprets power, structure and uplift stories of solidarity, cultural resistance, liberation across marginalized communities.

And I first found their work when I was walking through a bookstore in the city. And I saw it. And this was in my era of Expropriating books Heavy allegedly. And I just saw the book. There were so many signifiers about it that I was like, I need this.

I don't remember how much it cost at the time, but I was like, I. This PWI does not need this. So I took a home and immediately delved into it, shared it with friends, and yeah, was really excited to finally have some FaceTime and explore some of the topics that have been on my mind since exploring, the indigenous, the Afro indigenous history of the United [00:02:00] States, but more excited to hopefully bring more folks to their work and around the conversations that they are having with themselves in the text and with their community, and the different kind of dialogues that that means for us in Decolonial futures.

PRINCE: and I would say this conversation is gonna be really useful for people that. Really want an entryway into looking at the intersections of blackness and indigeneity and what are the different ways we can think about talking about it? What are the different modes of action that we can actually do to be closer to each other, to be in solidarity, to take, liberation and decolonization seriously?

So I would also recommend go to the show notes and get one or both of Kyle's books, because obviously if you listen to this, you should be learning more and it should bring you to having more of these conversations in your life, figuring out what, [00:03:00] collectivism and community care looks like. So I hope this is an inspiring interview for people now onto the interview.

JORDAN: Hey everyone. We're excited to invite you to join us on Patreon. By supporting us, you'll be helping us keep the podcast going and make it possible for us to continue sharing black radical ideas in history. On Patreon, you'll get exclusive access to reading episodes where we break down important texts, as well as early access to our guest interviews.

If you wanna learn more and support the podcast, visit patreon.com/the dugout pod. Every contribution makes a difference.

PRINCE: One of the first questions we usually ask folks is what was young you like? What was your upbringing like? Could you talk a little bit about how you came up and how your childhood and those hap made the politics that you have now? 

KYLE T MAYS: So I have, four [00:04:00] siblings and I have an older brother, or si older sister.

I have a twin sister and a younger brother who was adopted when I was around eight or nine. We grew up, you know, people say poor. I was like, say Poe grew up very Poe welfare, those sort of things like that. I remember often trying to get just like various social organizations, my mom like, Hey, so I need you to say this because we didn't have enough food, so let's go to this local church to try to get food.

I always remember being impoverished or going can only go to the grocery store one time a month. And so there'd be that big hall of groceries like at the first of the month and then a thereafter. We're scraping for food towards the end of the month.

I don't have kids, but I would imagine it's like a lot of effort and time. It was also a good time too. I had an older brother who always looked out for me, [00:05:00] always had my twin sister around, so I would make her go out with me and play, catch and play baseball, stuff like that. So it was, it was fine. there are certainly other issues, but it was always community oriented and often centered around my siblings very often.

PRINCE: Do you remember, like what was one of your earliest memories? 'cause I know a lot of, because work is about the line between, or that connects like blackness and, and indigeneity. what would you say is like one of your earliest memories of kind of beginning to navigate both of those spaces? Or how did that come up for you growing up?

KYLE T MAYS: That's a great question. I think mostlyI wouldn't say earliest memory, but most profound memory because you grew up knowing you're, I was Afro indigenous. We didn't use the term like that back then. It was just black Indian. I remember my older brother, 'cause we shared a room, he had a book called Black Indians by William Warren Katz.

And that book came out, think in like the late eighties. And there are different iterations that [00:06:00] happened up until the two thousands. I was actually able to meet him in October, 2019 before he passed away, I think like a couple years later in New York City. But I remember picking up the book and I was like, oh, what is this?

And my brother used to sing in powwows throughout the state of Michigan often, and sometimes I would go, sometimes I wouldn't. it was kind of the first time for me, I was like, oh. It was the first time I had seen some sort of representation because while I knew my family was Afro indigenous, I didn't really think about it as an important identity marker.

It was just what it was. And so there was a representation, but it's just family. But this was the first time outside of that I saw it within book or some other venue and I was like, oh, it's an actual identity that makes sense. So I'm probably seven or eight at the time. And then I was like, oh, this is kind of interesting.

And That was very profound to I guess my personal identity and education. [00:07:00] 

PRINCE: You revisited that book very much. 

KYLE T MAYS: I reread as an adult actually, and this was before I was, connect with the author Will Katz. So I reread it and I was like, this is not as good as I remember.

But that's not even the point. It was just profound to have these representations to me, which is why the book had a lot of meaning. 

PRINCE: Interesting. Especially trying to write through your own approach or framework to identity and the things you kind of pull from, whether it's like recent or further back in time.

'cause I remember when I was working on my first book and like a, a thing that helped was going back to earlier text to kind of both temp check the text, but also kind of revisit like that version of me that got so much out of it, I guess connected to that is like when I was reading bits of your.

Book in preparation for this, I was really interested in, I believe it was in the author's note that you wrote [00:08:00] about how, grad school gave you the five years to reflect on yourself and learn how to be your fully Afro indigenous self. So could you kind of talk about the journey from reading like Black Indians to discovering this fuller version of yourself while you were in grad school?

KYLE T MAYS: You know, all started undergrad, so I went to James Madison College at Michigan State, which is like a public policy school real nerdy ass kids. that's just they're consider they would call 'em Madison All Stars, which is always funny to me because these students were involved at everything and I wasn't really one of those, like, I was a nerd, but not like I, I'm not doing all the corny stuff y'all are doing.

It wasn't corny. I mean, it was corny to me back then, but often you were put into having to choose between going to like this sort of black organization or the native organization. There was never a synergy between the two. And often I would vastly between the two [00:09:00] as an undergrad and then just because of who I was hanging around, I ended up hanging way more around like black circles just because, and my college is really small too, and I don't even recall another native student in there anyways.

How many students? 

Probably like 800 or a thousand, 

PRINCE: Oh wow. 

KYLE T MAYS: But they do everything they can in the first semester to kick out all the, all the black and brown kids anyways. But I'm just competitive so I was like, y only kicking me out.

when I got to grad school, you know, you try to figure out what you're gonna do research on. And I wanted to do more on Afro indigenous history. In fact now that I'm recalling this, one of the key moments that got me into this, even as an undergrad, did a study abroad in Japan after my first year at university.

And I wanted to do a research project. I learned about the indigenous peoples in the northern island [00:10:00] ofo. And so I looked at that and I started reading about it and I was like, this seemed very familiar, like how native people are treated in the us. So I would talk to my sensei 

He just started Japanese, like stoically just shook his head. No, he's like, it's not really important and they're kind of irrelevant. People saying this in Japanese was kind of the summary and the vibe and not that you can't question, but it's just like socially, it's kind of rude to go back and forth in a sense.

So I was taking Japanese, I'd want to be in Japan for a long time and then it dawned on me there's more things I wanna learn about and talk about in the US around blackness, around indigeneity. And so then I ended up going back to the us fast forward graduating, went to the University of Illinois. I wanted to do this project on the Black Panther Party in the American Indian movement.

My first, and this is there, I was, you know, you go meet different [00:11:00] professors. I was a black studies professor and I was like, Hey, I'm Kyle, I'm Black and Saginaw Chippewa.

And he goes, why are you, are you ashamed of being black or something? I was like, that's crazy. And this is having an undergrad too. 

Crazy. 

KYLE T MAYS: I mean, it's Professor Notorious, so whatever. it happened to undergrad too. It was a white professor and I was like, I'm black and indigenous. And he said, oh, like being Indian is like a dying thing.

So it's not really relevant. But this professor also introduced me to history of the Black Panther party. So talk about contradiction. But if I see him today, we might have a problem. 

PRINCE: As we should, 

KYLE T MAYS: But we might have a problem if I see him.

So anyways it got me. Identity to do the research around a topic and also explore way more about family history as a, you hear things, but sometimes you're not paying attention. And graduate school allowed me to really delve into family history [00:12:00] with more intention and intellectually grasp a larger ideas around blackness and indigeneity.

PRINCE: Yeah. I was watching one of your talks earlier where you there's like a graphic that you pulled up of I, it's in my notes right now, but it's, like, I just thought it was fascinating how you drew comparisons between the historical circumstances, nation state relationship, nation state goal, all of those things.

'cause, because I feel like, one of the reasons I wanted to do this interview is because I do feel like there's so much to explore and unpack With my family coming from Jamaica, I think so much about how blackness can sometimes show up as this force of like replicating colonization in, in terms of like how we relate to indigenous folks, or that's something that's really important.

And so when I saw that graphic about I don't know, like the different relationships to [00:13:00] these aspects of history and colonization, I feel like it, it felt like a really useful tool. and so I guess one of my questions is in your work through research and writing, or I guess maybe in your life could you kind of speak to the tension I guess between what many people consider indigenous communities and then like black communities and how colonization can show up, in either of those spaces or when those spaces are shared?

KYLE T MAYS: Yeah, that's a deep question. So first I think it's important to recognize that we all live under capitalism, white supremacy and colonialism, and they have impacted all of us in different and overlapping ways. Simultaneously, the foundation of the US, of course, are rooted in enslavement and dispossession impacts of those institutions, right?

Anti-blackness, anti indigenous racism, and so forth. It's important to note, I think there are two forms of we'll say [00:14:00] prejudice. There's certainly anti-blackness and indigenous spaces, a product again, of colonialism and white supremacy, capitalism. There's also anti indigenous often in the form of erasure.

