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Episode: Sacred Manhood with Dallas Goldtooth

Author: Matika Wilbur, & Temryss Lane
Duration: 01:19:30

Episode Shownotes

Send us a text🎉 We’re back! Season 5 kicks off with Sacred Manhood, featuring the unforgettable Dallas Goldtooth—actor, comedian, activist, and founding member of the Indigenous comedy group, The 1491s. Known for his work on Reservation Dogs and his frontline activism with the Indigenous Environmental Network, Dallas brings a blend

of wild auntie laughs and deep conversations that only an uncle like him can inspire. We dive into his acting career, his environmental justice work, and get personal about manhood, fatherhood (yes, there’s some "Daddy Dallas-ing"), and the power of shifting narratives to drive real change—from grassroots movements to Hollywood’s writers’ rooms.Special shoutout to our incredible team for making this episode—our first in the new Tidelands studio—a reality! Creative direction and editing by Teo Shantz, artwork by Ciara Sana, and film work by Francisco Sanchez.Support the showFollow us on Instagam @amrpodcast, or support our work on Patreon. Show notes are published on our website, Allmyrelationspodcast.com. Matika's book Project 562: Changing the Way We See Native America is available now! T'igwicid and Hyshqe for being on this journey with us.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_02
Hello, relatives. I'm Matika Wilbur. I'm from the Swinomish and Tulalip tribes. I'm a photographer, author, podcaster, mom, wifey. I'm really happy to be here.

00:00:10 Speaker_04
Hi, everyone. My name is Temra Slain Khalitya from Lummi Nation. I couldn't be happier to join each and every one of you on this season of All My Relations. I come from the Golden Eagle clan up in Lummi.

00:00:26 Speaker_04
I'm a former professional soccer player, sports broadcaster, and current communication strategist. And like Matika, I'm a mama. I'm a partner. And now I get to say I'm a podcaster.

00:00:39 Speaker_02
This morning we're here with one of our favorite people, Dallas Goldtooth. Hi, Dallas.

00:00:44 Speaker_01
Hi, everyone. How's it going? This is Dallas Goldtooth.

00:00:48 Speaker_02
Dallas is Dakota and Diné, an actor, a screenwriter, an environmental justice activist, a father, a husband. And of course, I do want you to introduce yourself, Dallas, in the most traditional way possible.

00:01:03 Speaker_02
But before I do, I also want to acknowledge that I wrote about you in my book. I'm going to open it to your page. 252. And I'm going to read the first paragraph, because I was going to ask you for your bio, because I think a formal bio is important.

00:01:18 Speaker_02
And then I was like, actually, I'm going to read what I wrote about TELUS. OK, ready? Dallas Goldtooth is a keep-it-in-the-ground organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network.

00:01:28 Speaker_02
He's a cultural and language teacher and a co-founding member of the satirical comedy troupe the 1491s. Dallas is the kind of fella that looks you in the eye when you talk to him, unless of course he's looking into the camera.

00:01:42 Speaker_02
He'll often have several kids with him. mostly his own, but sometimes nieces and nephews, maybe an intern or two. He's noticeable in the tall, dark, and handsome way, but also because he's famous.

00:01:57 Speaker_02
It's impossible to walk through a powwow with Dallas because he'll probably be dancing or emceeing, but also because he'll frequently be stopped by friends, family, and fans wanting to shake his hand. And Dallas will stop to shake your hand.

00:02:11 Speaker_02
He'll take a selfie with you, share snacks with you, and make you laugh. Aww. But of course this is dated at this point because now you're a lot of other things. You're mostly acting now, right?

00:02:25 Speaker_02
You've had Reservation Dogs, you've had The Last Frontier, Res Ball, Spirit Rangers, Echo. And so, you know, I just want to acknowledge, you know, you're all these different things at Dallas.

00:02:40 Speaker_02
Thank you for bringing yourself and all of the things that you are to all my relations. Welcome.

00:03:07 Speaker_01
I think you left out the most important thing. I'm a four-time local pole dancing champion in southern Minnesota.

00:03:15 Speaker_04
Yeah, four-time, three-time reigning champ.

00:03:21 Speaker_01
I didn't get the fourth year. I gotta say, we're in your new space, right? We're recording in Tidelands. This is your new gallery space, Matika. I love the fact that even your bathroom is traditional. Dude, she has cedar on the toilet.

00:03:39 Speaker_01
Like it's not, you know how, you picture a toilet and you have the little container above it that holds the water, right? And normally that's where you put items, decorative items on top of the toilet tank. No, not here.

00:03:56 Speaker_01
We're even more traditional, we're getting down to the earth, is there are like four branches of cedar on the toilet seat.

00:04:04 Speaker_02
Right on the toilet seat. Just a tiny branch.

00:04:07 Speaker_01
It's a branch that's like five feet long. And it's like the three seashells from Demolition Man. You're expected, you don't know what to use, how to use the cedar, but you're supposed to use it somehow. I use it in a traditional Dakota way.

00:04:26 Speaker_01
But that's sacred knowledge. I'm not going to share it here for the public about what that means.

00:04:31 Speaker_02
That's what my nephew said when he went in because there's a mirror right in front for men and I never knew that. He said, you know.

00:04:39 Speaker_02
He said it's a really strange experience, Auntie, you know, to be like looking at yourself, holding it, and then it says, you are sacred. And I never considered it because I always turn around.

00:04:58 Speaker_01
It's a lesson for you men out there, for the ones that stand up.

00:05:10 Speaker_02
So wait, before we continue, just introduce yourself like you would to a large group of people.

00:05:14 Speaker_01
Oh, I have to introduce myself traditionally? Yeah. Okay. My name is Dallas Goldtooth. I'm Dakota Diné. I'm from the Lower Sioux Indian community in Southwest Minnesota. And my dad is Diné, but I was raised Dakota ways. all my life.

00:05:40 Speaker_01
So I'm a proud father of six, a proud husband, been with my wife for almost 20 years now. We're getting close to 20. So, um, and that's who I am.

00:05:51 Speaker_04
So many people got to know you out of Standing Rock. And it was definitely a different tone than, say, William Knife Man, right? We're out there, front lines. You became the eyes, the ears, the voice.

00:06:07 Speaker_04
And so much has changed, not just since your book and since the bio was written, but for you and the landscape of Indian country. What has been some of the most notable moments since On the Ground, Standing Rock, and your work out there?

00:06:24 Speaker_01
There's this old white guy who's a big figure in the climate justice movement called Bill McKibben, wrote a lot of books, that was one of the founders of 350.org.

00:06:33 Speaker_01
And one time he introduced me to a group of folks and said, this is Dallas, and he's a communicator. And it was a very bold type identification for me, and it kind of stopped me in my tracks.

00:06:48 Speaker_01
And I thought about it, and I was like, I guess that is one of my key roles. And especially at Standing Rock was a communicator, helping folks who couldn't be there understand what was happening and the context of what was happening.

00:07:01 Speaker_01
And my job then as an organizer was really helping people communicate and helping uplift other communities. in their struggle.

00:07:09 Speaker_01
So I think even though I'm now predominantly an actor and writer, I still, in my heart, still feel that role as a communicator. I think especially when you're writing now, nowadays, you're trying to tell Indigenous stories.

00:07:23 Speaker_01
It's all about communicating our narratives on our own terms, right? And I think that goes hand in hand with activism and organizing. You're trying to get the story out there about what you want for your people on your own terms.

00:07:34 Speaker_01
So that aspect of it, I feel like, hasn't really changed. But my trajectory and my career has, you know, has developed to a degree where I feel like even before Standing Rock I was somewhat kind of Indian famous, you know, because of 1491s.

00:07:53 Speaker_01
I'd go to res and people would be like, hey, that's, you're that guy, you're the guy in the power MC or, you know, you do that. And so, I got used to that, like I really appreciate that, going around and being known in Indian country for that.

00:08:06 Speaker_01
And so when they saw me at Standing Rock, that's a whole different side of like, oh, all right, this is another side of it. But I still try to keep that, you know, I still wanted to be, I guess, light, lighthearted in my approach about our issues.

00:08:22 Speaker_01
Um, just cause that's kind of the way I am, you know, I'm, I'm not really the angry, angry Indian.

00:08:28 Speaker_01
Um, and I use that very lightly in a humorous ways, but understanding that I'm, I'm very, try to be as aware of how I present myself, but also use it in a way that's kind of helping.

00:08:43 Speaker_04
It disarms people. I suppose, yeah.

00:08:45 Speaker_01
Yeah.

00:08:45 Speaker_04
Humor, but also the lightheartedness really disarms people. And I know that, like, yeah, 1491s, I agree, you're Native famous for a while. But this era of communication has shifted the narrative.

00:09:04 Speaker_04
And you've been in the middle of that shift from Standing Rock, social media, to the big screen. And I feel like, what are some of the biggest changes you've witnessed?

00:09:15 Speaker_01
Witness externally or internally?

