EP 07: MMIP Activism, Grief, and Commitment With Runner and Advocate Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Whetstone (Part 2)

Welcome to Episode 7 of Supersede! 

This week, Madeleine continues her conversation with Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Whetstone. Grounding the conversation in her advocacy and passion, Jordan shares her story of advocacy for MMIP, speaking about what brought her to run the 2019 Boston Marathon as a prayer run dedicated to 26 MMIP. Jordan also shares what her 2023 return to the Boston Marathon meant to her and how her organizing work has grown throughout the years. 

Drawing deeply from her connection to MMIP stories that go beyond the headlines, Jordan emphasizes the importance of year-round advocacy for MMIP and of building trusting communities from which collective activism can grow. Jordan leaves us with her dreams of a future free from violence against Indigenous people. How can we build towards this future and nourish our communities throughout the years and across generations to make this possible? 

To get involved with Jordan’s work, visit  https://www.risinghearts.org/ and https://www.jordanmariedaniel.com/ 

Jordan Marie Brings Three White Horses Whetstone, a member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, is a fourth generation runner, athlete advocate, community organizer, project manager, filmmaker, founder of Rising Hearts and a new mom. Since the 2019 Boston Marathon, she uses her platform - #RunningForJustice, to help raise awareness of missing and murdered Indigenous relatives by dedicating the miles she runs to a missing or murdered Indigenous person - their families, survivors and advocates. Jordan is committed to helping make the running and community spaces a more equitable, safe, visible, supportive, diverse, inclusive, affordable and accessible place for people today and the next generations.

Jordan's Socials
Instagram: @nativein_la / @rising_hearts
Twitter: @_nativeinla

Seeding Sovereignty's Socials
Instagram/TikTok/Twitter/YouTube: @seedingsovereignty
Website: www.seedingsovereignty.org

Madeleine's Socials
Instagram/TikTok: @madeleinemacgillivray
Website: www.madeleinemacgillivray.com

Credits
This episode was edited by Madeleine MacGillivray. Theme music was written by Luke Poulsen and recorded by Madeleine MacGillivray and Luke Poulsen. Episode description by Julia Jackson.

Transcript

And I feel like I've got there and I was able to do that this year at the 2023 Boston Marathon. And I think it's just, you know, it's prioritizing your healthcare and your wellbeing in that process and having to not ignore. physically what your body is trying to communicate to you. Cause I was doing that for so long in 2019 that it just kind of all came to a flood head gate of unreleasing like all of these emotions. And yeah, it just, it took a lot of practice and it takes time. And especially if you are someone who has experienced violence and is, you know, I suppressed that trauma for so long and I thought I was perfect and fine. But then until I started running for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples, that all came out of the woodworks. And I was like, I guess I'm not healed. So I guess just pretending that everything is OK and telling myself that happened X amount of years ago that that's the case. So it's having to confront yourself and being honest with yourself, I think, always the hardest part, maybe for me, maybe for anyone. But yeah, it's now just being mindful of how much I'm taking on. Now that there are so many other amazing advocates within this space and athlete advocates doing the same thing like me, I don't always need to be the one talking about this. There are so many other people that can talk to this issue and that are bringing visibility to it. And at first it always felt like I was the only one doing it for a while. And then I started seeing more athletes rise up and doing the same thing. And I think that's just the part of the community that we're inspiring each other. we're motivating each other to do something. And I think that's, you know, the beauty in all of that.

Madeleine:
Thank you so much for sharing all that. I think it's really helpful to hear that vulnerability and I think that it really just shows that we, you know, especially you are like, as such a strong person, there's just only so much that you can, you know, shoulder and like no one should have to shoulder that. alone and you were doing that alone for a while. And so to know that you like sought out, okay, I need help. I need an indigenous therapist. And to sort of have that experience must have been so healing and helpful. And now you have these tools that you can share with others. It's really wonderful, but it also shows that as much as like... like your work is fulfilling, it takes a toll. And so to be able to step back and take a break and know when you need to stop is really critical. So thank you for sharing all that.