So simply ignoring indigenous peoples within black spaces, also a product of colonialism, white supremacy, and capitalism. And from that basis. That's how I approach these conversations because often people get into the, we've had it worse than you. 

It's just things happen, history happened, and there are continuing impacts today. It's just a matter of understanding how those things have impacted all of us today. But in a very material sense. I think it can happen in reparation spaces. So I'm in California, there's a lot of tension around, one, there was a lot of momentum.

There's a reparation task force that was put together during the pandemic 2020. [00:15:00] There was a report that came out in 2022 or 2023 and they talk a lot about the legacy of slavery and enslaved black people in there. It completely ignored, however, that there was indigenous slavery in California as well.

And to me that's an example of a missed opportunity to talk about relationships and different forms of captivity, slavery, whatever you wanna call it. And I like to think about it in terms of how do we have conversations, meeting on the land, whatever that could mean. So one of my good friends, Amber Starks, who goes by Melan in Muskogee on social media, we were at some event in Boston and we did a conversation interview between one another.

And it was kind of the theme of this con ended up being, this conversation we had around like, what would it look like to have a black barbecue, a native powwow, [00:16:00] and have those things come together. Because. You really can't. It's difficult to, one of my elders told me when I was having a dispute with someone, he is like, why don't you bring us some food and a gift?

I was so mad. I was like, I don't give a damn about no food or no gift. But, you know, he'd do it. And you know, when you feed people and you give them something, it sort of like brings that anger or tension down way down. And then you can have a real conversation. So in other words, how can black and indigenous peoples connect on the land and meetings in certain spaces?

We have to do it with good intentions as well. And I think that matters, the intentions, but you have to deal with the history of how people have related. 'cause often we don't, people are afraid to have those very difficult conversations with one another A [00:17:00] black feminist Audrey Lord, tell us anything worth doing, worth achieving.

Must be difficult, not easy to achieve. It takes a lot of effort and it doesn't mean it's gonna be easy at all. And we have to center the land and how people relate. Think, Kwame stroke Carmichael said it a long time ago. This is indigenous peoples land. often there could be a lot of erasure of indigenous histories, peoples as well.

And one thing I don't like calling black people settlers, but it's like the same thing. Anyone can be anti-black, including black people. Clarence Thomas, right? Anyone can reproduce and participate in the settler colonial project. This is why we have to be aware and learn about each other's histories.

JORDAN: Yeah. I feel like one of the big impetuses for me wanting to do this interview too was how you approached I think actually. [00:18:00] Near the end of the book in talking about the possibilities of Afro indigenous futures you bring up like bringing up new, like respecting and asserting, sovereignty and rights to self-determination and having new relationships, agreements, and arrangements or whatever you wanna call it.

And that part really enticed me. And like, how does one navigate through that, especially in a place like the States as a place. So like you're dealing with so much erasure, like the amount of times, no matter who I'm talking to, I have to have a conversation, which is like, yeah, but indigenous folks are still here.

Land back is still possible. And if you want to talk to me about reparations, you have to involve land back. In fact, I don't think the US really has the capability to stay and survive through true reparations.

what sort types of like conversations do you feel like [00:19:00] also need to be present and questions that we need to have on our minds? Like, not that we need to have the full answers to these questions, but I feel like there are questions that we should have on our minds while thinking about such a convening.

And I'm kinda curious, what are those that come to your mind for both black and indigenous spaces? 

KYLE T MAYS: The first question is always, whose land are we? Depending on where you're at, like whose land are we on? And second, what kind of features do we wanna hold? And third, what does tribal sovereignty mean? Or we might say, what is decolonization actually?

And I always think so kinship. So I'll give an example. My family's bear clan or, and kinship it for the. Is how you relate to people and it tells your responsibility to others within that system. We know historically that we created new clans for outsiders, and in that historical case, [00:20:00] Europeans so they would just be adopted into the, when someone got married, they'd be adopted into the family and it explains their relationship to people.

Tribal sovereignty, sometimes people are gonna get upset when I say this, it's just kinda liberal. It's just liberal. Sometimes, often they see their destiny so tied up with the us we're sovereign nations. I'm like, what does that mean? And for me, if tribal sovereignty could mean anything using the system, whatever tribe, wherever local it is, whatever their kinship system works, why can't she then adopt, for example, black people en mass in the territory, which you call your land or your home?

To have better relationships historically my people adopted a clan, I think, I believe it was a wolf clan to, as a form of diplomacy from another tribal nation. Of course they weren't called tribal nation back then, but [00:21:00] to deal with diplomacy, right? So if you can do that back then often we think we need to recreate something different.