00:09:18 Speaker_04
Or both? Yeah, for you to answer.

00:09:20 Speaker_01
Oh, you know, I guess speaking as a husband and a father, that I really want to, I guess that's been a lot of change there, right? Over the years, my kids didn't really know what I did. I'd travel a lot for organizing, they'd know

00:09:38 Speaker_01
I'd go to different communities in my organizing life. You know, they used to wear the KXL, no KXL shirts, and they used to be, they'd get into the chants. And then as I've evolved as an actor, it's like, you know, there's different levels.

00:09:54 Speaker_01
One is I've gotten more and more private about my private life. I've gotten more protective over my family. For folks who follow my Instagram back in the day, I'd post pictures about my family all the time, but now I don't, or rarely ever.

00:10:05 Speaker_01
I never post photos of my family for their safety, especially because of Standing Rock. And being doxxed during that time was a very scary thing because I didn't know who was gonna show up at my home.

00:10:20 Speaker_01
I didn't know who was gonna show up and try to threaten me or my family. So I've gotten more and more private about that as the years have gone on.

00:10:28 Speaker_01
On the external level, I think that, all right, this is getting personal, but I grew up in an alcoholic home.

00:10:42 Speaker_01
I've been through a lot of different experiences where, as a result, one of my coping mechanisms, one of my defense measures that I developed as a young person was being dismissive or minimized. I'm a minimizer.

00:10:56 Speaker_01
which is really bad at times when like, hey, I got bills to pay. I don't have to worry about that. I'll pay it later. I'll minimize as a way to cope. It also is a good thing because when something really bad happens, I'm like, oh, it's OK.

00:11:14 Speaker_01
It's going to be fine. We're going to be good. So it kind of keeps me even keel. And so how that applies in my life now is people say, oh, you're famous. You're well-known. I'm like, oh, am I, though? Some people know me, some people don't.

00:11:28 Speaker_01
But the folks that do know me, I really do appreciate them acknowledging the work that I've done.

00:11:33 Speaker_01
And I'm really proud that it's just a statement that the work itself, Reservation Dogs, is so powerful that it really stays in people's hearts and minds and other projects I've been on. So that's really good for me. That's how I take it.

00:11:48 Speaker_02
I mean, I think of you as the most famous Indian in Indian country. I don't think you're just Indian famous either. I don't think there's anybody.

00:11:59 Speaker_01
I'm your auntie's favorite Indian, I think.

00:12:03 Speaker_02
And my moms and my cousins and my niece and my nephew.

00:12:07 Speaker_01
Dude, Native moms love me. They love me.

00:12:12 Speaker_02
We're both native moms. Yeah.

00:12:13 Speaker_01
But no, like, all right, native auntie moms. You're guys' moms. Yeah, your moms and your mom's moms. Yeah.

00:12:22 Speaker_02
Well, you know, before we say much further, I do want to acknowledge like how far you've come as an actor.

00:12:28 Speaker_02
And I feel like I've been witness to it all, you know, on the periphery watching, you know, from like the Wolfpack auditions, you know, and what happened in the 1491s and seeing you all live back in the day.

00:12:42 Speaker_02
to like watching you on Reservation Dogs or, you know, my personal favorite recently is like when I get to turn on Spirit Rangers.

00:12:51 Speaker_00
Yes.

00:12:52 Speaker_02
And Alma gets to hear your voice. And then, you know, watching, I didn't know, I don't know why, but I didn't know you were on Res Ball.

00:12:59 Speaker_01
Yeah.

00:12:59 Speaker_02
And so, you know, I'm like watching it and, and I have all these, you know, you have, you have all your own internal dialogue about going on about the way Indians are represented and, And I've never really thought of Navajo people as ballers myself.

00:13:12 Speaker_02
I'm just gonna say that.

00:13:15 Speaker_01
Those are contentious words. Matika Wilbur just said Navajos are not ballers. I want to let the world remember that.

00:13:24 Speaker_02
Well, are they?

00:13:26 Speaker_01
Oh, snap. Are they?

00:13:28 Speaker_04
You tell us about Res Ball.

00:13:33 Speaker_01
Navajos are some of the best.

00:13:34 Speaker_04
I was going somewhere.

00:13:35 Speaker_01
I was going somewhere with that.

00:13:36 Speaker_04
Not just digging in on Res Ballers.

00:13:40 Speaker_01
Welcome to the new season of All My Relations. We're ranking. We're ranking the athletes of Indian country and the tribes.

00:13:49 Speaker_02
I think that sounds like a great time. We'll get there. That's the next episode. I mean, we do have a pro athlete on the team. Exactly. We'll get there.

00:13:58 Speaker_03
Exactly.

00:14:00 Speaker_02
Anyway, so I was just, I didn't know you were on Res Ball until you like suddenly were on the screen with Cody and you were announcing and it reminded me of Powwow MC.

00:14:10 Speaker_02
And then of course, when I was watching you on Reservation Dogs, your character, right, the Williams spirit knife man, I thought it was like this evolution of your characters from the 1491's work.

00:14:22 Speaker_02
So I wonder if, you know, you can talk a little bit about that evolution and how that work carried into the work with Rez Dogs and into the work that you did with Sydney and, you know.

00:14:34 Speaker_01
I guess I kind of glossed over that, right? I kind of glossed over the fact that, hey, we started out, I started out doing crappy YouTube videos.

00:14:43 Speaker_01
Well, they're not crappy, but the quality was just like, we were working with a one camera, a little digital tape camera. a camcorder filming in my dad's garage, really.

00:14:55 Speaker_01
And me and my brother Megazee just started making videos because it made us laugh and we wanted to do something that made our friends laugh.

00:15:01 Speaker_01
Actually the first video I ever did that went on to YouTube was an improv video we did during Gathering Nations with my buddy, with my brother Cyril Archambault. And

00:15:12 Speaker_01
we were like a bunch of straight edge kids don't drink don't party gathering nation saturday night and we're making a fake video a powwow video in there in his living room in albuquerque and that was actually the origins of the powwow mc and you know it's just a testament to one

00:15:31 Speaker_01
the power of collaboration. Like I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the 1491s and all the other communities and groups and people I've worked with along the way, including you, Matika. Like really, that's my trajectory.

00:15:42 Speaker_01
It goes hand in hand with the overwhelming excellence that is Indian country and our capability as artists. But for 1491s, yeah, a long way from that.

00:15:51 Speaker_01
Early YouTube videos to being asked by Native groups at colleges to come and do improv shows and sketch comedy to We did a show at Obama's second inauguration at NMAI. And then we are on Reservation Dogs.

00:16:08 Speaker_01
And Sterling Harjo landed that show and asked us to come on board. And it kind of went forward from there. So yeah, it is stepping back. You're like, oh, it's been a wild ride. But a lot of work went into it, right?

00:16:20 Speaker_01
So almost 15 years, 15, almost 20 years of work.

00:16:24 Speaker_02
Oh yeah, because I read about an article where they called you an overnight sensation as an actor, and I was like, excuse you, do your research, have you not heard of YouTube?

00:16:35 Speaker_02
And then I thought about, also you guys are playwrights, you wrote Between Two Knees, and then you think of Sterling and his evolution and all the films that he made. before he made Reservation Dogs, you know, several feature films, you know.

00:16:49 Speaker_02
And so I just, I wonder, you know, like that brotherhood, the relationship you have with the 1491s and, you know, how that evolved into screenwriting and Rez Dogs and your character, you know, the spirit, the spirit, William.

00:17:04 Speaker_01
William Knife Man. I think, you know, it says a lot to all the 1491s, all my brothers, we're all artists in our own right. Like, even beyond the 1491s, they all have made a marquee.

00:17:17 Speaker_01
They made their name known beyond just being in the 1491s, which I think says a lot about just, you know, the awesomeness of my brothers.

00:17:26 Speaker_01
But all of us together, it's like we're the weird, dysfunctional Native Power Rangers, and we come together and make that one big robot and make some good stuff out of that. It's always great to be a part of.

00:17:37 Speaker_02
In the 1491's bio on your website, it says we coined the term, all my relations.

00:17:41 Speaker_01
We did.

00:17:42 Speaker_02
Yeah.

00:17:42 Speaker_01
Yeah. So thank you for letting us know. Where's our residuals here, Matika?

00:17:48 Speaker_02
I just wanted to say thank you for giving me that sacred permission to use it on the show.

00:17:52 Speaker_01
Raise my hands to you in that way.

00:17:59 Speaker_02
It's one of the things we ask everybody that comes on the show, you know, what is the term all my relations mean to you as an individual? Yeah.

00:18:05 Speaker_01
Is that a question? Yeah.

00:18:06 Speaker_02
Are you asking me? Yeah, I'm asking you.

00:18:08 Speaker_01
Ooh. What is all my relations? I don't know, man. Well, hey, I'm Dakota. One of our like, our phrases is Midakie Owasin, which translate as all my relatives.

