The Red Nation and Common Notions need your support!
The Red Deal is a book that doesn’t end when you read it. Instead, it provides insights, theories, analysis, and direct action steps to galvanize, inspire, and mobilize you and your communities by presenting the simple, yet urgent decision we all must make between decolonization and extinction.
In an effort to get the book to as many people, communities, and relatives as possible we have started a joint Solidarity Campaign. You can order copies of the book directly on our website or through your local bookstore, but we hope that you will join our campaign so we can get as many books as possible into the hands of Native freedom fighters.
All donated copies will go to Indigenous schools, libraries, organizations, infoshops, and community centers chosen by the Red Nation. If you are able to donate a case or more please get in touch for a special discount. In Struggle & Solidarity!
For $40 you will receive a copy of The Red Deal shipped to your door and donate a copy.
For $50 you will receive a copy of The Red Deal shipped to your door and donate TWO copies.
For $75 you will receive a copy of The Red Deal and a Red Deal Coffee Mug shipped to your door and donate TWO copies of the book.
A generous comrade! For $80 you will receive a copy of The Red Deal shipped to your door and donate FOUR copies.
For $100 get The Red Deal and a choice selection of other stellar books from Common Notions shipped directly to you.
For $5 you will receive a curated sticker and postcard pack from both The Red Nation and Common Notions
In addition to these ways of support, both Common Notions and The Red Nation have ways for you to become a regular supporter and sustain our efforts over the long haul.
If you become a Common Notions sustainer at $12/month you will not only receive The Red Deal directly to your door but every forthcoming publication from our future seasons.
If you become a Red Nation sustainer you will receive a special discount code to purchase the book.
Join us. We are waiting for you, we welcome you, and we are ready to act.
Help us publish The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth, the first book in the Red Media Series. We are trying to get at least 250 copies of this book donated into the world and the community. By preordering one of our Solidarity Packages you will help us do just that.
Please read more about the book and the new Red Media series and we hope that you are able to support us to the best of your ability.
This is updated manually
“The Red Nation has given us The Red Deal, an Indigenous Peoples’ worldview and practice that leads to profound changes in existing human relations. Five hundred years of European colonialism, which produced capitalist economic and social relations, has nearly destroyed life itself. Technology can be marshaled to reverse this death march, but it will require a vision for the future and a path to follow to arrive there, and that is what The Red Deal provides.”—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
A powerful guide to Indigenous liberation and the fight to save our planet.
One-part visionary platform, one-part practical toolkit, The Red Deal is a platform that encompasses everyone, including non-Indigenous comrades and relatives who live on Indigenous land. We—Indigenous, Black and people of color, women and trans folks, migrants, and working people—did not create this disaster, but we have inherited it. We have barely a decade to turn back the tide of climate disaster. It is time to reclaim the life and destiny that has been stolen from us and rise up together to confront this challenge and build a world where all life can thrive. Only mass movements can do what the moment demands. Politicians may or may not follow—it is up to them—but we will design, build, and lead this movement with or without them.
When the Red Nation released their call for a “red deal,” it generated coverage in places from Teen Vogue to Jacobin to the New Republic, was endorsed by the DSA, and has galvanized organizing and action. Now, in response to popular demand, the Red Nation expands their original statement filling in the histories and ideas that formed it and forwarding an even more powerful case for the actions it demands.
The Red Deal is a call for action beyond the scope of the US colonial state. It’s a program for Indigenous liberation, life, and land—an affirmation that colonialism and capitalism must be overturned for this planet to be habitable for human and other-than-human relatives to live dignified lives. The Red Deal is not a response to the Green New Deal, or a “bargain” with the elite and powerful. It’s a deal with the humble people of the earth; a pact that we shall strive for peace and justice and a declaration that movements for justice must come from below and to the left.