The kinship system is right there, and I think it would behoove us to do such a thing to have better relationships. So we understand our responsibilities to each other, to the land and to non-human species. And without those things, we're gonna keep going in a circle of not relating, not understanding one another and so forth.

decolonization, of course, I think it is. everyone loves deco. Not a metaphor. I think it, one, I think it is a metaphor, for the authors, but also it has to include black people like, and in black people have indigenous roots and customs that still persist, kidnapped from the continent.

You still have African American, English, [00:22:00] spiritual practices, epistemologies, ways of knowing, thinking, and so forth. So until we kind of understand that, and decolonization has to be about returning land, it also has to be about ending capitalism. Or you can't, you can't just say, oh, land back. Look how much the government gave us, like a couple of acres back.

Or let's say have a land tax. And I'm not even like explicitly knocking those things, but that's not decolonization in the way because I think we should be strict with that term, right? No one would say what banishing it out of the territory. That's what decolonization should be. Is that which banishing, that means banishing capitalism as well.

And when people say, I spoke my native language in this place, I'm like, congratulations for speaking your language. Shout out to you. That ain't decolonization. [00:23:00] It just isn't. and someone who believed in language revitalization, you know, my mentor's a linguist, so I believe me, port language, lemme keep that clear.

But that ain't decolonization though. Like colonialism is still very much in the present. 

JORDAN: How important do you feel like, 'cause this is something, I guess just to preface, my next question is like, how. Because I'm an anarchist and one thing I always do is whenever I'm looking at histories from other places, I try to find the most anti-authoritarian dissident history that I can in the place and be like, you probably don't have it a hundred percent, but I'm fuck it with y'all.

And so someone and folks that I have really appreciated is, is folks like who have like these takes around, like what current structures exist now inside of like what we consider like tribal sovereign land and like the systems of that. And touched on it before about like how some of the spaces can be very [00:24:00] liberal.

And I'm kind of curious, what is the extension of like in building those relationships? How much of like through what tools or pathways and how much state involvement you see being possible? Or whether it's more like more or like different. Voluntary associated groups from black and indigenous and folks and nations coming together, in those sort of avenues.

Or what kind of roles, like preexisting systems of relationships concurrently be at play. So I feel like that's something that some people have an, an issue with not knowing who to talk to in these spaces, especially in black spaces. They're like, well, they don't even have their own government.

So like, it's who do we really talk to in that way, versus these volunteer associations. 

KYLE T MAYS: I mean, I believe in collectivism, but sometimes you have to start talking with the individual, like the kinship part still matters. And you know, I'm not an anarchist, but certainly it would fit within this notion of anarchism because it's [00:25:00] about relationship building and building for a particular goal and point.

The land is still centered within that structure. And I'm always someone who believes in what are our goals and who do like politic, like ideologically, right? There may be some slight differences, but do you fundamentally believe, and all sorts of people's humanity, their freedom, right?

I mean, even before colonization, we know like indigenous peoples had rules around, you know, there was governing in a sense, but you had free will to do things like that wasn't, it wasn't like you had to do these things in this particular way. If you'll, so you have free will to do things and you have choices to do certain things.

And I think the tools people need to understand is like learning about history and culture. Of course from a [00:26:00] materials perspective 'cause we live in the real world, but those things still matter and it's often whatever networks one might have already, go connect with those people and just see what they're doing.

Because often you like, dig under the layers, you're like, oh, we're, you know, we're kind of, we're kind of doing similar things, right? Myself as a socialist damn near communist at this point, people say, the older you get, the more conservative I was like, I dunno how y'all got that shit up because that ain't true.

This getting worse for me. Right. But I think you have to find people who have similar goals, who wanna see things end. For me it's just trans people are here. I mean, these are like simple things to me, but capitalism should end, colonialism should end right. That doesn't solve all the contradictions once.

I mean, we have real life historical examples of these things. And you still have to work out other [00:27:00] contradictions. But who do I align with the goals? And then who am I network can I connect with to continue doing the these things? And you know, as a professor too, one of the things we need more of is getting back to reading groups.

And I see it, Steve, people don't like to read and people are, yeah. You see TikTok, I'm like, that's cool. Like, I'm not even mad at that, but you ask me to sit down and read, like there's no substitute for reading. It just isn't you can watch all the short videos you want. Like I watch this stuff too. I learn random things on social media, like it's important, et cetera.

There's no substitute for reading. It just isn't. If I hear one more of my, like black and brown students say, I wanna read this white man, I'm like, what are talking about I all your favorite activists that you consider icons, you, you know who they read these random white people [00:28:00] and some of these random white people have good fucking ideas, so go grapple with them.