00:18:18 Speaker_01
So, you know, there's a real traditional kind of like, it means you're acknowledging all relatives, animate and inanimate. and acknowledge them that they're a part of your life.

00:18:29 Speaker_01
And it's, I think, appropriate when you close out a prayer, when you close out a presentation, that you acknowledge all those relatives out there who can speak or cannot speak and that you're taking action on their behalf for the embeddement of the future.

00:18:43 Speaker_04
I'm curious about how you view, I mean, I think we have historical, but also uniquely cultural gender roles, and how they've evolved, and how they evolve within the family dynamic, and yeah, how much value do you place on gender roles?

00:19:07 Speaker_01
I think that I place a lot of value in our teachings, right, and in general is a huge part of it. But then also I'm willing to push back when they might be outdated, or if they've been heavily, as I would consider heavily influenced by colonization.

00:19:21 Speaker_01
And I think that no matter what those teachings are, I think they should always be open to critique and discussion.

00:19:27 Speaker_01
I think that we should always allow ourselves to have open engagement as community about why are we doing this, what's the intention of this, and are we okay with it, right?

00:19:36 Speaker_01
And I think after you have that engagement, which is ongoing, you keep moving forward. One of my responsibilities in my home community is I'm an active part of our Sundance, our community Sundance. And one thing I'm really proud of is

00:19:53 Speaker_01
We made it a requirement that when we feed, that predominantly, it's typically, it's not by law, but it's gendered, right? There's a lot of women that cook.

00:20:02 Speaker_01
But when it comes down to the actual feed itself, it's just a stipulation that the men are the ones that serve, and the men eat last. So young men, if you're under 35, I always push the age date up higher and higher. Because you're getting older?

00:20:15 Speaker_01
Yeah, because I'm getting older. But it's a requirement. You have to serve the food. You can't just sit there and have women come serve you. You have to be of service, even in this space as well. And some people, that throws them off.

00:20:26 Speaker_01
Like, oh, I have to get up and do something. No, yeah, man, you're freaking, you're 22. Yeah, you can get your ass up and go get some food and give it to the folks here. But I think there's all those moments that we can interrogate.

00:20:40 Speaker_01
in a constructive way, because there's also forms of interrogation of, like, people are very deconstructive and can be very violent, but I think there's ways that for us to have those conversations, it's essential.

00:20:53 Speaker_01
So, yeah, I understand the purpose of gender roles, but I also like to push You know me, I'm a cynical Indian that likes to make fun of everything. So I would like to push back at that.

00:21:03 Speaker_02
But you've been pushing back on manhood and gender roles for a long time. I mean, with the slapping medicine man, with the uncle that like, you know, you were like choking the...

00:21:16 Speaker_01
Yeah, the drumstick. Yo, the uncle choking drumstick.

00:21:22 Speaker_02
He's all like singing all beautifully and you like have a flat drum. I love that.

00:21:26 Speaker_01
Yeah.

00:21:26 Speaker_02
I'm going to play that.

00:21:27 Speaker_01
Dude, because fucking Indian uncles are the most dysfunctional, hilarious people in the planet, dude.

00:21:32 Speaker_01
Indian men, we're fucking weird and dysfunctional and unhealthy to the degree where it's fucking hilarious when you step back at times and say like, dude, how did we get here? And the performances that we put on are funny.

00:21:49 Speaker_01
And I think that's all the 1491s, I think was a big source of it was just us kind of process what it means to be a native man and like taking it in and just spitting it back out in our own weird, funny way. I think that's really at the core of it.

00:22:03 Speaker_01
It's just like, all right. Who are we? And what are we doing? And why are we doing this? Let's tease ourselves as Indian men.

00:22:11 Speaker_02
A lot of that made it into Rez Dog. Yeah, it's so visible. Like the prayer off.

00:22:17 Speaker_01
The prayer off, yeah.

00:22:17 Speaker_04
Oh God, that was one of the best scenes.

00:22:20 Speaker_01
Yeah, that actually is from real life. That actually was one that was a sketch.

00:22:25 Speaker_01
From the 1491s back in our days when we travel and do shows is it was a sketch that we came up with But that actually happened in my real life where I was in a sweat lodge between two men Where I'll say guy on my left is is Indian number is native guy one and the other guy in my is native guy to Native guy two is dating the ex of native guy one and

00:22:48 Speaker_01
This is in Minneapolis. We're in a sweat. There's a bunch of Amesters in there. There was a couple of Haney's in there, Native American church. So they're all in there. And Native guy number two starts saying a prayer about his current woman.

00:23:07 Speaker_01
and praying for her, because she's all stressed. And then Native Guy 1 takes it personal. Native Guy 2 says, oh, I just want to pray for my wife out there.

00:23:16 Speaker_01
She's having a hard time, real stressed, because she's just trying to get other people to take responsibility in their life.

00:23:24 Speaker_04
Some passive-aggressive prayer.

00:23:25 Speaker_01
Yeah, this is totally the most passive-aggressive prayer. Because native guy number one is like, oh, creator, I just want to say, you know, a lot of us out there are trying to do our best, you know, and find our way in life.

00:23:37 Speaker_01
And I just pray that, you know, you just let people understand to give, have compassion for some of us having a hard time. And native guy two goes, oh, creator, I just want, he takes over. He takes the mic back.

00:23:52 Speaker_01
And he's like, oh, creator, I just want to say, you know, it's good to hear people trying to clear up their life like that. But, you know, sometimes you just got to be a good dad, you know, and you got kids you got to be taken care of.

00:24:03 Speaker_01
And you don't do that, you know, and it affects them. And then other people have to take care of them. And other guys are like, oh, I just want to pray, understand. I hope other people understand that, you know, I'm in between jobs right now.

00:24:19 Speaker_01
And I'm, uh, you know, just kind of, I'm doing my best to pay that child support. Some people, some people shouldn't just be so judgy, you know? Oh, I was like, I'm like fucking 14, man.

00:24:29 Speaker_01
And I'm like taking it in and I'm like, and then the guy pouring the water leading is like, cuts him off. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. All right. We're going to move on here now. Four direction song. Oh, And it just like lingered, never got resolved.

00:24:48 Speaker_01
It was just like, I'm sitting between these two guys and their prayer off. And that's how we ended up with what you saw in Reservation Dogs, based off of real life.

00:24:56 Speaker_00
Creator, thank you for the sacred tater tots that my nephew, grandson, grandpa here has given me. Take care of his little heart like that, his cholesterol. So does this mean I'm a holy man now? You're not owning it. I think I must be. You're not.

00:25:27 Speaker_02
What I really wanna talk to you about is parenting and how we make decisions to create different opportunities for our children.

00:25:34 Speaker_02
You mentioned, so my next book that I'm working on is about indigenous parenting methods and the choices that we make for our children in the lives that we live. We have similar lives.

00:25:50 Speaker_02
Most of us are living away from our home communities in some way or another. We're having to navigate colonial spaces and, you know, sending our kids to public school or private school. I'm not sure how you navigate that.

00:26:03 Speaker_02
And then thinking about, you know, as a parent, you know, when you make decisions about where to live, about how to integrate your Dakota identity, your Dene identity into your children's lives on a daily basis, you know.

00:26:17 Speaker_02
And so I'm deeply conflicted about whether or not you try to send your kids to school on the res, even though the matriculation rate's super poor, and chances are she's gonna hate education and she's gonna experience extreme racism, or do you send her to school in the city, where she's probably gonna have a great time, but she's not gonna be around her cousins?

00:26:37 Speaker_02
You know, and so I wonder, you know, like how you navigate that given the pressures of, you know, your lifestyle, you're famous, you're an actor, you're an environmentalist, you're parenting, and then you're also having to make these decisions at the same time with your children.

00:26:51 Speaker_01
Yeah. So you're asking the easy questions. Great. You, yeah, you're spot on what you're going through. I'm going through. I think a lot of us are experiencing that right now. I guess I stepped back and I recognize that.

00:27:05 Speaker_01
I've had the immense privilege to have lived a lot of different experiences within quote unquote Indian country. Um, I went away to a boarding school from there. I went to UC Berkeley. I went to school out in the Bay area.

00:27:18 Speaker_01
And I ended up living in the Bay Area for another six, seven years. And I got pretty close and immersed within the Native community of the San Francisco Bay Area. I moved back home to take care of my family, my mom. I met my wife.

00:27:33 Speaker_01
I was going to the University of Minnesota at the time to do Dakota language, become a language teacher. And I was hosting, I was throwing little, we were doing like house parties at the Indian Center.

00:27:45 Speaker_01
Like I had a buddy who was a DJ, we were doing free parties, just kind of get together for other folks that were sober. And that's where I met my wife, was at one of those parties.

