Amanda Lickers is a “anarchaqueer Onkwehon:we cis-woman” from the Turtle Clan of the Onondowaga nation; her interests include “combating ecocide, hating the police, and harvesting medicines.” When she’s not using protests and rallies as opportunities to attack the police, Amanda works towards “dismantling all systems of oppression” by paradoxically “slashing at their social, cultural and material infrastructures.
Amanda works with Rising Tide Toronto, many of the same fine people who brought violence to the streets of Toronto during the 2010 G20. As a spokesperson for their protests, she plays a valuable role deflecting the media from asking questions like “how can a group consisting of 99% ‘settler allies’ have the audacity to claim they speak on behalf of entire indigenous communities,” and “why are there so many convicted G20 organizers here?”
Lickers was in the news again last week after emitting 600 kilometers of carbon traveling to fight “ecocide” in Montreal. She and fellow protesters interrupted a National Energy Board consultation on the Energy East pipeline. Standing on First Nations land unrelated to her home at the Six Nations, Amanda was an interesting choice of spokesperson- why wasn’t there someone local? Could it be that she’s following her established tradition of appropriating the voices of indigenous people outside her own community?