Anti-Indigenous Racism is on the Rise

A sign at a rally protesting government policy negatively targeting Te Tiriti o Waitangi in New Zealand, 2023 -- L Maule, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

By John Ahni Schertow, Intercontinental Cry

Anti-Indigenous rhetoric and policy actions have started trending in Canada, Australia, the United States and New Zealand, reflecting what can only be described as a coordinated rollback of hard-won gains and an emboldened backlash against Indigenous self-determination.

What was once debated at the margins has moved into mainstream politics. Governments and opposition movements alike are questioning the legitimacy of Indigenous governance, narrowing interpretations of historic agreements, and rolling back institutions designed to address long-documented inequalities.

At the same time, online harassment, public hostility and, in some cases, violence directed at Indigenous peoples have intensified, creating a climate of normalization around racism that had previously been more openly condemned.

From challenges to Te Tiriti o Waitangi in New Zealand to efforts to dismantle tribal sovereignty protections in the United States, these developments are not isolated. Instead, they reflect a shared political playbook that minimizes colonial history and treats Indigenous rights as an obstacle to national unity rather than a foundation of justice.

Canada: Backlash and Denialism

In Canada, debates over truth and reconciliation have become increasingly contested terrain. Scholars and historians say residential school denialism is being used by some right-wing commentators and politicians to delegitimize the historical record of Indigenous harm and derail reconciliation efforts, contributing to a broader climate of backlash. Critics argue this narrative reframes systemic violence in a manner that contradicts Canada’s history.

Online hate targeting Indigenous peoples has also been documented. In 2025, British Columbia’s human rights authorities reported a rise in online racial slurs and threats directed at Indigenous advocates, including coordinated harassment when Indigenous voices are amplified in public debates.

Not much has changed since then. Recently, local leaders in the Cowichan Valley, British Columbia, sounded the alarm over what they describe as a rise in anti-Indigenous racism in everyday interactions.

This rise in anti-Indigenous sentiment can be traced to the 2025 British Columbia Supreme Court ruling that recognized the Cowichan Tribes’ Aboriginal title to lands within what is now the City of Richmond.

The decision triggered a wave of public anxiety and political rhetoric suggesting — contrary to the court’s findings — that homeowners could face mass dispossession or retroactive legal claims. Talk radio, opinion columns and social media has amplified fears of a cascade of lawsuits, fueling a narrative that portrays the Indigenous legal victory as destabilizing and extreme.

A new data investigation also pointed to stark disparities in fatal violence against Indigenous women and girls. According to the Investigative Journalism Bureau review, only about one-quarter of accused individuals in Canada were charged with first-degree murder compared with a significantly higher rate in similar cases involving non-Indigenous women.

Marion Buller, a former judge and chief commissioner of the 2016 National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, called the findings indicative of broader structural problems — from policing to prosecutorial decisions — that shape case outcomes long before trial. Ottawa defense lawyer Michael Spratt described the pattern as evidence that Indigenous women’s “lives and their health and their safety are not valued as highly.”

Australia: Extremism and Policy Backlash

In Australia, Indigenous peoples face a multifaceted backlash that spans violent incidents, entrenched institutional racism and political resistance to Indigenous rights reforms.

On Jan. 26 — Australia Day, a date many Indigenous people call Invasion Day in recognition of the 1788 arrival of the British First Fleet at Sydney Cove — authorities charged a man with engaging in a terrorist act after he allegedly threw a homemade “fragment bomb” into a crowd of peaceful protesters advocating for Indigenous justice in Perth. Police and prosecutors say the ideology driving the attack was rooted in white nationalist hatred directed at Aboriginal peoples and their allies.

But the backlash extends beyond isolated extremist acts. Systemic racism remains deeply embedded in Australia’s institutions. For example, a 2025 survey of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander doctors in training found more than half experienced bullying, discrimination and harassment in their professional pathways — almost double the national average — underscoring how racism permeates even elite sectors such as healthcare.

National and regional justice systems have also been scrutinized for racist outcomes. For instance, Indigenous children are disproportionately represented in detention, with reports showing Indigenous youth make up more than 60 per cent of children in detention despite being a small share of the population. Rights advocates say this reflects deeper structural bias rather than isolated policy failures.

Beyond formal politics, Indigenous Australians and commentators report that casual and overt racism persists in everyday life.

United States: Policy Shifts and Everyday Racism

In the United States, Indigenous nations and advocates are sounding the alarm over a suite of federal actions under President Donald Trump that they say undermine decades of progress on tribal sovereignty, education, cultural recognition and environmental stewardship.

Tribal leaders and rights advocates point to the revocation of key executive actions designed to strengthen tribal self-determination and formal government-to-government relationships.

Education has also emerged as a flashpoint. Proposed budget cuts in 2025 and 2026 would slash funding for Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) by as much as 90 percent, jeopardizing institutions that serve thousands of Indigenous students. Tribal advocates have framed the reductions as a threat to tribal sovereignty and the long-term viability of Indigenous education systems.

Basic cultural recognition and historical memory has been impacted as well. A 2025 executive order aimed broadly at removing “improper partisan ideology” from federal institutions led to the removal of informational signs about slavery, climate change and conflicts with Native Americans in National Park Service sites, a move that civil rights advocates said erased important context about Indigenous and Black histories in the United States.

Amidst this alarming shift in policy that hearkens back to the 1800s, Native Americans are reporting a huge spike of incidents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Some tribes, such as the Navajo Nation and those in Oklahoma and North Dakota, have formally encouraged members to secure or carry tribal IDs and educate themselves on how to interact with federal agents, while lawmakers in Minnesota condemned what they described as a “lawless abuse of power” that violates tribal sovereignty and treaty rights. Tribal officials argue that targeting Indigenous individuals in immigration sweeps ignores their status as the original inhabitants of the land.

New Zealand: Te Tiriti Tensions and Political Shifts

In Aotearoa (New Zealand), recent government policy shifts amount to persistent discrimination against Māori rights.

Māori elected officials and community groups have framed these developments as part of a systematic rollback of treaty-based protections. Te Pāti Māori, a Māori-led political party, has accused the government of “constitutional vandalism” for stripping treaty clauses from more than two dozen laws across sectors such as health, conservation and child welfare — a process seen as diminishing Indigenous standing in national policy and lawmaking.

In late 2025, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination reported deep concern that these changes risked weakening Aotearoa’s legal framework for racial equality and Māori rights, marking it as one of the strongest critiques of New Zealand’s racial record in decades.

Leaders like Sonodo-Pale link these developments to a broader global trend of conservative backlash against Indigenous self-determination, framing rights initiatives as divisive rather than recognizing them as obligations rooted in history and law.

Daily life doesn’t fare much better. Māori activists and civil society groups have reported broader experiences of discrimination as documented in national surveys, with Māori more likely than other groups to say they face racial discrimination in daily life.

A Growing Racist Backlash

These are not a few isolated incidents, but a transnational pattern in which Indigenous rights frameworks are increasingly framed as excessive, divisive or incompatible with national unity. And it is accompanied by a rise in hostile rhetoric that normalizes suspicion toward Indigenous peoples, emboldening both online harassment and real-world discrimination.

Confronting this trend requires more than condemnation. It needs sustained public education, stronger political leadership willing to defend treaty and constitutional obligations, and media coverage that contextualizes Indigenous rights within the broader histories of colonization, dispossession and resistance that continue to shape nation states like Canada, Australia, the United States and New Zealand today.

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