Jordan:
Yeah, and I think another important thing for people to know is like, it's never just you. And sometimes it may feel like that, that I'm doing this, I'm doing this, and I'm doing this. But like when you really kind of break it down, there are so many people that are part of that journey with you, whether they play a big part or a small part. Like it's like that my therapist was such a huge piece to like my healing and figuring things out. And to be able to continuously do what I want to be doing. And it's my partner, my family, my parents, and it's my best friend Ariel, and just so many people that help lift you up and are that pull for you to lean on, that shoulder for you to lean on when you feel like you're about to break. And I think it also taught me to have trust in people that I work with. I'm someone who's very type A and like, I'll just do it, I'll get it done, because I know how to get it done in a certain way. But it really taught me to like lean on people that wanted to reach out and like help with either Rising Hearts things or my own personal stuff. And it taught me to like lean on them and to like, I can let go of some things. I don't have to do all of these things and they can do it just as well, or they might even do it better and think of something that I never thought of. And that's something I'm still trying to like embrace and practice more each and every single day. But I think that's another thing that like came out of all of that was like putting more trust in into, you know, community and people who wanted to help in a variety of ways.

Madeleine:
Yeah, totally. Amen. So I want to talk about the fact that you just ran the Boston Marathon again a couple of weeks ago. You mentioned it a little bit that you ran for the first time in 2019, correct?

Jordan:
Yeah, well the first one I ran in 2016 for Running

Madeleine:
Oh,

Jordan:
Strong

Madeleine:
OK.

Jordan:
for Canadian Youth. That was my first one. The second

Madeleine:
Wow.

Jordan:
one was in 2019 where I ran for Wings of America.

Madeleine:
Okay. And so first of all, congratulations.

Jordan:
Thank

Madeleine:
As someone

Jordan:
you.

Madeleine:
who, who like runs a little bit, but has never run a marathon. It's something that I respect a lot and can only hope to get to that point. I would love to hear more about like, we touched on this a little bit, what that race meant to you and like how you showed up sort of through Running for Justice and and yeah your work specifically with that race.

Jordan:
Yeah, so really what inspired it all is like the 2019 Boston Marathon, that came out of a moment of like frustration and like, feeling disheartened in society that did not care about indigenous peoples and constantly seeing the seeing and murdered like posters, flyers, seeing messages being shared from families who have lost a loved one and just felt like the world did not care about us and that we were, you know, disposable that we were expendable. And I think it just like, after learning more about it and like trying to organize panels and bring community together to learn about this and to take action with us, it just was like such a disheartening experience that like no one cared. So it was like literally within days of the Boston Marathon that my mom was driving up from Virginia to Boston. I was like, hey, can you get me some face paint? And I still had no idea exactly what I was gonna do. And I just like kept. something kept telling me like I need to do something. And then finally, you know, I started, you know, going through Instagram and like going to MMI who is missing and like some of these accounts that I was following. And I started seeing like the names and I started compiling this list. And I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna do a prayer run because I had participated in a couple and I'm gonna take some of those best practices that I've learned and then like do my own thing and to make it more authentic to me. And That's where, you know, Running for 26 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples came about. And then my husband, my partner at the time, was driving me to the buses to get to the start line. And that's where I had the face paint and hand paint. And I was just like, I'm just going to paint the letters on me. And so I started painting the letters on my body. And then when we get there, I get out of the car and start looking in the mirror. And one symbol, an image that just kept popping into my head was, you know, the red handprint. and seeing them at marches and rallies that I had been to at the intersection of the climate crisis and MMIW and learning more about it. I was like, you know what, I'm going to do this because I feel like this will honor them in this way that this is representing the voices that have been silenced. No one's going to know what any of this means. No one's going to care, but that's not the point. This is about making this run intentional and purposeful and Hopefully it honors them and they hear my prayers and they feel it in this way. And a couple of days later, I had no idea sharing about it on Instagram that it would have led to what it has today throughout since then, since four years ago. And coming into now four years later and making my return back to the Boston Marathon, I've been trying to get back there the last couple of years. I had an injury, I had to. And then I got pregnant and had to defer that one. And then I actually had a baby and was in postpartum. So I had to defer that one. And so I feel like I've been like itching to get back there. And so luckily Rising Hearts, we've been working on this relationship with the Boston Athletic Association for the last several years. And they gave us invitational entries. So me and Kelsey Long, a DNA Navajo runner, joined me in supporting Rising Hearts. And so I really wanted this prayer run. to be a little bit more well thought out because I felt like a chicken with its head caught off because I still didn't know what it really was meaning or what it would mean to the world. And so I wanted to make sure that I got the blessings from all of the family. And so I started reaching out and like creating a website, started getting their pictures, started talking to them, trying to consolidate information that they wanted me to share with the world as they're gonna be learning about who I'm running for. And so I wanted to compile as much information, as many resources, as calls to action. I wanted people to see who I was running for right before I was about to run. So I made that website live about an hour and a half before I actually started the run. I wanted them to take the time to scroll and to learn who I was running for and dedicating them to. So I wanted to have a bit more intention with that. And I think it did. It led to so many other... like lines of communication with community. It led to people like screenshotting me, like them donating to these GoFundMe's and like, or signing up for these events that were shared. And so many people were sharing with the link, you know, that post. And ever since then, I've been like slowly releasing posts about that prayer run. What does running for justice actually means for me and why I've been using that hashtag since that first prayer run. and what is May 5th and National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Peoples and like trying to ramp up since that prayer run through Earth Day and the climate crisis and the intersection of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples to now as we're entering into the week of action for May 5th, National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples. And so I really wanted to help communicate that and people like reels, people like posts, people like emails. So I've been like. sending all this information off of like every sort of medium possible and trying to have as much visibility, but also like trying to help increase the participation of community being part of these events with us and going beyond just a retweet or a reshare or even just a donation, which donations definitely are super helpful because it supports the advocacy that is happening for the families and the advocates. But we need people to help amplify and like increase visibility because It's this time of year that we get the visibility. Sometimes last year it got erased or the year before it got erased. And then we get Orange Shirt Day, which is at the intersection of the boarding schools and the epidemic of missing or indigenous peoples. And then we get Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Sometimes we get the visibility in that, but we need this to be consistent, that this isn't an issue happening this time of year. We need people. non-Indigenous peoples to realize that this work is every single day and that we have an Indigenous person going missing or being murdered consistently, you know, all throughout the year. And that's what we're trying to do. That's what I'm trying to do through Rising Hearts and through my own personal advocacy is trying to make sure that people are exposed to this information, that they are hearing accurately from the organizations or the families or myself, and that there are pathways for them to take action and participate.

