In 2016, over two hundred organizations signed on in support of a congressional resolution to establish May 5 as National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native Women and Girls (MMIWG). Long ignored—the need for an acronym itself is telling—the issue has belatedly risen to prominence in the United States and Canada this past decade, thanks largely to the efforts of grassroots Native women organizers. On May 4 of this year, as if notified just in time, President Joe Biden officially declared the next day Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) Awareness Day.
The proclamation came less than five weeks after Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced a new Missing and Murdered Unit (MMU) within the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services. It was widely heralded as a positive development in U.S.–Native relations, a good omen for the years ahead. But Biden has a mixed track record when it comes to Native people. He backs the Line 3 pipeline that passes through Minnesota, despite widespread Indigenous opposition. Over the last decade, the fervor about MMIWG has been matched only by the intensity of Indigenous organizing to protect water and land from extractive industries. Why would Biden support one but not the other?
The answer lies in the language of the MMIP proclamation. Biden calls MMIP a “tragedy” that stems “from a long history of broken promises, oppression, and trauma.” Lamenting that “for too long, there has been too much sorrow and worry” for the families of victims, he pledges to unite various tribal, federal, and law enforcement agencies to promote “healthy, safe communities” once and for all. This language mimics that of Executive Order 13898, which former President Donald Trump issued in November 2019 to establish Operation Lady Justice (OLJ), a Presidential Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives. Trump stated that the task force should develop “a public-awareness campaign to educate both rural and urban communities about the needs of affected families.” It prescribed “maximally cooperative, trauma-informed responses to cases involving missing and murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives.”
Neither Biden’s nor Trump’s statement mentions what might be causing the mass murder of Indigenous people, namely ongoing colonization. By invoking the language of injury—tragedy, trauma, sorrow—the state can acknowledge the high rates of violence against Native people without addressing its underlying structural causes.