PRAISE FOR THE RED DEAL
“The Red Deal asserts that the fight for climate justice must center Native people when it comes to the issues that disproportionately impact Native communities, but it also communicates what the Green New Deal does not — namely, that public lands are stolen lands and climate change is significantly caused by just a few industries,which the government has at worst neglected to hold accountable and at best assisted in their efforts to mine the earth for resources in a move that put profits over people.” —Teen Vogue
“The Red Nation also names Black abolitionists as an inspiration for the Red Deal, citing the links between mass incarceration and detention and climate change. They further note that police departments, prisons, and the U.S. military receive billions of taxpayer dollars annually while doing irreparable harm to Native Americans, Black people, and the Earth.” —Essence
"The Red Deal is an incendiary and necessary compilation. With momentum for a Green New Deal mounting, the humble and powerful organizers of The Red Nation remind us that a Green New Deal must also be Red—socialist, committed to class struggle, internationalist in orientation, and opposed to the settler colonial theft of Indigenous lands and resources. Redistribution also requires reparations and land back. The Red Deal is a profound call to action for us all."—Harsha Walia, author of Undoing Border Imperialism and Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism
“We really need The Red Deal because it forces open a critical conversation on how Land Back can be a platform for mass mobilization and collective struggle. The Red Deal poignantly argues that if we do not foreground decolonization and Indigenous liberation in climate justice strategies such as the Green New Deal, we will reproduce the violence of the original New Deal that dammed life-giving rivers and further dispossessed Indigenous peoples of their lands. Strategically, The Red Deal shows how, if we understand green infrastructure and economic restructuring as anticolonial struggle, as well as an anticapitalist, we can move from reforms that deny Indigenous jurisdiction towards just coalitions for repossession that radically rethink environmental policy and land protection without sacrificing Indigenous life and relations.”—Shiri Pasternak, author of Grounded Authority: The Algonquins of Barriere Lake Against the State
“The world system, born in settler colonialism and racial capitalism, is mired in a crisis at once ecological, epidemiological, political, and economic. What is to be done? As this urgent book states, the choice is decolonization or extinction. The Red Deal presents a rousing vision of a shared future of socio-ecological care, rooted in revolutionary Indigenous praxis. A must read.” —Thea Riofrancos, author of Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador and coauthor of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal
“The Red Deal offers a revolutionary program for global environmental justice informed by the liberation struggles and epistemologies of Indigenous, Black, migrant and working people everywhere. The vision of this manifesto calls for nothing less than a radical transformation of our relationships with each other and the land itself. It is truly inspiring work that we have come to expect from our comrades in The Red Nation.” —Glen Coulthard, author of Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition
“The GND has the potential to connect every social justice struggle—free housing, free health care, free education, green jobs—to climate change. Likewise, The Red Deal places anti-capitalism and decolonization as central to each social justice struggle as well as climate change. The necessity of such a program is grounded in both the history and future of this land, and it entails the radical transformation of all social relations between humans and the earth.”—Jacobin
“For the Red Nation, living and being interdependent with Mother Nature is explicitly anticapitalist. An ethos merely hinted at in the Green New Deal, The Red Deal understands that capitalism fundamentally protects wealth, not life”—The Politic
“The Democratic Socialists of America is proud to endorse The Red Deal, an indigenous centered set of policy recommendations that was written by The Red Nation. We are also proud to endorse the work of The Red Nation and commit to a long-term partnership with them in the furtherance of decolonizing our society. The Red Nation is a group of radical indigenous people that are fighting back against the US imperialist settler colonialist state. They are not just fighting for land and sovereignty, but for survival….We also look forward to a fruitful and mutually beneficial partnership with The Red Nation in all areas of activism moving forward.”—Democratic Socialists of America
RED MEDIA WAS A MOVEMENT BEFORE IT WAS A MEDIA PROJECT.
The idea arose on the heels of an anti-police violence movement in Tiwa Territory (Albuquerque, NM) and after brutal slayings of Indigenous people by settler vigilantes. A revolutionary, Indigenous-led organization—The Red Nation—was formed to correct these injustices.
What we learned from our work in The Red Nation is that there are few venues for Indigenous writing—let alone writing that centers Indigenous intelligence in all its forms. Red Media is our response to this need: a press and media project run entirely for and by Indigenous people. We produce writing and work according to our own intellectual traditions, not those imposed upon us by settler culture. We believe in Indigenous abundance and aim to inspire, caretake, and hold space for Indigenous writers by providing them a platform they may not otherwise have.
Red Media publishes a wide range of work including: poetry, photography, Indigenous botany, academic publications, land as pedagogy, memoir, manifestos, journalism, children’s books, Indigenous language resources, history, politics, resource manuals, biographies, fiction, creative writing, edited collections, and much more.
Our mission is to nourish, sustain, and build Indigenous movements that not only protect life on a planet on the verge of ecological collapse but also provide models for a future premised on justice. The stakes are clear: it’s decolonization or extinction.
The Red Nation is dedicated to the liberation of Native peoples from capitalism and colonialism and centers Native political agendas and struggles through direct action, advocacy, and education. We are a coalition of Native and non-Native activists, educators, students, and community organizers advocating Native liberation. We formed to address the marginalization and invisibility of Native struggles within mainstream social justice organizing, and to foreground the targeted destruction and violence towards Native life and land.
From the book
We began The Red Deal with the oldest yet often forgotten struggle on this continent: ending colonial occupation. While usually erased from the history of this nation, settler colonialism has fundamentally shaped the development of the United States and the world that it dominates economically and politically. Ending the occupation links those of us in the seat of empire with those who face its weapons, soldiers, and policies around the world. Together we share the common enemy of US imperialism. This is why we begin with ending the occupation.
Like the phrase “land back,” the Red Deal isn’t entirely new. Every generation of Indigenous people since invasion has wanted land back, and so too have they wanted to restore correct relations like the ones we spell out in these pages. The aspirations for justice stem from deep-rooted traditions, practices, and knowledges embedded within the land itself. The Red Deal is a theory and a program that emerges from experience. It is rooted in struggle, in what we do, what we observe, and the relationships we make (and sometimes break). It is thoroughly grounded in the material world we inhabit. It does not come from thought experiments or philosophical debates. Our writing and thinking quite literally emerge from the ground up; they are always grounded in our relationship with land and with people. They are a manifestation of, and directly responsive to, action.
