What does TV's The Walking Dead reveal about the colonization of Indigenous peoples? Native American studies scholar Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy sees many connections. For her people, the Hupa, Yurok, and Karok tribes of Northern California, the apocalypse began centuries ago.

Dr. Risling Blady watches the popular TV show the Walking Dead. But she’s thinking, teaching and writing about parallels to colonization.

I spoke to Cutcha about survival, resistance and Indigenous experience of the end of the world. She explains colonization through the lens of popular culture and responds to all-too-frequent comments that Indigenous people should “just get over it.” Cutcha points out that some salvation lies in traditional knowledge of what to eat after the collapse and a sense of humor.

I interviewed her in the spring of 2015 for a CBC Radio One documentary called The Coming Zombie Apocalypse. Its about why it’s so easy to imagine the end of the world, but why it’s so hard to imagine an end to capitalism. Air date: October 27, 2015 - 9 PM across Canada, in North America on Serius XM and on cbc.ca/ideas.

Cutcha Risling Baldy's blog post on this subject is at http://www.cutcharislingbaldy.com/blog/on-telling-native-people-to-just-get-over-it-or-why-i-teach-about-the-walking-dead-in-my-native-studies-classes-spoiler-alert