Madeleine:
And what, yeah, first of all, thank you for sharing all that. It's, I'm kind of just trying to like process all of it because it's a lot to kind of just even take in the fact that for folks who are listening who don't know how many folks who are indigenous go missing and murdered every day, it's a really staggering. statistic. And I think that as you are talking about, like, sharing the stories and just talking about them and amplifying them is just bringing visibility to this issue is what's really critical and what's really needed. And you know, you have found this platform and like, sort of method and way of doing that in a really effective and beautiful way. I guess, you know, Firstly, I just want to give you the opportunity if you want to kind of share some of the stories of the folks that you ran for or sort of what that process looked like, or also just sort of direct people who are listening to the website that you made.

Jordan:
Yeah, I think the best place to learn more about that, because I really want people to take that proactive step for themselves to learn by going to jordanmariedaniel.com forward slash running for justice. And I think that's just the best way to learn who I'm running for. And I really wanted this to be intentional. And so one person that I will speak to whose family has given me the blessing to be kind of the spokesperson. for their daughter, for their loved one, is Victoria Jane Eagleman. Vicki went missing in the summer of 2006, and so I have grown up and seen violence within the home. When I came back to South Dakota from Maine, I was just about to start college in that fall of 2006, and I had come back to see my family in Lower Brule. I'm like, my dad and I are taking off to go back to Maine. And my mom tells us that she's going to be part of a search and rescue party looking for Victoria Jane Eagleman. And that's where that like kind of light bulb moment of like understanding that this violence is not an isolated incident that this, and I was only 18 and that there's something more happening that I don't understand. And I don't understand why people would do this. And so that just started to me, like got me to ask a bunch of questions. And in college, I took a couple of courses and they actually brought up the highway of tears. And that's where I started to learn about the advocacy that was happening in Canada with First Nations, families and community members talking about this epidemic of violence and the high rates of missing and murdered indigenous peoples on highway 16, which is known as the highway of tears. And so I started just learning about these little things like bits and bits until that moment at that. March and rally in 2014 at the reject and protect key XL pipeline where they started really talking about it. And so all of it, just stringing it together kind of made sense to me. And so my mom was part of that search and rescue party for Victoria. And then about a month later, they had found her body. And I had read what had happened to her with the details that were available to the public. And I was just like, how can people do this? Like this is... sickening. This is so traumatizing and like how can, how is anyone, how is a human capable of doing this to another human? And it just like baffled me. And so her name, Victoria, since she was from my own community in Laura Brule, it just really stuck with me. She and Anita of Sovereign Bodies Institute, I was having lunch with her one time and she was like, there's kind of always that one person, you know, that one case that kind of sticks with you, that motivates you, that angers makes you cry or you have a special connection to. And Victoria was that for me. And so I finally had done one of my prayer runs, I think it was my third one in 2019. And I had dedicated a mile to her at a half marathon in San Jose and in a roundabout way. And I want people to know this because these connections to families isn't always so positive or happy. I wanna be transparent, but this connection to her mom, June Left Hand, happened because a cousin of Victoria's had seen my prayer run and had seen the image at San Jose. And I was like, oh, this is amazing. Thank you for honoring my cousin. Vicki was just such an incredible woman and a mother and a sister and a friend. And Vicki's mom had seen it. And Vicki's mom, June, had messaged me personally just saying that She didn't appreciate that I dedicated a mile to her daughter, that I was just trying to exploit her and all of this stuff. And that was not my intentions at all. And I tried to communicate her in the best ways that I could and shared with her my honesty of why I'm doing this. And I shared with her articles and like other examples of what I'm trying to do. And... I was just like, it's okay, I'll remove her name from the post and all of that. And that's what really made sure that I need to make sure I'm trying to reach these families. And then, I just like, she was coming from a place of hurt, obviously. And I didn't really understand some of that because I'm not someone who had lost