Owning my colonized mind
Today is July 1st. I’ve always celebrated this day with fireworks, BBQs, maple leafs, trips to Ottawa, drinks, and laughter. I’ve always thought of it as a glorious day to rejoice and to be grateful for the many freedoms, peace, love and kindness I felt “we” had. Such a privileged view that ignored our true history.
I am a grateful person. I see the good in most things and people and like my optimistic lens of potential and possibility. I like to have fun and I like enjoying celebrations. Don’t you? You may wonder, why should I do anything other than celebrate this day? Perhaps you don’t want to feel anything other than joy. As someone who practices yoga, I understand that.
And yet, not wanting to feel anything other than joy for your own privilege may lead to ignoring what has been dismissed for so many generations. I’ve had an adjustment to mindset that may help you reconcile the duality of feeling both gratitude and a deeper understanding of the suffering of those who came before you. I can be grateful and also more deeply get what needs to change now – and that I can be part of truth and reconciliation.
The inconvenient truth
My ignorance. I thought I was an inclusive person, and perhaps you do too. My very first friend is Indigenous. She lived at the end of my street in a wooden house and I thought she was awesome. I have a lot of Indigenous friends today who live shore to shore. I have taken Indigenous studies – one I loved the most was by Chastity Davis-Alphonse on Canadian History Through the Lens of Indigenous Women (www.deyen.ca). I teach and coach to equity and inclusion every day. Yet, I have celebrated July 1st like it were only positive, like my experience was the one that mattered, with no regard to the experience of my friends, peers and esteemed teachers amongst the Indigenous communities of Turtle Island.
It may feel today like an inconvenient truth that you are likely missing opportunities to do better. The reality is that Indigenous children were stolen with brutal force from the arms of their parents with the aim to “kill the Indian” through brutal measures that included sexual, physical and mental abuse. Siblings were not allowed to speak to one another, they were not allowed to speak in their own language at such tender ages, with no mama or dada to support their fears and sadness. Indigenous communities have been and continue to be stripped of their rights. Canada has racist policies today that so severely impact livelihood, governance, and wellbeing. I know it’s uncomfortable. I know it’s difficult to think about. But we must.
Imagine for a moment what these children were being taught about life with so much abuse in these “schools” run by priests and nuns. Think for a minute what it’d be like to be torn away from your parents, or for your children to be stripped from your arms and never return. Think about the trauma of the communities of human beings who had their children taken away in carts to known atrocities. And we did nothing.
How does one recover from this? How do you ever trust again? How do you move forward?
Perhaps the duality of my emotions today are likely shared by a number of you who also feel generally grateful in life, while also recognizing your privilege, this nation’s true history, and the overwhelming truth. The truth of genocide, ongoing murders of Indigenous girls and women, the abuse of thousands of children and so many babies who never made it home. The truth of the dishonoured Treaties that created horrific issues for the Indigenous who welcomed the settlers and taught them/us how to heal, how to sustain, and how to respect the Earth.
Today and every day thereafter
I hope I am honouring my Indigenous friends and colleagues and communities and I know I can and will do so much better. This is how I am spending this day:
Here’s to loving your family, your friends, your communities and being grateful.
And here’s to decolonizing your mind, body and spirit by doing any / all of the following (or adding ideas to this post)
Educate and Share. Here are some of the resources:
Listen. Listen to the truth. Listen to the source. Listen with open hearts.
Reflect. Study your colonized mind if you are not an Indigenous person. Raise consciousness to what you don’t yet know about our policies, systems, history and find out. Notice who is in your trusted circle and who isn’t. Notice where you can do better in how you think, how you speak and how you act in all that you influence whether it’s at home, at work, or in your community.
Donate.
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