And even if they don't, so what? Go learn about it. It's just, it's like history theory, something grapple with it. You can't just call it out without that 

PRINCE: We recently did an interview, with someone who talked a lot about social media and instant gratification and how that kind of bleeds into political.

Processes. And so I guess I'm curious if you could dig into that a little bit more. 'Cause I do think that's a part, like when I think about you talking about what land are we on and how are we connected to the land, how do we convene in relation to the land? I think about how for a lot of black folks in the US, unless you're in a really rural area, relationship to the land can be complicated.

Like so many regions have been turned into urban epicenters and then that becomes like the side of a certain kind of carceral. And in my mind it kind of makes sense that people use this [00:29:00] shorthand. But I guess in your teaching and the work that you do, how have you helped younger folks push beyond that?

Is it literally like giving them the text and you see that light bulb moment or do you think it takes more time? Or how have you navigated that process of trying to push people to be more intentional and disciplined in that way? 

KYLE T MAYS: I try to tell 'em to slow down. Go put your phone away even for 30 minutes. Put the phone away, turn it off, whatever, open the book and just read. It's not about getting so many pages done. It's not about speed reading, you know, and this, I mean, less so for class with political education.

'cause often they'll be like, you have any book recommendation? I'm like, yo, I'm dropping like book recommendations throughout the entire class. Just like, write 'em down. This is what I had to do. I'm not creating a list for you. And this is another thing about note taking. When [00:30:00] people are, I grew up in a black church so I can sit and listen for a long time.

I mean, also I used to like, I still love lectures, so like I could still like sit there and like, man, like, oh, I didn't even know about that book. Like, lemme write that down real quick. And it's a certain discipline and understanding thing. And grappling with things are hard. I mean, there's a class I co-teach.

We have a bunch of TAs, and the TAs are pissed at me. The students are pissed at me because I assigned a article. And this is for first year students. Mind you, I'm someone that had to read Democracy in America. The Federalist Paper is my first semester, so I have zero sympathy first for first year students.

Just not like, you don't get any sympathy. Like sit down with some hard things and read. And it was about Hu p Newton's Intercomm Communalism somebody written an article about it and you know, given the stuff in Gaza, everything else happening. I was like, I should probably [00:31:00] like just learn, think of more about US Empire.

The class is about the us but just think about US Empire and our responsibilities in the Imperial Corps. And so I was clowning them like, oh, like there's a rumor, like y'all was struggling reading this. They like, yeah. I was like, you know what you need to do to read it again? It's like watching a movie or your favorite show.

You watch it, you learn something new every time and you mentioned instant gratification. They think I should read it. And the light bulb goes like that. That's not how reading works. Sometimes you have to read it multiple times and go I think I kind of get it now. And then you gotta go talk with people about it.

So like in university setting, it's reading, then lecture, then discussion section. And that exists in the real world too. When you're, trying to understand social phenomena, you have to really analyze it, read about it, think about it, talk with other people, argue with [00:32:00] people in good faith to see what the outcome, 

I'm like, it's not about being stupid, like drop that. This is not like you get a grade out of this, but I'm giving you real political theory that has mattered historically and in some, respects matters today. So grapple with it and think about it. And you don't have to. I tell them often, you don't have to have answers.

Often asking more questions after he reads something to me is always a sign of like, engagement. It's like, well, what about this? Let's talk about it again. It's not about. And you get understanding through dialogue. It's still community oriented and they think, read this once. I should be able to understand it and go get an A on this.

I'm like, that's not how reading comprehension and critical thinking works. 

JORDAN: Yeah. I feel like a text and process that really helped me understand that was [00:33:00] being introduced to James Yaki sales from like a political educator in the BLA who wrote this beautiful piece. Well, they wrote a lot of reflection pieces that were supposed to be study guides for like Victor surges about police repression.

And then also one about friends, meditations on friends phons wretched of the earth. And it's like, I believe the beginning intro of the section is, all right, you read the book once, now you have to read it again. 'cause I know y'all didn't understand it the first time. And 'cause no one does, I haven't not read it.

I've not talked to a single person that was like, oh yeah, I read this the first time and it was super easy, not a single individual. So I've really appreciated that companion piece too with that because it really helped me understand like, study and how to like, discipline my curiosity, like towards an aim and a goal.

So I always think that's beautiful. I'm kind of curious with like the written language being so important, and also with respect to language vitalization, I'm kind of curious [00:34:00] in like a decolonial process, what is, or how important are the ways that you see of like codifying knowledge systems like we've seen in Anishinaabe and, Lakota spaces with the, like a codifying law, like around indigenous law.

And I'm kind of curious what your thoughts are on that and the ways that you think some of that should be or could be approached 

KYLE T MAYS: And it's a challenge. So even modern tribal nations are a product of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.

With that being the case, they had to adopt these things in order to move along. And part of it was meant to stop, random white people, corporations taking, native land. But often there's no critical discussion of the limitations of, the use of that written law.

And while I think it's important for kind of having to deal with the politics of right now, [00:35:00] codifying those things in law, for example people trying to utilize the UN's declaration, the rights of indigenous peoples, and trying to, draw on that as international law. It's not without its limitations either, right?

It's still in a sense upholds the US nation state. It's not, and sometimes they're not critical enough to say you truly wanna be sovereign. Now of course, they can get smashed in real life because of, the largest, military footprint in the world. All the technology that they have and so forth. So I'm not advocating for is sort of suicide mission, but I do think tribal nations could be way more critical.

And they're always in court. Various tribal nations are always in court trying to do different things, trying to hold onto the little bit that they already have. But when you have Nixon in 1970 talking about basically red power is red capitalism [00:36:00] and a lot of tribal nations are just like capitalist enterprises that often the tribal sovereignty really is in a sense.

But look at our business models and I'm like. I'm not saying shouldn't have survived, but it's not an economics of collectivity, although there's some things you might be able to learn about guaranteed income. Shout out to my colleague Randy Ake, who's studied that a way you can learn from tribal nations or per cap and guaranteed income, as like a immediate means to help out people.

But it's important. But what are more radical means of using the law? Like it's a limited structure, but it's like they don't ask that question. One of my friends and colleagues, Matthew Fletcher, He had like a cool piece on. Using the traditions and cultures of tribal nations [00:37:00] and, using the United Nations as well, the declaration of the rights indigenous peoples to challenge the United States.

And I think that's at least a good step to thinking beyond this nation state. Now, someone needs to do the next step beyond that, like how do we think beyond the nation states in general and outside of the very ineffective United Nations as well. 

JORDAN: Yeah, I kind of wanna pick your brand about that too.

'cause I'm like, I, something that I think gets erased through a lot of, even like Black Panther history is their very like international political cause of going to the UN and still having the, like a referendum on whether black folks still wanted to be in the US or not be considered citizens or even be citizens at all.

And I think that's like a powerful political point. So like, that could have some resurgence alongside this sort of conversation. And I guess some of the questions is like, is that just having our own assemblies, having our own, what would be called usually like [00:38:00] congresses or assemblies meetings where we're able to have these conversations and nail out details?

I'm kind of curious what's, what kind of gears move in your mind in that context? 

KYLE T MAYS: Yeah, I mean, I'm glad you brought that up because people act like there, people say black people are showing to be us. I'm like, no. There were actually at least a good amount of black folks who are thinking international, at least since the founding of the US thinking beyond the US nation state.

They weren't even technically trying to claim indigenous land at all, thinking of Pan-African movements, critiques of global capitalism. Of course not without limitations, but they were thinking beyond the US and they did not wanna call it the US home. And I think we need to get back to some of those, some of those instances, right, where you're trying to connect with people internationally, thinking internationally, although, you know, we got the ados and.

Folks now increasingly [00:39:00] who are with the nice American flags and their Twitter, handle, which is wild to me. You know, you have that thing, which it seems like straight outta the CIA playbook and I'm oh, we we're as a community, I don't even know what to do with some of this stuff. But thinking internationally, increasingly as I've gotten older reasons from Walter Rodney and many other people, of course, always thinks that, you know, what we have to focus on, critiquing the US empire and thinking beyond the US nation state.

And sometimes even I think tribal nations don't do that well enough outside of like the United Nation Declaration of the rights of indigenous peoples and so forth. and what it looked like today for black folks in the US to. Engage further in that sort of, dynamic as well. Of course there are still pan African groups around, [00:40:00] but just more a mass.

JORDAN: I'm kind of curious as like a researcher and educator, what have been some things that you've been researching that are like a goldmine to you that you're like, this is like, it feels liberating to be able to either uncover or be a part of being able to have this history and share it?

KYLE T MAYS: Oh gosh. Well, it's, mostly negative, but I mean, it's very illuminating. Two years ago I found that the black and Latinx communities in Palm Springs were suing the city of Palm Springs for $2 billion for being removed and their property removed from downtown Palm Springs. They happened to be on the land of the AGU Caliente ban of Kaia Indians.

Who owned this land in Palm Springs. And then I started looking into it and I saw they had an exhibit about this a little bit. And I also realized that the tribe hadn't really said anything about it. So I was like, what is that about? And so I'm just a boring historian who likes to find stuff out.[00:41:00] 

So I go look in the archive for a couple days and sure enough, find that a congressional hearing in October, 1957, the tribal chairperson, she's testifying before Congress saying, Hey, we wanna extend these land leases so we can have corporate entities come in and lease this land. In other words, the reason the tribe hasn't said anything about this lawsuit is because in some capacity they're in cahoots, even though some of their own tribal members were impacted by this because they wanted to land develop.

