…let’s get real: let’s get our bones out of museums and let’s bury them back in their tribal communities… — Sadie Red Wing

…if we’re talking generations from now, learning about these power structures that have been put in place that have destroyed Indigenous people, those generations, whether they are white, brown, Indian, whatever, it doesn’t matter: they will know that story. And that story will be part of them. They will understand that the land they are on is where their ancestors settled, it’s not their creator story that they’re living in. It’s someone else’s creator story. When you have that knowledge, you impart that into the world. So technology will reflect that, art will reflect that, everything will reflect that from all peoples, not just Indigenous peoples, because everyone will have that information. Right now, everything is set up for white power structures. Even Black and brown people are subservient to these white structures. How many people of color adjust the way they speak for the white office, for their white boss to approve of them? All of these things that we adjust for white people. If everyone knew creator stories, if everyone knew what land they were on, we wouldn’t have to adjust for anybody, we would all have that information… — Nicole Rodill

…what do I see in the future? I hope that people can hear, or get an idea or sense of what I mean when I say that colonization affects us in our daily tasks.… I always get upset that people like to throw this word decolonization around, but people forget that there’s so much research on decolonization here in America and it affects the Native American demographic, but a lot of the times they’re using the word decolonization as a verb to change the structures and you have to be careful… — Sadie Red Wing

…If my neighborhood, Brooklyn, was radically decolonized? I think there would be a lot of female leadership. Decolonization means the extermination of the patriarchy in the full concept of governing, of ownership. I think there would be predominantly female leadership just because most Indigenous communities prior to colonization had, if not female leadership, women who were the decision-makers choosing who was going to be the leader. There would probably be a lot more agricultural support systems, community gardens, and rooftop gardens. A huge part of Indigenous culture, obviously, is food sovereignty. If we were to decolonize Brooklyn, there would be orange trees or apple trees that people could go grab fruit off of.… In true Indigenous lands, you’re always giving thanks to Mother Earth, and Mother Earth is always providing for you, you are sharing the goodness of Mother Earth with your community at all times. If you are fortunate enough to be able to go foraging for the day, you forage for yourself and you forage for your neighbor, and that’s Indigenous community-building and community care… — Nicole Rodill

…you can better incorporate those voices who have been disenfranchised, and in fact you can focus those voices above those who have had power.… There are plenty of Black and brown people who know what’s wrong with our system and know how to fix it.… A white nonprofit is not going to fix the situation… — Jeanne Laïka

…I would hope that in the future there will be more design attention in community-building and invention, swapping out the word ‘design’ with ‘invent,’ and getting creative. We’re lacking a lot of opportunity and a lot of that is because people don’t know our culture… — Sadie Red Wing

…it became clear that we need more goods to be produced in the U.S. instead of relying on foreign manufactures. This way when another crisis happens, we are not scrambling for essential supplies and goods… — Valerie Frolova

…we really have to reconsider the purpose of politicians… — Dr. Christina Harrington

…we need regular people to run and get elected to office… — Marion Leary

…an ideal world recenters power around people… — Jeanne Laïka

…self-reflection would help with racism. Racism is so basic. It’s for basic bitches… If you go a little deeper with yourself and give yourself some depth you’ll realize, ‘come on bruh, you’re still on that?’… — Fawziyya Heart

…if you’re operating from a place where your well-being is not separate from anyone else’s well-being, including the entire biome of the planet, if that’s where your mind’s at and that’s where you’re operating, then systemic racism doesn’t happen… — Jason Killinger

…this takes it down to a very small perspective, but in our current life, you’re working, you manage different people who have different personalities. Sometimes they don’t share with you all of their skills or their dreams, but you start to get a sense for where they would excel in projects and you redirect them towards those things. Or you have somebody who is really talented but they have a terrible personality, they get on everybody’s nerves, so you redirect them to be doing other things interacting with fewer people but they’re producing really great work over in this corner of the room. That comes from understanding your ten-block radius. Having a manager, having a grandma, having an aunty who’s looking out for everyone who knows and is checking in with people and families finding out how kids are doing, understanding their character, their personality traits, and can adjust… — Nicole Rodill

…no phobias or ableism in my utopia. Sexism, transphobia — in my utopia we would all be caring for each other regardless… — Anonymous

…in utopian futures we think that there is an existence of Black and brown bodies, queer and trans bodies, and just the larger society at whole where everyone respects everyone in harmonious living… — Dr. Christina Harrington

…it just has to be a mental transformation of how Black people are viewed… The future for Black people should be more of an appreciation and gratitude. Just a mindset… giving us some fucking money, paying us for the work that we’ve done, paying us for work that our families have done in this country. That would be a great start. And showing us some fucking gratitude and some fucking respect would be a great start… — Fawziyya Heart

…why do a lot of Native Americans rely on stereotypes when we could be using our own visual languages? So this concept of visual sovereignty comes up… — Sadie Red Wing

…the better world that I want to help create involves the people who previously had been doing harm. What we want is more common than you think… — Jason Killinger

…finding out the way these systems work gives us the tools to dismantle them. I learned this from the famous Audre Lorde essay, ‘the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house’, you have to absolutely see the house that you are in before you understand how to burn it down. Unless we see that all these systems cannot function without each other, that we cannot just look at any one system, we cannot just say ‘defund the police’ without explaining that we must also simultaneously be approaching mental health, approaching education… — Katie Hinchey-Wise, MSc

…I wish there would be no guns at all. You would need a very special clearance to have a gun… — Anonymous

…what do we do with war, with violence, what do we do with prison? What do we do with the not-pleasant stuff? We imagine a utopia, it doesn’t mean that those things disappear. Does war happen in the future?… The majority of the time it comes down to having mental health resources. In my ideal world, ‘it takes a village,’ ten-block concept, that means children are being looked after from a young age, they’re not getting treated poorly by aunts or uncles or parents which could potentially create that kind of hate and rage and anger that creates angry, evil adults. A prison system is not really necessary. You think of other countries, like Scandinavian countries, that have very chill prison systems without a lot of people in them. In our country, we talk about recidivism, but what was on the outside for them? What helped them? What resources did they have? Did they have jobs, did they have assistance? In the ‘it takes a village’ mindset, there would be the resources for them on the outside if they got into trouble… — Nicole Rodill

…in my utopian world, there’s no problem with waste management, police brutality, or food insecurity… — Valerie Frolova

…it will not be about starting a war or contributing to one, but it would be about figuring out the cost of the potential conflict and trying to address it with diplomacy, not violent intrusion… — Valerie Frolova

…police are not here to be your friends, they’re not here to help you. The police are here to get us in check and keep us in line. Teachers are here to help you, social workers are here to help you, doctors, nurses… — Katie Hinchey-Wise, MSc

…if you train people how to recognize and de-escalate conflict and how to work together, it’s going to be so much easier to deal with that rather than having to escalate a situation by forcing a police structure on that society… — Jeanne Laïka

…people can act really weird, but they’re just trying to get a need met.… You just need to find out what it is. Look at things without that kind of judgement… — Lara Durback

…people are being brought into new situations and new crossroads, and we have to give them really easy information to consume but that has been around for awhile… — Katie Hinchey-Wise, MSc

…in a utopia, there wouldn’t be that ghost wondering about others’ intentions for me or the more sinister work that people have to do for money at certain levels of desperation where they really exploit each other… — Lara Durback

…don’t be an asshole! You can do what you want to do as long as it doesn’t hurt other people.… Freedom and responsibility… — Dr. Kimia Pourrezaei

Next: Create a commons council