00:27:53 Speaker_01
And she brought the, she had kids from a previous marriage and we were all there and I got to dance with them. And that was where we first met was at the Indian Center in Minneapolis. And the, you know, and now we live outside of Chicago and I'm,

00:28:07 Speaker_01
kind of exploring that Native community. All this to say is, having grown up, I'm a Rez boy, I grew up on the Yankton Sioux Rez and the Lower Sioux Rez in Minnesota and South Dakota.

00:28:16 Speaker_01
But the vast majority of my adult life has been away from the Rez, has been in urban areas, in three different Native communities. And it's real because I, first time, I ended up working with Native youth in the Bay Area.

00:28:30 Speaker_01
And I saw the effects of when kids don't grow up around their culture and their community. You know, the lasting effects of generations of people who grew up in the city that don't get to go home.

00:28:42 Speaker_01
And I always felt like, man, I just want to make sure that I do right with my kids and make sure that they stay connected and know who they are. But it's such a challenge. And we've had that idea of like, oh, we want to move home.

00:28:54 Speaker_01
But there's also the other things that come along with that, like the education, the quality of education. But I also want to say, Indian country performs amazing, amazing intellectuals, even given the educational barriers that we have back home.

00:29:10 Speaker_01
There's so many Native scholars who grew up in public schools who don't get enough funding, but it just shows you how amazing our people are and how amazing our youth are. So I'm not too worried about that.

00:29:21 Speaker_01
It's just making sure that our kids, you know, I want to make sure our kids know who they are. And right now, I feel guilty at times as a dad. Because I'm like, oh, they don't get to go back to this.

00:29:33 Speaker_01
They don't get to go to this event, this cultural event, because it's so far. And trying to find those moments. We get to go back maybe once, twice a year and connect. But I wish it was more. So I feel that conflict. It gets to me. It makes me sad.

00:29:50 Speaker_01
But no, it's real though. We just want to do right, right? And try our best. So I try to make sure that I instill as much pride as I can. What's funny is my kids never watch my shows.

00:30:04 Speaker_01
Reservation Dogs, I don't think my kids actually have watched the entire show. All the other shows, everything I've been on, my kids don't watch it. It's not that they don't want to. They're just like, we don't really care. We don't want to watch them.

00:30:17 Speaker_01
But they see me on TikTok. That's what actually makes them get embarrassed, because they see me on TikTok. And their friends see me on TikTok. That's funny.

00:30:25 Speaker_02
Yeah. How do you do you just? I get this idea about you on TikTok that you're just out there, you know, you're on set or you're at a restaurant or you're just sitting at home. I don't know.

00:30:36 Speaker_02
And you just like have an idea and then you just do it and post it. Is this?

00:30:40 Speaker_01
Oh yeah.

00:30:41 Speaker_02
Is this how you're TikToking?

00:30:42 Speaker_01
One, yes, but also I don't do, I'm not a big TikToker, right?

00:30:46 Speaker_02
I haven't posted something in a long time.

00:30:48 Speaker_01
Okay I used to be much more like lately I feel like I haven't done it but um no I what I do is actually sounds I find sounds I like and I save them and but I have like a I have like tons of drafts I've never posted uh random stuff but most of the time if you notice a lot of my TikToks are on movie sets and the shows I'm on because I have a lot of free time and I'm not wearing dad hat you know what I mean like when I'm at home when I'm not working

00:31:16 Speaker_01
I'm too busy to be doing anything else. I have a rare time to do TikToks when I'm at home. So it's when I'm on a set, and I'm like nothing else. I'm sitting on board in a trailer. That's when I do them.

00:31:27 Speaker_02
I remember coming to your apartment in Chicago, and I was younger. Dallas already had a bunch of kids. I didn't have kids yet. And I remember Dallas just like, I was just chilling with Sonia.

00:31:39 Speaker_02
And you like went out and you got food and then you put everything on the table and then you did all the dishes and you were like changing diapers, putting kids to bed, doing bath time, like you were busy in dad mode.

00:31:50 Speaker_02
And I was like, this is the kind of husband I want when I grow up. I want a husband that does all the things and I'm going to be like Sonia. And I have a husband like that now.

00:32:00 Speaker_02
I just want to say that little moment in your house was you were like really modeling for me like what it could be like because I didn't grow up with men like that. I didn't grow up with men like that do dishes or cook or clean. They kind of just

00:32:14 Speaker_02
Like my mom does all the things, and the men just kind of like watch football. And I was determined when I get married and snag a husband, he's going to be busy like doubtless.

00:32:29 Speaker_01
Shout out to Lino.

00:32:30 Speaker_02
I love your man. Shout out to my husband. He does so much. He does so many things.

00:32:34 Speaker_01
No, I appreciate that. I, well, one is just acknowledge that I wouldn't be where I'm at if it wasn't for my wife. My wife is the foundation of my life and love of my life. And I honestly would not be possible whatsoever.

00:32:47 Speaker_01
I would not be nowhere near successful in my life. if it wasn't for her. She grounds me, she helps me set up boundaries for myself but also for us as a family, right?

00:32:56 Speaker_01
She's the one that really pushed to understand like, hey, your social media not only impacts you but impacts us as a family and helped me really in that process because I didn't have a lot of good examples growing up as well, right?

00:33:08 Speaker_01
Positive male role models,

00:33:10 Speaker_01
um that they're not all over the place but they were there some they had some role models but fatherhood was something like all i knew is i wanted to be a good father and also want to be a good partner but my wife really put in a lot of labor i want to acknowledge that of like

00:33:27 Speaker_01
helping me find that role, even though that should not be her job. And I try my best. So making sure that I do my part has always been a mainstay of how I want to be as a partner and make sure I'm upholding my side. I'm the main cook in the house.

00:33:42 Speaker_01
I'm the main cook. If I'm home, I'm the one that's cooking for all the meals. But I appreciate it. We had a small apartment, and we made it work. But yeah, thank you for those words, Matika.

00:33:58 Speaker_02
You're welcome, Dallas.

00:33:59 Speaker_04
Do you think that there's an accountability aspect, or like there's this, as Native people, or I'll speak for myself, there's this like sacred obligation that we have, and sometimes our path is like, obviously you've been working on it for 20 years, but it kind of reveals itself.

00:34:21 Speaker_04
And so here you find yourself with a microphone, and a platform, what kind of responsibility does that hold for you? Or what is the accountability to your family you just mentioned, but beyond that?

00:34:38 Speaker_01
No, that's such a good question because that's really at the core of the internal conflict I have right now as a dad and as a husband. Right? Because I feel like I have a sacred duty to be present, to be there for my wife, to be there for my kids.

00:34:55 Speaker_01
And I often feel the conflict and. I do carry a sense of guilt of like, I'm not fully there. I can't be fully there. You can be supportive distantly, but being there day to day, my wife more or less is a single mother when I'm not there.

00:35:10 Speaker_01
And I understand the weight that that carries. And so I also acknowledge that I have a gift and a privilege to be in this career and to do what I'm doing. And in many ways, it's a path I've been on, right?

00:35:23 Speaker_01
You could say it's destiny, whatever it may be. But my duty to my family is of such high importance where I feel that conflict. Do I want to do this? Do I really want to continue to do this? Should I continue to do this?

00:35:36 Speaker_01
And to be honest, where I'm at and where I've been at, people don't maybe not believe me. But if I had the opportunity,

00:35:42 Speaker_01
to be back home in my community, in Lower Sioux community, not acting, not writing, but I could just be in my community and make sure my kids are, like I could provide for them. I would do that in a heartbeat.

00:35:52 Speaker_01
Like I would run a farm and just be home and be on my home community. That's the dream. My dream is not.

00:35:58 Speaker_02
You'd be a farmer?

00:35:59 Speaker_01
I'd be a farmer, hell yeah, I wanna be a farmer.

00:36:00 Speaker_02
If you could give it up, you'd be a farmer?

00:36:01 Speaker_01
I would give it up. I would give that up for Oscars, for any award show. That does not excite me at all. As an individual, what really excites me is being a part of something bigger for our community and people. Like, that's my dream.

00:36:18 Speaker_01
In my heart, I'm a sovereigntist. In my heart, it is I love my people and I love building something. And I love building with other people. I get to do that on camera. I get to do that as a writer. That's fucking awesome. But I'm an organizer.

00:36:34 Speaker_01
I love building. power with people and so like that dream to do that in my own community that's what I want I would love to do.

00:36:40 Speaker_04
And to get your hands in your soil.

00:36:43 Speaker_01
Yes.

00:36:43 Speaker_04
Into mother earth like it all returns to mother earth and your work so we talked about was as an environmentalist.

00:36:50 Speaker_03
Absolutely.

00:36:51 Speaker_04
Protecting the land and like I think this this duty of sacred manhood, sacred fatherhood, responsibility of your family, protecting, how is protecting land and what is the duty of men in protecting women and women's bodies now?

00:37:11 Speaker_04
I feel like they're all intertwined.

00:37:13 Speaker_01
Yeah, I feel like it's like, you know, trying to... The core teaching that I carry with, that a lot of my Dakota people are, and it's in your name of the show, of like, I want to be a good relative.

00:37:25 Speaker_01
That's really what's been instilled from day one, is we're taught time and time again, you know what? Be a good relative. It's in our songs, it's in our protocol. It really all comes down to, how are you showing up? for those that you love.

00:37:39 Speaker_01
And who we love is our blood relatives, our cousins, the land, the water, like we show up for everybody. And so it comes down to how you being a good relative is a core teaching.

00:37:52 Speaker_01
And for me, yeah, like I'm on this beautiful career and I know hopefully it does flourish and has those other opportunities, but it's also, a moment where I'm trying to provide for my family.

00:38:05 Speaker_01
And in the bigger dream, I know that I want my kids to be connected to the earth, to the land in which we come from. That's the dream for me.

00:38:16 Speaker_02
It's the dream and it's so hard to figure out how to do pragmatically on a daily basis. When we talk about it in this esoteric way, of relationality and like I want my daughter to be a person of the tide.

00:38:31 Speaker_02
I want her to be a salmon person, you know, I want her to like intrinsically know this tibakti how we say all my relations in Lushootseed. However,

00:38:42 Speaker_02
This when we look at it practically to be a salmon person right now when we only get to go fishing once a year for 24 hours then Really to be a salmon person. She has to be an environmentalist, right?

00:38:55 Speaker_02
Like Billy Frank says all my life I wanted to go fishing and instead I went to courtrooms and I went to a and I had to fight just to go fishing, right?

00:39:03 Speaker_02
So it's so beautiful when we talk about it in these ways, when we talk about wanting to be like in relationship with the earth and wanting to be, you know, I want to be in relationship with my traditional ancestral belief systems.

00:39:16 Speaker_02
But the truth is, you know, I'm also fighting these larger systems that are at play around me at the same time.

00:39:23 Speaker_02
So on a daily basis, I'm like living inside the conflict of driving a car, taking an airplane, participating in fossil fuels, using a cellular device that in its nature is like part of this global scheme, globalization that's like impacting people.

00:39:41 Speaker_02
And so, you know, it's like, it becomes this whole big thing like, oh my God, let's just

00:39:46 Speaker_01
And then you find you find yourself at 2 a.m.

00:39:49 Speaker_02
doom scrolling for three hours I just I want to say and you know you are building power as an actor and I

00:40:02 Speaker_02
representation and what it means for our people to, for the first time, have the opportunity to have somebody like you that's recognizable, that they can look up to. Our children need heroes. They need role models.

00:40:19 Speaker_02
They need representation because it allows for them to think to themselves, well, I can do that.

00:40:26 Speaker_02
you know, and they can see themselves potentially taking up space and creating new narratives as writers, as directors, as screenwriters, as actors, you know, and as people who are also deeply intrinsically connected to community and that to me is

00:40:43 Speaker_02
So exciting. When I got to watch Lily win a Golden Globe, I was bawling. It meant so much to me. Also, what I was talking about with Netflix the other day, it means so much to me to turn on Netflix on a

00:40:59 Speaker_02
Sunday morning, and I get to go, oh, Alma, look, there's Dallas. And she gets so excited. That means so much to me. It does build power. And I believe that representation is everything. Otherwise, what is it all for?

00:41:15 Speaker_02
I believe she or he who wields the pen, who writes the narrative, who creates the Constitution, who writes the Supreme Court law, who writes the policy, creates the foundation and the social structure.

00:41:28 Speaker_02
So, you know, I do think it matters deeply, you know, and it's like, really, the kudos goes out and the hand raising goes out to your family for supporting you in the process, to Sonia, to your kids. You know, like that's a hundred percent.

00:41:43 Speaker_01
There's two, there's a couple of things there. One, there was a language, uh, a language advocate. He's Blackfoot forgot his name.

00:41:51 Speaker_01
And I apologize, Blackfoot relatives, but he had a saying in, in language revitalization is that those you have to come to understand is you're in the, you're in the trenches for language revitalization.

00:42:01 Speaker_01
You're probably never going to become a fluent speaker, but you're creating the systems for the next generation to be fluent speakers.

00:42:09 Speaker_01
He was like, I had to come to understand that, is that I may not become the fluent speaker that I aspire to be, but I'm gonna put the work in to create the system so that it comes back and flourishes.

00:42:19 Speaker_01
And the other part of it, and thank you for saying that, grounding our experiences in reality, right? My dream is yes be a farmer. I would love that. I think all of us think about that, right?

00:42:30 Speaker_01
You're like fuck this system Let's fucking just create a fucking commune of native matriarchs and fucking cretin that just build this up We all have those dreams and aspirations and they should continue right and I think Representation plays into that it creates space for us to dream about where we could be and where we want to be I think that for me and just be really to go visit what I said is

00:42:56 Speaker_01
I think no matter what my dream is, I want to be back in my territories. That's what matters. So I feel like my family and say, hey, this is our territory.

00:43:06 Speaker_01
It may be a different band, it may be a different tribe that originally lived here, but this is our territories of who we are. That's the dream for me. But I think you're right. I think representation goes so much.

00:43:16 Speaker_01
Like look, we were trying to, what's the buzzword? Radical imagination. That's the work right now, right? The goal is for us to create a space for us to radically imagine ourselves the way we want to be in the future.

00:43:28 Speaker_01
Put ourselves into the narrative of the future. and then act upon that. That's the fight. And I think all of us have our part to play. So I recognize my part to play in that.

00:43:39 Speaker_01
People turn on and see a half-naked Indian on the horse, and they're like, hey, that's me as the past, but in the future, half-naked. That's great, you know?

00:43:48 Speaker_01
I think I'm excited right now because I just finished this TV show for Apple Plus, where I play. It's not a comedy role. It's a drama, action drama. And so I'm excited as a performer. Like, I actually get to perform and be something beyond the comic.

00:44:05 Speaker_01
And I'm kind of looking forward to more getting those roles, because it challenges me a little bit better to tell a different truth of who I am, and also, of course, who we are as Native people.

00:44:26 Speaker_03
Let's see it like this. Action.

00:44:50 Speaker_02
sacred manhood. I'm calling it that because I don't want to say I want to talk about toxic masculinity. Yes. Because I feel like those are buzzwords and I think those automatically turn people off.

00:45:04 Speaker_02
And so instead I want to think about it in the opposite, which is sacred manhood.

00:45:09 Speaker_02
And you know, I think that theme has presented itself throughout this conversation in the sense that we're talking about your fatherhood, we're talking about your role pushing back in the 1491s and reservation dogs.

00:45:20 Speaker_02
in your work as an environmental justice organizer. You know, in a lot of ways, you're modeling for young people, for myself, for my own community, you know, on screen and off screen, how men can behave in our communities.

00:45:37 Speaker_02
And a lot of times, you know, in Indian country, there's this trope, like, where are the men? I was, you know, last week, I was on stage with Dr. Robin Wall-McKimmer,

00:45:46 Speaker_02
And Angelina Bully, and we were talking about indigeneity and feminism, and then this auntie got up and said, what about the men? What about the men? And I, being myself, said, well, do you mean to date?

00:46:05 Speaker_02
And I just made a joke because I wasn't going to address it. I haven't addressed manhood very much on this podcast. We call ourselves a feminist podcast.

00:46:15 Speaker_02
You know, and we've had problems having men on this series because men have had pasts that were problematic, you know, and it's a difficult thing to navigate as a space that has primarily been for women on this podcast.

00:46:29 Speaker_02
So can you talk a little bit about just, you know, what your role is as a public figure demonstrating sacred manhood, Dallas?

00:46:42 Speaker_01
It's a good question. It makes me think of this thing I heard. There's an organization called Native Forward. They provide scholarships for Native students to go to college.

00:46:52 Speaker_01
And one of the numbers that they talked about is that, I think, roughly 85% of their applicants for scholarships to go to college are by young Native women, which is great. I mean, it's amazing that we're providing resources for our Native folks.

00:47:06 Speaker_01
But when I hear that, I can't help but think, like, that means there's only 15% are young Native men. Like, how are we creating the systems to support young men to succeed? I think about so many Indian programs back home.

00:47:23 Speaker_01
And I've traveled across Indian country. I've seen a lot of youth programs and how a lot of them are geared towards young women. Or they may not necessarily be geared towards Native women.

00:47:34 Speaker_01
They just happen to be really focused towards young Native women because our young men aren't showing up. Or where are the men who show up to run them? It's a challenge. It's a legit challenge.

00:47:47 Speaker_01
My auntie, Casey Kemp, Hornet, Casey Kemp, everyone knows her. She's our Ponca auntie who's a fucking badass warrior woman. Yes, she's done everything. She has always, always advocated for sacred masculinity.

00:48:02 Speaker_01
And every time she's asked to talk about indigenous matriarchy and feminism, she's like, we can't forget the men.

00:48:10 Speaker_01
this narrative we can't because by doing so we're swinging the pendulum the other way we have to find where's the balance here so it's real I mean how many native men are we losing to suicide or or to be locked up like it's it's just it's crazy and

00:48:30 Speaker_01
For me, I have to acknowledge, there's Native men in my life I acknowledge who I looked up to growing up. There's a guy, man, he passed away. It was one of my uncles named Dave Larson. No one really knows him outside of Minnesota.

00:48:43 Speaker_01
But he was an uncle that showed up to every Indian event. And he was the MC everyone asked for. Because they didn't have many choices, like two Native men to ask to do these opening speeches. But he was always there.

00:48:55 Speaker_01
And the very fact that he just was present was enough for me to be like, that's somebody to look up to. I acknowledge that bar is pretty low. If they just show up, it says a lot. But that's how we work as human beings.

00:49:07 Speaker_01
If someone just shows up, that's like half the work right there.

00:49:13 Speaker_04
showing up is a is a big thing and I think that like the consistency also of sacred manhood or masculinity of Just showing up.

00:49:23 Speaker_04
You don't have to Do or be anything your presence is enough and I think that there's so much That we can tell our youth through that Just show up show up. You say you're gonna be somewhere show up and

00:49:37 Speaker_01
So, and I get that, but also the thing to be mindful of, I would say, is also not to victim blame in that. There's a nature of victim blame of like, well, you're men, you're not going to show up.

00:49:51 Speaker_01
And there's almost a blaming of just as a result, because you're a man, we don't have expectations of you.

00:49:56 Speaker_01
And I think that's a challenge for us as a people is that when we joke about it, we have to start trying to challenge when we joke about the nature of men in our communities. I think the other part of it is, you asked earlier about gender roles.

00:50:16 Speaker_01
I think our communities have really opened up around discussions on gender roles. And at least I'll speak for my people.

00:50:22 Speaker_01
There are a lot more roles now where in the past they were like, that's specifically for men, that women have now been given space to and there's open space for women to participate in. Whether it's singing with a hand drum, right?

00:50:34 Speaker_01
For our people, that was like a big thing of like, oh, only men could hold a hand drum. But over years, it's become more prevalent that women can sing with a hand drum. There's a fear in me. I want to acknowledge this.

00:50:46 Speaker_01
It's like my vulnerability of like, I also, I'm afraid because there's so few spaces for us that's just a men's space that we're losing some of that because we're creating space for acknowledging the entire gender spectrum and those that are non-binary.

00:51:04 Speaker_01
But then also I'm like, where are the spaces that's just for us? And how do we create those spaces if they don't exist? That's where I'm at, where I really want to encourage us to have those conversations.

00:51:15 Speaker_01
I feel like I'm being very reactionary and almost blaming us. I feel like what really needs to happen and what we need to encourage is conversations of men of like, all right, what's the space you need for yourself?

00:51:28 Speaker_04
How much of that goes back to coming-of-age ceremonies?

00:51:31 Speaker_01
Oh, a huge part. I mean, we lost those. A lot of our teachings have gone away about how we bring ourselves into this space. There's an amazing young woman named Jessica Yee Danforth. She does great, amazing work. And her husband's DJ Danforth.

00:51:48 Speaker_01
He's from Oneida. And they did this program with folks in Akwesasne. And they have a coming-of-age ceremony that they do there in the longhouse. that I got to see the sixth year since they started it. Yes. And I really love talking about it.

00:52:05 Speaker_01
And I'm not an expert here. So folks, I'm not from the community. So this is me as an outsider. This is my asterisk here. But we were there for the six years, 1491. So we shot a video with the community there.

00:52:15 Speaker_01
they talked about on the first year they did a coming of age ceremonies and it was like a day workshop and it was like talking about like all right old school gender roles how we were in the past right the fourth second year they did the same thing they expanded it for a like an overnight kind of thing and they added on to over time and i talked to jessica about it and she was running at that time working with the native youth sexual health network

00:52:41 Speaker_01
And one of the things she helped introduce into it was like, all right, can we have culture camps? That's beyond just learning how to put up a teepee or how we smoke fish. Can we also talk about how we, how we talk about gender roles?

00:52:57 Speaker_01
Can we talk about like respecting each other's space and content? How can we talk about consent? In the conversation we're talking about when we're doing all this old timey stuff, right?

00:53:07 Speaker_01
And it expanded to a fortnight, like ongoing, like weeks process over the years of adding up to like, it's a class people go to. and it leads up to where they do a fast, and they fast overnight out into the wild, how our people used to.

00:53:20 Speaker_01
I saw that as a beautiful, a beautiful thing of community taking action and creating space for both women and men, and for those that are non-binary.

00:53:31 Speaker_01
And I think that's where we really need to be, is like really challenging how we do the things and why we do them, but also creating space to be like, all right, let's fucking, let's create something new if we need it.

00:53:41 Speaker_02
Yeah, I love that.

00:53:43 Speaker_01
sacred manhood, right? This idea, this phrase, whatever it may be. My son actually brought this up. So I have a son, he's a teenager, and I recognized that he was getting really influenced by social media.

00:53:55 Speaker_01
And those super hyper masculine white dudes were making men weak kind of thing. And I actually noticed And the way he talked, that some of that shit was happening.

00:54:06 Speaker_01
And so I had to interject and be like, look, dude, let's have a conversation about what you're watching and what it's saying. And understand this basic principles, like the basic idea is that we as men aren't inherently bad.

00:54:21 Speaker_01
We are not inherently unhealthy. We are human beings, but we have been conditioned and learned behaviors that is unhealthy and that can be toxic. But the idea of being a man is nothing bad.

00:54:36 Speaker_01
Like you're, you are not, you are not lesser than because you are a man. It is learned behavior. And so from that perspective, let us challenge the learnings. Let's, let's go after that. And then bring in something else instead of that.

00:54:53 Speaker_01
Because what we, what you're consuming is what we hear, or I guess what, what he was hearing, what a lot of young folks are hearing is man equals bad.

00:55:00 Speaker_03
Interesting.

00:55:02 Speaker_01
You know, man can't be dependent upon. And so what we're trying to do and what we're trying with all our efforts to redefine culture is bring back those original teachings that really reinforce us that you have value as a human being.

00:55:15 Speaker_01
You also have value if you identify as a man. Or if you don't, or you're somewhere on that spectrum, you still have value. And you have something to bring to the table. And so my challenge, I see the change here.

00:55:26 Speaker_01
It's like encouraging young men to have those conversations and actually I like to purposely bring up consent, bring up these buzzwords just to normalize the language amongst ourselves.

00:55:41 Speaker_02
Yeah, our creative director Teo Shantz, when he was talking about masculinity, he said

00:55:47 Speaker_02
You know, one thing that I always wonder about masculinity for our young boys is that when they, as soon as we go to school when they're young, you know, they're always confronted with this idea that they have to prove their masculinity and their manhood and be ready to fight.

00:56:03 Speaker_02
you know, and be ready to guard, and that the role of masculinity is to be ready to like... Take on the next... To go to arms, yeah. To go to the mattresses, to go to war, you know. And put up that shield that you're like ready for it, too. Yeah.

00:56:18 Speaker_02
So don't mess with me. And to constantly show up into the world like you're ready for confrontation. And that confrontation and showing up to the world ready for confrontation brings confrontation.

00:56:31 Speaker_01
It's like a revolving door.

00:56:33 Speaker_02
And to him, he said, that's how I describe toxic masculinity, is that it's breeding confrontation. where instead of harmony. And he's like, so ask Dallas.

00:56:47 Speaker_02
Ask Dallas how he feels about vulnerability and how vulnerability is the antithesis of masculinity and how he presents that to his children and in his life.

00:56:58 Speaker_01
Oh yeah, that's a great question. I feel like the core value of masculinity should be about strength, love, and empathy. The core value of what it means to be a man is empathy and to act upon that empathy.

00:57:16 Speaker_01
If a loved one is being threatened or if there is a need of defense, you act out of empathy and love rather than out of anger. I think about that. When we talk about gender violence, when we think about violence against women and youth,

00:57:36 Speaker_01
Obviously, the vast majority of perpetrators are men. We acknowledge that. We understand that.

00:57:43 Speaker_01
The victims of that violence on a macro scale, big scale, I would argue, and this does not take away from our relatives, but I almost would say that sometimes the greatest victims are us collectively as men because of the system of gendered violence.

00:58:00 Speaker_01
Because we are living in a system where our ability to respond to the world is so limited because we are only allowed to access only a handful of emotions to respond to the world. Our capability to be full human beings has been stripped of us.

00:58:18 Speaker_01
We're not allowed to be fully human. We only are allowed to express it in anger and fear. Something happens, you fight back. You respond out of anger. You're afraid, you respond out of anger. You go to the physical response to the world.

00:58:35 Speaker_01
The ability to have compassion, take a step back, to allow yourself to process the emotions, we're not taught that. So we're not fully human in many ways.