Like that's very clear. They worked with developers at least have a plan. It sort of backfired on some of their people, which is why they don't want to comment on it at all. And at least intellectually got me thinking the tribe probably owes some of those black and Latinx families around some of this thing.

And what would repertory justice look like outside of the gaze of white supremacy in this scenario? [00:42:00] And I think that's difficult because the tribes are, they have all their legalities, they're very wealthy tribe and so forth, but they're only thinking about the financial responsibilities and not like, what does repertory justice mean here?

And why do you only have to think about it in capitalist terms? I mean, I, I literally understand why, but like, y'all can't think beyond that. 

JORDAN: Yeah. It makes me curious in one of those, those moments of. I'm like, there's still so much work and like foundational work to lay and especially in like thinking of like different economic systems and how to have like that real proposal because it can't be loosey goosey when you're going to people who like this is survival.

So like you were talking about how Nixon was saying those things about how like the red power was red capitalism. I think that was the same time that they were saying like black power was black capitalism. Like that same through line of then having the power movements and all the different associations that were, I believe like even beyond the Black Panther party and aim, like there were [00:43:00] more other groups that were in community that maybe weren't as organized.

But I wonder where or how some of those relationships. I guess, what are some like common grounds in those relationships that you feel like are good starting points for folks to have conversations around? More communalist politics and in how to, in economic systems to move, move through.

Because one thing I love about history is being able to like, yeah, a lot of it's depressing, but you can find like one or two things that are like, okay, but we have something shared and something shared can be expounded on. 

KYLE T MAYS: Yeah. So there's, I can't think of any good examples that I've come across between, for example, black and native people, especially around, different forms of economy.

However, like there are things, immediate things people can do now living in a co-op with clean people, though I've seen the co-ops on the, on the opposite end. It wasn't it at all. 

JORDAN: Yeah. I mean, they still exist. I [00:44:00] like to tell people to start a commune, but don't always think of the old kind of communes, because that's like some kind of prop. I believe a lot of it's like anti hippie, anti-communist propaganda.

But there were the Mansons. I've had terrible food, not bombs, food. The communes the shitty, musty ones are still out there 

KYLE T MAYS: absolutely not. so there need to be some hygienic and food parameters on these sort of communes. Butmy friend in Chicagolived in a co-op in Logan Square for a long time, and it was cooperatively owned.

the neighborhood is being gentrified like crazy over the last, 15, 16 years. But it was cooperatively owned. It kept their prices low. everyone had kids at some point growing up around the area as well.

But like those are like immediate things people can do but don't really think about. You have your own space. They have their meeting, once a month or something to talk about, you know, do we need to change the plumbing? What about this washer? So people have their own space, [00:45:00] they live their lives like it is in Chicago of course, 

Things like that. I know there's mutual aid, you know, stuff like that's still going on, but thinking creatively about how do we try to benefit, plus we're very segregated still. How do we continue to form and just think differently about sharing sort of things. Even small individual things like you go out to dinner.

And you know, in the US you got these big ass portions. How about we just split a meal, right? We don't, like, we're saving money right there. We don't have to get like two different meal. We could just split this meal or get a couple appetizers related to that. 

If you have more money, you know, you paying for dinner and drinks, right? This is, I mean, my mentor used to model this. I was a broke undergrad and I was trifling because she was just like, lemme just buy like meals to go. So I'd be eating on those like dinners for like three, four days. But it, it modeled for me like just [00:46:00] basic things that you should do if you're one of the more privileged.

Because some of the more privileged people could be sheep as hell. 

JORDAN: And they have no idea how to talk about money. Like it's a real tangible thing that has quote unquote value, but also then talking about how to devalue it and decenter the value and value other things in our life.

KYLE T MAYS: always wealth building. Wealth building, cash payments. I'm like, y'all really love capitalism, don't y'all? 

JORDAN: Yeah. this reminds me of the conversation that I've been reading this book Commune or nothing that's like examining like the co-ops and the commune system in Venezuela and like the different developments and how they moved from co-ops as kind of seeing like a more collective property but not really getting rid of private property in the way that it like they were attempting to.

So then like. The existence of the communes were then like the networking of co-ops and housings in the neighborhood so that it was way more [00:47:00] collectivized and socialized 

And I'm like, well, co-ops and communes and bottom up federated structures. And they're like, well that's not actually gonna destroy capital's influence on your life. And I'm like, I thought I was the anarchist. You wanted this shit right now. But I feel like it's a very eyeopening process for people to go through and have to like, it is still transformative and like, just based on the like damn social and culture thing that we're in right now.