We have written this book not as a guidebook to help movements see what needs to be seen, or to confirm what is missing from their own struggles. It is our view that Indigenous people do not write enough. And when we do, others rarely listen. Why else would we be on the precipice of mass extinction?
This a movement-document that comes from the humble people of the Earth. And we sincerely hope you find meaning in our words, that this book touches your heart and ignites your soul. Our words are sincere and our thoughts and hopes are given freely to inspire our relatives, the humble people of the Earth, to rise up and reclaim their humanity. They are, as our Diné relatives remind us, a sacred wind that carries the power to shape action. As much as we hope The Red Deal inspires monumental action and mass mobilization, we also hope it inspires more writing and more thinking. Setting your pen to a piece of paper or sitting down at a computer to write a thought—let alone a book!—is, after all, action. Not to mention hard work. It is a form of what Leanne Betasamosake Simpson calls “Indigenous excellence,” or rigorous engagement with Indigenous knowledge that happens in relation to the land and to other human beings. While we are also unapologetic leftists, we do not prioritize these intellectual and political traditions over Indigenous ones. If anything, we filter, center, and interpret our politics through a commitment to Indigenous political economy and futurity, first and foremost. To do otherwise would be contrary to who we are in this world.
As The Red Deal continues to be read, shared, debated, and implemented, we ask that its Indigenous intent and design not be decentered or whittled down for the sake of expediency, or that it be reduced to “cultural” or “spiritual” window dressing for otherwise scientific, economic-driven programs (likely designed by white dude “experts”). Unlike thinkers who center European thought, politics, and movements to not only perpetuate European colonialism but also try to apply it to the entire world, Indigenous knowledge is not parochial thought that applies to just one local culture, one place, or one time period.
Indigenous knowledge is rigorous, scientific, inclusive, diverse, and ever-changing. The knowledge we share in is comprised of Indigenous science, economics, and political science that must be at the center of any climate justice program, just as our youth, women, and warriors have been since its inception.
Our emphasis on Indigenous knowledge may seem like a rehashing of what is already available to movements, worked through by other Indigenous organizations, movements, scholars, or leaders that precede us. Some may read this and feel discouraged or uninspired because we are not proposing anything new. The truth is, we are not. Not entirely, at least. The methods of decolonization and revolution we draw from, as well as our focus on how “Indigenous knowledge incites transformation and change,” aren’t anything new. But this is because we understand the Red Deal (and The Red Nation more broadly) as belonging to longstanding, dynamic traditions of Indigenous resistance. Ours is a generational fight that picks up where our predecessors and ancestors left off. We are simply attempting to fulfill those original instructions that Valandra writes about; the same instructions that our ancestors set out all those years ago to fulfill. In many ways, we hope to be the culmination of our ancestors’ freedom dreams, premised always on returning to our humanity and our origins as good relatives.
What is perhaps different about the Red Deal is the scale of application we are proposing. Given the planetary reach of mass extinction caused by a global system of capitalism, our program for freedom must be equally audacious and far-reaching. There is no reason why Indigenous revolutionaries can’t lead us in this collective transition to the future. There is also no excuse to continue to side- line Indigenous people or knowledge simply because of the racism and ignorance that underwrites so much of what counts for radical or revolutionary politics. The extent to which the left—particularly in North America—continues to do so will be the measure of its failure to contribute in any meaningful way to the global revolution yet to come.
The Red Nation is not asking for a seat at the table of the ruling class or of the left. It is telling humanity to listen to Indigenous people. Don’t just take us seriously, take our lead, for as Haudenosaunee feminist Theresa McCarthy argues, “assertions of Indigenous knowledge” provide “models that pose alternatives to mainstream ideas,” something we desperately need in these times. In her reflections on the leadership of Haudenosaunee diplomats and governance systems in the establishment of Indigenous inter- nationalism, McCarthy reminds us that “the Haudenosaunee and other Indigenous nations of the world built an entire international Indigenous human rights infrastructure with no resources other than words and language.” Our words are powerful, and our knowledge is inevitable. Both come from and reaffirm the worlds we inhabit and continue to build, even under apocalyptic conditions. They convey strength and innovation. Because we belong to long traditions of Indigenous resistance, we have done this before. As comrade Nick Estes’ book states, our history is the future.
Each day in The Red Nation we study, theorize, enact, and experiment with everything we have laid out here in The Red Deal. We govern ourselves and our relations according to one simple philosophy: be a good relative. We are, as a collective, an experiment in practicing infrastructures of Indigenous worldmaking premised on this central edict. We don’t always get it right, but we refuse to give up because we carry the dreams of our ancestors in our hearts. These dreams will never steer us wrong, and they will not steer you wrong. The struggle to remember our humanity through our love for the Earth will define the future for all.
Join us. We are waiting for you, we welcome you, and we are ready to act.