00:58:45 Speaker_01
And so we carry that, we carry the trauma of that, of little boys who grew up not knowing what it means to be a man. That's why I feel like empathy and strength in a different way is really what it needs to be.

00:59:00 Speaker_01
We have to redefine power and strength on indigenous terms. And we do it already. When we talk about, oh, there's sacred powers out there, it's a different concept than the way the Western world sees it. Well, why not apply that to also as men?

00:59:13 Speaker_01
There's a power in masculinity. There's a power in men.

00:59:17 Speaker_04
You've said multiple times in this conversation, like, oh, I'm going to be vulnerable. I see so much strength in being vulnerable. There is incredible power in that vulnerability. But it is also not an expectation in toxic masculinity.

00:59:35 Speaker_04
That is a place that you just avoid, is that vulnerability.

00:59:39 Speaker_01
Absolutely. Yeah, no, exactly. we've created, we put ourselves, we as men are put into a box, an imaginary box, and this is how we're defined, and we can't step outside of the box.

00:59:50 Speaker_01
We step out of the box, we hit ourselves, we hurt ourselves, or other people's judge us, right? The fear is that people are gonna judge us. If I step outside the box, I'm vulnerable, people are gonna judge me and think of me as lesser than.

01:00:01 Speaker_01
We already are lesser than.

01:00:02 Speaker_03
Right?

01:00:09 Speaker_00
People think a warrior needs to be all macho like that, No. Being a warrior means being in touch with your feminine side.

01:00:16 Speaker_02
You know, you say, you said in one of your IG post threads, an above all energy platform is not the way forward. That only means more oil and gas production on U.S. soil and encourages more bank funding for fossil fuels.

01:00:31 Speaker_02
I'm sad to hear that Tim Walz and Kamala Harris push this false solution as a climate policy. You also talked about the fact that you will not be voting in this upcoming election because, you know, the complicity of America and Palestine.

01:00:51 Speaker_02
And so, you know, you're talking very openly about all of these things on social media and you're a leader.

01:00:57 Speaker_01
And so, you know, it makes people nervous because I get pushback. from folks who are like, you have a huge following, more or less, why don't be so radical, right? And I'm like, do you know the fucking people that raised me?

01:01:12 Speaker_01
Like, dude, I got, you know, like a lot of our folks, but I was raised by aunties and uncles who were like, you know, fuck the system, burn it all down.

01:01:21 Speaker_01
I was raised, the biggest insult you could have or that could be thrown out there is you're a fucking fed, right? Like the idea that you're working for the federal government was the ultimate, Diss? Diss. Did someone say that to you? Not to me, no.

01:01:33 Speaker_02
They said it to me when I went to a Sundance in Lakota country and I pulled up, I just want to say this really quickly, I pulled up in my RV, the bougie big girl Mercedes, and these Lakotas were like, you must be with the feds. And I was like, why?

01:01:47 Speaker_02
I just got here. And they were like, Indians don't drive Mercedes. And I was like, unless you're a per capita Indian.

01:01:55 Speaker_01
I was going to say that. No, no, no, no, she just she's just got per cap. That's all Makes sense No, no, I'm happy you brought it up because I don't remember making that post about saying no, but it was right.

01:02:18 Speaker_04
It was right. It was like October 9th or 10th. I mean, it was early after that. I'm on the fence.

01:02:26 Speaker_02
Actually, let me tell you exactly.

01:02:27 Speaker_04
You know what, my memory might be wrong. I just remember I'm being like, oh, as someone who works. I don't want to say I'm an organizer, but I am supporting many organizers.

01:02:39 Speaker_04
I'm supporting communications and political participation and wanted to pose this. There's all these subcultures. Deb Haaland wouldn't be in the position she were if it weren't for Native people voting and propelling her into those

01:02:57 Speaker_04
those places and her efforts. So I totally understand the tension between, like, we're voting for the same side of the, or two different sides of the same coin, right? And I've made our choices, but here we are. And so am I gonna vote? Yes, I am.

01:03:20 Speaker_04
Because I do think one of the sides of the coin's worse for our people and for Mother Earth than the other.

01:03:26 Speaker_01
I'm on the fence, honestly. I'm going to vote. But then also, I don't want to vote. And I think I'm going to carry that conflict all the way up until the moment I do or don't. Which is funny, because I just did a Get Out the Vote event up in Oneida.

01:03:40 Speaker_01
But what I said there and what I'll say here is, first and foremost, let's be clear, I am a sovereigntist. I truly believe that the only true vision for our communities is true sovereignty as people with free, prior and informed consent.

01:03:55 Speaker_01
None of this just soft self-determination bullshit. Our dream is to be independent sovereign nations. And that alone is counter to the purpose and missions of the United States of America.

01:04:08 Speaker_01
The United States of America will never sign off on tribes being truly independent sovereign nations. Let's step aside to all the practical conversation about how is that possible or how do economies work? That aside, the dream and vision is there.

01:04:21 Speaker_01
I grew up, one of my idols and heroes is John Trudell. And John Trudell, one of the sayings I carry to the day I die is, act like you are surrounded. We have to act like we are surrounded by the enemy because we are.

01:04:35 Speaker_01
because our dream is counter to the purpose and missions of the current nation state of the United States of America.

01:04:41 Speaker_01
And so with that in my heart, the argument I put forth is that with all that being said, I believe in democracy because democracy in principle is an indigenous creation that came from indigenous thoughts and minds. I put that forth.

01:04:55 Speaker_01
I believe in democratic societies. I believe in the capability of collective power and for us to change the conditions of our life. I believe in all of that.

01:05:06 Speaker_01
But I also say, if I was given the chance to choose the leader of my enemy, then I will take that chance. I will take that action. If I get to choose the leader of my enemy and put my name in the hat, that does not negate my status as a sovereigntist.

01:05:22 Speaker_01
That does not negate my status as a Dakota warrior. Oh, no way. No. And my argument is that doesn't. But it's just another form of action that you can take. to go forward. So that's the argument that I carry.

01:05:38 Speaker_01
The other argument is, what if we needed to all burn down? There is a white author named Naomi Klein. She wrote a book called Shock Doctrine.

01:05:49 Speaker_01
And Shock Doctrine is this idea that in moments of tremendous conflict on a worldly scale, that the powers that be will use the opportunity of chaos to move the dial in whatever way they want.

01:06:04 Speaker_01
9-11, after 9-11, the powers that be were able to move the entire dialogue and our whole society into a direction that leads us to more control by the government, more capitalist control. Because of fear. Because of fear.

01:06:18 Speaker_01
It's a utilization of fear to move that dial. Of course, we're going to see that happen if Trump wins. We're going to see that movement. But the other part of me is like,

01:06:28 Speaker_01
If it burns, there's an opportunity for what can be born out of the ashes of that, right? And what opportunities are there? That's the anarchist side of me, but I carry the conflict of like,

01:06:41 Speaker_01
Either way, I put my hope in the capability of our people to survive and move forward and to build power in either situation. Because you're right, I don't think either party doesn't, they don't resonate with me.

01:06:54 Speaker_01
Either candidate does not resonate with me. Harris, I'm not going to be, I will say this, I do encourage people to do local elections.

01:07:03 Speaker_01
No matter what, whether you vote for the president or not, I do encourage people to get out and vote in the local elections because that does have an impact. I've seen it.

01:07:10 Speaker_01
I've worked on a local level where you have the county commissioners elected or the state representatives elected where those people actually do make some decisions that really fucking you can feel the impact.

01:07:21 Speaker_01
The global scale I'm like are on the larger scale like dude, I don't Harris does not resonate with me.

01:07:26 Speaker_02
It's really hard for me Yeah, it's really hard for me to vote for somebody that has been that has the power to stop the genocide in Palestine and I I can't see beyond that, you know, I I just really I

01:07:44 Speaker_02
And I know that abstinence from voting is not what we're supposed to do, but I also feel deeply conflicted about participating in a system that is actively trying to erase my people. And so I feel deeply conflicted.

01:08:02 Speaker_02
There were times when people have asked me, good friends, you know, you come out to this event for, you know, like Indians for Kamala. And I just kind of have to ghost because I'm like, no, dude, I don't, I'm not, I'm not down, you know, I'm not down.

01:08:18 Speaker_02
It's just how I feel, you know, and I too, like, because I've been beat up by the cops because this system doesn't work for me because I don't want to participate, you know, I do want to dream and believe in a future

01:08:35 Speaker_02
an Indigenous future where we're speaking our languages, where we're eating traditional foods, where we have the power to make decisions on behalf of our own bodies. And that does not happen in this current system.

01:08:47 Speaker_02
So I have to believe in an otherwise. But yeah, I mean, it's, you know, I know I'm not alone in that. I know a lot of Native people abstain from voting.

01:08:58 Speaker_01
Well, and I'll say this. Like, we all acknowledge, right? Like I said earlier, we acknowledge that we are complicit in atrocities that is caused by the United States government.

