Jumpy McGee plays with Team Indigenous at Champs

Maine Roller Derby’s Jumpy McGee played with Team Indigenous in a special exposition game against Jewish Roller Derby called We Are Nation: A Game Without Borders.

Team Indigenous Rising is made up of skaters, coaches and volunteers who are Indigenous and First Nations people from throughout the Americas. Jewish Roller Derby/רולר דרבי יהודי unites the skaters, officials, and coaches of the Jewish diaspora as one team and one nation.

Jumpy provided these remarks at the event:

Yaateeh, my name is April, also known as Jumpy. I am Dine’ and the captain and co-founder of Team Indigenous Roller Derby. We are so grateful to have this opportunity to come together and highlight these borderless nation teams on this amazing stage. Thank you WFTDA for your partnership and collaboration to make this game possible. Thank you Jewish Roller Derby for being with us on this journey. Thank you everyone who has bought a shirt, a patch, donated to our fundraising efforts and helped to share the visibility of our teams. When we all pitch in to support marginalized populations we create greater access and opportunity for this sport that we all love. This is why this game is so important. We are creating an opportunity to showcase two very diverse teams, who descend from peoples who have been forcibly removed from their homelands and continued to build lives and communities despite their situation. They define themselves as a people, as a nation by their own identity, their own culture, their own language and their own spirite

And so we ask our friends and allies. Our roller derby community to stand with us. To take this experience back to your home leagues and use your positions of privilege to educate yourselves and others, to create space and opportunities for those marginalized within your communities, to hold our governing bodies accountable in ensuring that this game, is not a one-time occurrence, but the beginning of a new platform to elevate diverse communities. We have said as a roller derby community we are committed to doing better. Let’s make that happen together.

We are still here. Were will outlive them. We are nation.

Ahehee

If you missed the livestream, the game is available on YouTube: