Can we resuscitate reconciliation?

 

It's the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in so-called Canada.  I also realized today how long it's been since I last posted to this blog.  I have been caught up in the busy-ness of late-stage capitalism, grinding along to feed the machine, with little thought about how I might stop, breathe, ground, or reflect.  It's becoming ever clearer to me how badly the colonial project hurts us all.  I've included the photo of a lobster mushroom, taken a couple of days ago, because it reminds me of what local Indigenous people might have foraged for in the fall.  These days, the mushrooms have been commodified - and uninvited visitors to this land comb forest pathways and scoop them all up, either to eat or sell, coveted for their "distinct seafood-like taste and aroma."  It's definitely a matter of want instead of need.  

My tone likely reads as sardonic today, and I'll admit to you that I feel low.  I follow dozens of Indigenous artists, politicians, activists, and educators on social media--and many of them are expressing the sentiment that reconciliation is dead.  Indigenous people continue to be subject to racism (explicit and implicit), physical and emotional harm, and systemic disadvantage.  In many places and spaces, this appears to be getting much worse instead of better.  In so-called Canada, nine Indigenous people have died when coming into contact with RCMP or municipal police since August 29, 2024: "Two died while in control of police or in hospital later, five were shot, two were run over by police cruisers" (APTN National News).  Further, there are countless (documented) examples of how policies and legal loopholes have continued to grind Indigenous people down rather than lift them up.  

So, I sit here wearing my orange shirt, reflecting on my role in it all.  I admit to having days recently where I have felt overwhelmed and out of sorts, and I have turned away from all the bad news to focus on my inner landscape instead.  This is white privilege.  You see, I can look away and carry on living my life with little to no consequence.  An Indigenous person can't look away; the horrific reality I can take a break from is their non-negotiable reality.  You can't, for example, take a break from brown skin.  You can't take a break from a police officer shooting you during a wellness check because you're Indigenous.  I also see that I can pick and choose how to engage in resistance.  I can resist in alignment with my own comfort levels and I can cover my backside while doing it.  This is white privilege.  When you're Indigenous, you face the full wrath of colonial legal and policy systems.  Discomfort--and more likely pain--is a continuous state of being.  

My behavior puts me in mind of Sheryl Sandberg.  "Lean in" is a phrased coined by Sandberg, in reference to how women can behave in order thrive in a man's world.  It's a classic white feminist manifesto, where Sandberg describes how women ought to hammer on the gas pedal of the vehicle that is their career, regardless of whether it comes at the expense of everything else.  Essentially, she advocates for leaning into to colonization and patriarchy.  It's the wrong thing to lean into, Sheryl!  Instead, we (white women, white people, settlers) should be leaning into the discomfort that is decolonizing work.  We ought to be leaning in to this without selective discernment; we need to experience the full impact of grossness that our Indigenous friends and colleagues are subject to every day.    

I think the only way we, white settlers, might salvage reconciliation is to jump into the deep end.  Yes, we need to be doing personal work and individual learning on an ongoing basis.  However, I've both seen and experienced how we use "personal work" as a an excuse for avoiding the public-facing, challenging, fraught, applied work of actual decolonization.  We also use the assertion that systems and societies will never be fully decolonized as an avoidance tactic.  That assertion is not wrong, but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't try; it doesn't erase the moral imperative at play.  

I believe that the heart of the matter is that we, white settlers, are afraid of making mistakes.  We are afraid that we won't do it "right."  I have become better at facing this fear, and have now experienced myriad examples of getting things painfully wrong.  But, I also cope with my consistent impulse to back off, because this is damn difficult stuff.  I am committed to learning more about how settler Canadians might develop the stamina to do the applied work of decolonization that might make reconciliation possible.  So I ask you: How might we resuscitate reconciliation?