01:09:09 Speaker_04
By our tax dollars.

01:09:10 Speaker_01
By our tax dollars, right? That we acknowledge that even just tax dollars aside, knowing that our consumption, our energy consumption, the energy systems that we live in right now is making this shit worse for this planet.

01:09:24 Speaker_01
And there's nothing that I've heard from the Harris campaign or just from Democrats over the years, I don't have any faith in because no matter what, they're still capitalists. No matter what, they work from a principle of understanding that

01:09:42 Speaker_01
there should be accumulation of wealth to the detriment of many for the benefit of the few. That's the very basic idea of capitalism. And I wholeheartedly reject that, even though I live in a system that requires me to participate in it.

01:09:58 Speaker_01
And so it is a brave action to say, I'm not going to be a part of that. I don't want to be a part of that. I don't have many choices about it. I am going to choose to not act as a form of action, meaning to vote. I get that side of argument.

01:10:11 Speaker_01
I totally side with that. I understand where people come from it.

01:10:13 Speaker_04
climate crisis is here, we're witnessing it every day, and we're able to witness it in ways, the human catastrophes, the climate catastrophes, on our soils, on our front porch, and otherwise, and across the world.

01:10:30 Speaker_04
But because of human destruction, the climate impacts, but then also when you say, let's burn it all down, don't you feel like we're in the middle of it burning?

01:10:45 Speaker_04
And this like last grip to patriarchy, it started, people started to radicalize both directions, if we're talking about binaries here, when Trump took office.

01:10:59 Speaker_04
And we started to, you hear about like lifelong ideological Republicans far right saying, I cannot vote for him. By it burning down, it's like settler colonialism. It is not an event. It is a structure. And it will have to fall piece by piece.

01:11:19 Speaker_04
And couldn't we argue that it is?

01:11:24 Speaker_01
No matter what. No matter what. Because it's a structure, right? We acknowledge that it is a man-made structure. These are apparatuses. These are philosophical ideologies that are manifest in policy changes.

01:11:32 Speaker_01
And whatever it may be, there's still somebody controlling the ship.

01:11:36 Speaker_04
Right.

01:11:37 Speaker_01
The cash must flow no matter what. So we're going to accommodate it. So my, my, my, I guess the idea of like, let it all burn is really just saying like, it's. There's less control of the circumstances.

01:11:56 Speaker_01
And out of that less control means that it's more distributed control.

01:12:00 Speaker_04
More sovereignty.

01:12:01 Speaker_01
Yeah. Well, it's distributed action. It's distributed amongst the masses who are just fucking pissed. And I get it. There is the extreme right, the fucking radical right. But I think what it is, is acknowledging we're all fucking tired.

01:12:18 Speaker_01
Even acknowledging the radical right, even though they're really fucking problematic and racist and supremacist within that, there's also a vast majority of people who lean right or who will vote for Trump, who are just like, you know what?

01:12:30 Speaker_01
I'm fucking tired of living in this society where we're dying.

01:12:34 Speaker_04
This system isn't working for them either.

01:12:35 Speaker_01
Yeah, it's a class struggle where people are like, we are dying for the benefit of only a few. And we're fucking tired of it. And we want something different. That's the voice I hear.

01:12:46 Speaker_01
And so the idea of when I say, oh, let it burn, it's like giving power to those masses of like, all right, there's chaos. How do we create that space for ourselves?

01:12:55 Speaker_01
Democrats, and not just Democrats, it's just fucking even people that call themselves liberals, and we're acknowledging that the world is gonna fucking burn.

01:13:03 Speaker_01
We're gonna do our best up to the degree where we don't compromise the flow of cash and capitalism, right?

01:13:10 Speaker_01
We're gonna do our best to make sure we don't disrupt that system, because then that makes it uncomfortable for us, which means that it doesn't change its original programming.

01:13:22 Speaker_01
It makes space for us only to an degree that's comfortable for them, but doesn't allow us to actually achieve the dreams of liberation that we really want.

01:13:33 Speaker_01
Don't lose sight of that and continue to push your people farther to the degree where we are truly standing on our own terms. That's where I put my faith in, you know.

01:13:52 Speaker_02
We want to thank Dallas for being on the show today. It's always a pleasure to talk with Daddy Dallas. We're looking forward to seeing more of him on the big screen. If you'd like to keep up with his work, you can follow him at Dallas Gold Tooth.

01:14:07 Speaker_02
And I'd also really like to thank Temris, Ms. Temris Lane, for agreeing to be on this podcast journey with me. Temris, my hands are raised to you.

01:14:18 Speaker_04
Matika, I couldn't be more grateful to join you and all of our wonderful guests to be in conversation about these really important, inspiring, and sometimes difficult issues that we face and persevere through here in Indian country and with all our relations.

01:14:38 Speaker_04
I really look forward to getting curious, staying curious, being curious, and learning alongside each and every one of you. Haishka, thank you for having me.

01:14:49 Speaker_02
It's so exciting to be podcasting again. And you know, I just want to acknowledge the moment. Today is an intense day. You know, we're in for a gnarly four years and now more than ever is the time for us to be in community.

01:15:03 Speaker_02
be building power, you know, but I really am looking forward to having a lot of great conversations and stories to share with all of our relatives soon.

01:15:13 Speaker_04
Don't forget to exhale everyone. This is, to your point, it is an intense moment, but we're here. all our relations together. And next week, we'll be talking about Biden's apology and the work of our sisters to get that apology word.

01:15:30 Speaker_04
Following week, we're speaking with birth keeper Cami Goldhammer, and then we're off to the races. And we're now broadcasting directly from our new headquarters, Tidelands, in what is currently called Seattle.

01:15:45 Speaker_04
So if you're in the Northwest, make sure and pay us a visit. Come on through. We'll be here. We're currently showing Matika's exhibit, Project 562, Changing the Way We See Native America, with some beautiful photographs and stories.

01:15:59 Speaker_04
And we have a special Thanksgiving event in the very near future, November 22nd, with Valerie Seagrass, so please join us for a powerful lecture with Matika, who will be sharing the first story of Thanksgiving and guide us in reimagining Thanksgiving in a way that centers truth, healing, and respect for Indigenous pasts and futures.

01:16:21 Speaker_02
Following the lecture we'll experience a traditional Thanksgiving meal of golden geoduck fritters, roasted camas, fire roasted elk loin, seared duck. It's going to be a real Pacific Northwest feast and it's all prepared especially by Valerie.

01:16:39 Speaker_02
It's you know a living breathing example of what a traditional Pacific Northwest menu of traditional foods that honor the land and the rich practices of Coast Salish people could actually look like. I think it's going to be a real special event.

01:16:52 Speaker_02
So we really hope that you will come out and join us.

01:16:55 Speaker_04
Yeah, this fundraiser is supporting the launch of Valerie's new show, The Old Growth Table, which explores indigenous food sovereignty and sustainable practices.

01:17:04 Speaker_02
It's going to be a good show, guys. You're going to love it. Yeah. And really, you know, that is the work that we're aiming to do here at TideLines. We want to develop new podcasts. We want to bring community together into this space.

01:17:16 Speaker_02
We're doing a bunch of events coming up in the future. We have a holiday bazaar. We're teaching Tulsute Seed. We're teaching pottery making. And, you know, we're doing a really cool Indigenous wellness retreat here with Rooted Resiliency.

01:17:30 Speaker_02
We're going to teach yoga in I think that's so exciting. You know, we are dedicated and committed to the advancement of Native scholarship in the arts, and it's only possible when we're in community with you.

01:17:45 Speaker_02
So come on down, relatives, come down to Tidelands, come check us out.

01:17:49 Speaker_04
And make sure to visit thisistidelands.com to learn more about how to get involved. incredible opportunities. Please reach out. We want to hear from you.

01:18:02 Speaker_02
Tegruci, thank you to our relatives that subscribe to our Patreon. We see you. This work would not be possible without your support, truly. It was your guys' money on Patreon that gave us the capacity to build this podcasting space.

01:18:19 Speaker_02
It's because of your support. So, Tegruci to our Patreon subscribers. We love you.

01:18:25 Speaker_04
Don't forget about the gram, Matika. You can find us at AMR podcast. Please, please share, like, subscribe, all of the things that's going to help our algorithm, share the story. And for those that are on TikTok, well, we're working on it.

01:18:42 Speaker_04
Just got to figure out how to post, you know. It's going to happen. We got it. We're going to get TikTok-ing. We'll just call our young cousins.

01:18:52 Speaker_02
Oh my God. And last but not least, thank you so much to our All My Relations team, to Poncho for all the beautiful video and production work. Welcome to All My Relations.

01:19:01 Speaker_02
And of course to Teo, who does all the things, and Sierra Sana for her artwork on this episode, to Dallas Goldtooth for being on our seminal episode of season five. And thank you to all of our relatives for being here in this moment.

01:19:15 Speaker_02
and for your ongoing support. We love you and we look forward to connecting with you again next week.