their daughter or someone really directly close to them. So I was a little bit hurt and not understanding, but I was like, it's not about me. but I'm gonna do this to make her happy and remove her name and I won't do it again. And then several months later, I think it was probably in June of 2020, almost a year later, she had reached out to me again, apologizing and saying, hey, I just wanna share with you, I wasn't angry at you, I'm angry at the systems that have made my daughter invisible and the people who made promises to help bring justice and to help bring visibility to her that never showed up. And that triggered me seeing you do that for her and thinking that this was gonna happen again. But she's like, I've been vetting you. She was close with the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center. She was close with some of these other orgs and she had asked about me and like saw other articles about me. And she was like, no, I really appreciate you doing this. You have like, you can be the spokesperson for our family and anything that you need, I'll help you do. And she's just like, I just lost faith. Like no one talks to us anymore. The FBI doesn't talk to us. Like we're not getting any answers. We had to move away from Lower Brule to Pine Ridge. And she was just sharing with me like all of the hardships that she's having to do. And she's raising her five grandkids, which are Vicky's five children who are now adults now and trying to make ends meet. And so it's been very, very important to me to try and bring justice for Vicky because not only is that close to home. But now I have a close relationship with June, her mom and the community there and trying to help bring answers for her so that she can continue healing, but hopefully move forward, not move on, but just move forward in life. And that's someone who is very special to me. And so I hope people, when they go to this website, that they can learn a little bit more about Victoria and... know that like you see us as athlete advocates, that we may be doing all of these things, but we do have these moments where, you know, we make mistakes, we mess up, but I'm really happy that it turned around in the direction that it did, where June was able to feel like she could reach out to me again, and to be receptive to what I wanted to share, but also hearing what she had to share. And I think that's part of growing and learning and understanding and... Yeah, I'm just really grateful for that connection with June and to hopefully help her in any sort of way.

Madeleine:
Yeah, absolutely. I think that just it sounds like that experience in and of itself was healing just that connection that you both made. And and and that's really beautiful. I'm thinking of sort of the way that you were talking about how you had, you know, not experienced a relative going missing or murdered and how you couldn't have really you know, put yourself obviously in those shoes of June because that wasn't your experience. How, and this is also like a sensitive question, so you also don't have to answer it, but you know, you talked a little bit about being a mother and you know, raising this wonderful boy. How has your view of this issue and your work changed after having your son? and being a mother.

Jordan:
Yeah, I mean, it's made me, I feel like, more motivated to raise him, to be a good relative, to be a good protector, and to treat everyone with kindness and with love. And also being on the other side of things, being an advocate and being surrounded by the really horrible stories and experiences and statistics and all of that, it terrifies me as a mom. anything could happen to him. And like now that we're seeing even more higher rates of gun violence happening and him being a kid and terrified of sending him off to school, it's a fine line and a fine balance to have to manage. Cause I don't want to scare him. I don't want him to see me scared. I want him to be calm and confident and be intuitive to what he's feeling and experiencing in the world. But yeah, I'm just trying to. embrace him as much as I can with his family here and with community. And I bring him to every event that I can. So he can be exposed to this very early on. And we're having these conversations. And he is, you know, there are more conversations to be had. And you know, he's a mixed baby. And he's going to experience that, sadly, within the Indigenous community. And we have to learn how to communicate that as well. But. if anything, it just motivates me more to like work harder and to make sure that hopefully he doesn't have to experience these like bad things. That's what I hope for all of our next generations and our younger generations today. But it does, it gives you that extra sense of like protectiveness and that vulnerability, to being a parent and being responsible for this little human. But if anything, it just makes me more excited for him to hopefully enjoy, this world, these sacred ecosystems and feeling like he has community beyond just me and dada or me, dada and grandma that he can really rely on.

