Ep. 45: Undoing the Colonial Binary: Kent Monkman on Queer Indigenous Worldviews

This episode opens like someone cracked a window in a crowded room. Fresh air, honesty, and two Indigenous minds settling into a conversation that feels intimate, necessary, and decades overdue. Dr. Candace Manitopyes connects with internationally acclaimed Cree artist Kent Monkman, whose work has reshaped how the world understands history, queerness, and Indigenous presence.Kent speaks about the power and pain behind paintings like The Scream, describing how art becomes both meditation and medicine as he confronts the legacy of residential schools. He shares how his new Knowledge Keepers series honours the children who secretly whispered their languages to each other—moments of quiet rebellion that kept culture alive. Candace meets him in that depth, recalling how seeing The Scream during the uncovering of unmarked graves felt like a punch to the heart.Then Miss Chief Eagle Testickle enters: Kent’s iconic, gender-fluid alter ego. Part trickster, part theorist, part seductress, she’s his weapon for reversing the colonial gaze, stepping into Western art and rewriting the story from the inside. Kent and Candace dismantle the myth that queerness is new or un-Indigenous, naming how binaries rooted in Christian colonialism buried truths communities once held with ease.Their conversation becomes a meditation on love, liberation, kinship, and the courage it takes to be oneself in a world that benefits from your silence. By the end, listeners are reminded that art can heal, queerness is ancient, and Indigenous love will always outlast the systems built to erase it. -Relentless Actions1. Visit a local gallery, museum, or online archive featuring Indigenous artists. Spend 10 minutes observing one piece without reading the caption first, just let your body respond, then learn its context.2. Have a short conversation with someone in your life about a topic you usually avoid, such as identity, queerness, colonial history, or truth-telling. Keep it grounded, curious, and honest.Relentless Reflections1. Where in my life have I confused silence with safety? And what might become possible if I allow myself to speak or live more truthfully?2. When have I witnessed love—mine or someone else’s—expand beyond what colonial binaries said was acceptable? What did that moment teach me about freedom?Relentless Resources 1. Kent Monkman's website2. The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: Vol. 1: A True and Exact Accounting of the History of Turtle Island, book Send Us a Text with Your Thoughts or Questions!Join the RIW Patreon Community RIW WebsiteMusic Produced by Award-Winning Anishnaabe DJ Boogey the Beat