And recognizing what a social revolution takes 

KYLE T MAYS: people, you know, you live in this capitalist system. If someone has the money and means why don't you just buy X thing, boy, let people live there for as freely as possible for. Making, making money. 

Where are the rich leftist people, the privileged people who got millions of dollars, whatever. I'm like, why aren't I funding these things? Like I know all sorts of smart people who could just like pay us a bunch of money. We can help out communities, we can [00:48:00] help think about like way more progressive policy.

In the interim, I'm like, y'all have no vision for anything. 

JORDAN: Hey, hit my line. That's, I know some people who are interested in the expropriation from nonprofit spaces, but also in the creating of those alternative seed money kind of thing of, of, and how that can be used and exp perforated from capitalist cycles with money and out outside into building a whole new economy.

And even just like an economy of thought and how that gets valued which I think is just like so very important. One of those things where it's like, damn, we have to look at that and be like, well now we gotta organize that shit. Like ain't nobody else doing it for us. And it is not an individual thing, but it's something that you have to have patience for dealing with those fuckers, dealing with the nonprofit industrial complex, or even dealing with how we hold money and going through that.

Internal, like change with people is a process. It's a lot of emotional work [00:49:00] and, but somebody's gotta want to do it. 

PRINCE: I guess one question I had was especially about your book, an Afro Indigenous History of the United States, curious what the process of writing that book taught you or what lessons it specifically gave you.

Because I could imagine, I don't know what it like offers in terms of like literally just documenting that history, but how do you feel like it helped shape you as a person or a writer or like a political being? 

KYLE T MAYS: For me, it got me thinking about more questions and when you start talking with different communities.

They always think like, so black and native people had all these interactions, and I show certainly some throughout the book, but like, those are like the limited ones I could find. Like these things did not happen in a way that people like to imagine or projectfrom their brain [00:50:00] onto on this sort of thing.

So to me it is, it sort of went from trying to uncover certain histories, even reclaim certain histories, or put certain histories together like a puzzle to trying to imagine and connect with people who want to do this work and just provide my intellectual advice and curiosities to them. So shout out to my friend Trevor Smith and Savannah Romero, who are the co-founders of Bliss, which stands for Black Liberation, indigenous Sovereignty, 

They're doing like really good work around moving, building narrative strategies and so forth around this. And so for me it, it led to more reflection about what are people doing today, what do people want to do? I was already a leftist at the time, but it pushed me further left I was already anti-capitalist, already anti-white supremacy and so forth.

But we have to do more to think about it. [00:51:00] Otherwise this coalition in solidarity is not gonna happen. So for me, that's what probably changed more. And then thinking way more about the African continent and how come and for example, the academy and indigenous studies even notion of decolonization.

They always ignore Africa. And I'm like, y'all do know they got some colon decolonization happening in real time, right. Contradiction, but this influence people around the world. A ologist will cite fone, will cite all sorts of African thinkers, black thinkers throughout the diaspora and completely ignore the African continent.

So like more diasporic consciousness that was there, but just like more directly thinking about it. 

JORDAN: So I guess one of the last questions I wanna ask is if you want to drop, I love definitions, so if you just wanna drop what decolonization and [00:52:00] reparations mean to you.

KYLE T MAYS: So decolonization to me is about returning land, ending capitalism and white supremacy and all the sort of social phenomenon connected to that. So anti-blackness, transphobia, et cetera, et cetera. That doesn't mean there are not contradictions within that. if landlords return tomorrow and capitalism just collapse, which.

I pray to God that shit happens like tomorrow. That'd be great, right? That does not mean these other social contradictions, political contradictions all of a sudden go away. And I think people just ignore, skip over that part. We want freedom, but we're still humans and stuff, social relationships, and we fucked with each other way too many times to like not have to deal with these things.

I'm like, you can't even deal with them in your own family. Like you think all of a sudden these things end and all of a sudden everything just gonna be cool. No, that's not how the world works. And reparations to me, it's about [00:53:00] not necessarily repairing the harm done to black people, but ending capitalism and holding the line on.

I'll say like restoring the humanity of black people and other marginalized groups as well. So what kind of institutions drawing on the past can we create for our features? Because repairing, people say repairing harms kind of a typical definition.

It's less about that, but projecting a future and how do we put that future of practice without the vestiges of capitalism and colonialism, right? And build better community relations with like-minded people that have impacted us in a lot of social psychological ways that we often ignore.

JORDAN: Are there any projects coming up that you wanna [00:54:00] highlight or tease for folks? 

KYLE T MAYS: I just finished a book that 

JORDAN: is where do you wanna invite people if they wanna learn more about your work and stay up to date? 

KYLE T MAYS: People hit me up on social media. 

Sometimes I just like talk shit on some of these things, but people can always send me a message. It's cool.