Madeleine:
Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful. Okay, I'm sort of thinking maybe if there's anything else that you wanna touch on that we didn't touch on, one of the things that I would love to ask you is just to talk a little bit about this week, about your work this week, you talk about it. obviously on your social channels, et cetera, and you touched on it. But if you could sort of just describe to the listener either just what you're doing this week, the work that you're doing this week, and also ways that they can get involved and amplify messages and be allies.

Jordan:
Yeah, so this week today, May 1st, Monday, is the start of the May 5th week of action. Rising Hearts is a national partner for May 5th with National Indigenous Women's Resource Center. So they have multiple workshop webinars and podcast opportunities for you to listen to each and every single day. You're gonna be hearing from different communities down in Hawaii from our Kanaka Maoli. relatives down there speaking about this issue happening in their communities. And then we have our Alaska native relatives that are part of these conversations, as well as other voices that are trying to bring visibility for families and the families speaking. And people need to understand that this is also a really hard week. It's really heavy. It's going to be triggering. Having to relive some of these stories for the families to talk about, you know, is really hard. So my best suggestion, if you are friends with native people, you know, you can talk reach out to them, donate them a few dollars to get them a cup of coffee or a drink or a snack or something, or just check in on them and ask them how they're doing, or send them some funny gift to make them smile. And so for Rising Hearts personally, we tomorrow on Tuesday, May 2nd, we have our safety planning workshop with COLA. This is for the running community and everyone. to create a safety plan, what that looks like for yourself, what that looks like when you include your family and closest loved ones. All of our workshop wellness classes are free or donation-based. You're welcome to donate if you like, but it's tomorrow at 4 p.m. Pacific time, 7 p.m. Eastern. And then Wednesday we have Yoga Flow for Healing Trauma. It's open to everyone, but we really hope anyone that is feeling that trauma or needs a place to decompress and to... prioritize their well-being and self-care to join this class. It's free, open to the public, donations are welcome, and that's at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, May 3rd and 8 p.m. Pacific Eastern time. And so our last event is starting on Friday, May 5th through the 7th on Sunday, and that is our fifth annual Running for Justice. We have multiple distances, all of the registrations or donations, options to donate. are being donated to our beneficiaries, which is the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center, Alaska Native Women's Resource Center, Sovereign Bodies Institute, and then Rising Hearts No More Stolen Relatives Initiative. If you click on that tab at our risinghearts.org website, you can learn from more resources, more opportunities to learn and ways to support. And yeah, for the last couple of years, we've donated over $100,000 to these organizations on during this time of year from May 5th. through Running for Justice, and we hope to continue doing more. And our goal is to reach 2,000 participant registrants for this run, because we'll be able to meet that goal and hopefully raise over, you know, our goal is like over 30,000 for this year. And so we hope to get there, get there, meet it, get as close as possible or exceed it. But I think that just goes to show that community is so important, and it's been so beautiful, and it's been amazing to see people. share their bibs, share their walk, share their run, share their bike ride, share their yoga practice with us during this time when we host this run. And that's them showing their solidarity, showing their support and then taking action and wanting to learn more and learn how to be an advocate with us and a good relative to each other.

Madeleine:
Awesome. Thank you for sharing all that. My last question is, like, what are your, what's, how are you thinking about kind of your, how do I say this? Like, what is, what are Jordan's future dreams? What, what is kind of in store? How are you thinking about just? your path and your curiosities and your dreams moving forward.

Jordan:
Yeah, I mean, I hope to not see this violence in my lifetime. I hope it ends. I hope people take action to support and we start seeing legislation and resources supporting the families and the advocates. I would love to see that. I would love to see. a bigger family, personally. I would love to see the mission and the purpose of Rising Hearts carry on, whether that's Rising Hearts continuing as an organization or people embodying what we've tried to create and practicing that in their daily lives. That's what I hope to see and. Yeah, I think that's it.

Madeleine:
Thank you. Is there anything else that you would like to share?

Jordan:
I don't think so. It's gonna be a good

Madeleine:
Okay,

Jordan:
week.

Madeleine:
awesome.

Jordan:
It's gonna be a big week, but it's gonna be a good week.

Madeleine:
Yeah, totally. We'll try to get this episode out as soon as possible so that everybody can actually learn about this. Obviously, seating will amplify all of what you just said as well. Yeah, thank you, Jordan. Thank you so much for being here, for being vulnerable and sharing all of what you shared, and just being who you are and the work that you do.

Jordan:
Thank you so much.