Season 1, Episode 33: How Do We Decolonize?

with Gabrielle Weasel Head, KJ McCusker, Lizabeth Fox, and Tara Weaselhead-Running Crane

The discussion features guests Jules McCusker, Liz Fox, Gabrielle Weasel Head, and Tara Weaselhead Running Crane, who explore the concept of decolonization. They discuss the historical and ongoing impacts of colonization, the importance of reconnecting with indigenous culture, and the challenges of decolonization. The conversation highlights the need for love, understanding, and connection in overcoming the violence and disconnection caused by colonization. The guests share their personal and professional efforts towards decolonization, emphasizing the importance of education, cultural preservation, and community building. The episode underscores the significance of collective action and the power of storytelling in creating a more inclusive and understanding society.

Welcome and Introductions to Gabrielle, Lizabeth, Jules, and Tara

Alex:

Welcome to The Gravity Well Podcast with Alex and Jenny, Here, you break down heavy ideas with us to understand their complexities and connections. Our mission is to work through your dilemmas with you in conversation and process making our world a better place for all.

Jenny:

We acknowledge that we live on the traditional territories of treaties, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 10. The ancestral homelands of diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Metis Peoples whose ancestors have walked this land since time immemorial and whose histories, languages, and cultures continue to influence our vibrant communities. We pay respect to Indigenous people through our ethical relationship-building efforts. Our community agreement asks for genuine conversations, real hearts, open minds, and different perspectives in conflict. Let’s rely on our six W system and live participant feedback. What matters most is finding common ground.

Alex:

We dedicate this podcast to our children, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, and all future generations. The Gravity Well is on YouTube and streaming wherever you get your podcasts. Join us at thegravitywell.net.

Jenny:

Thank you all for being here. We have Jules McCusker, Liz Fox, Gabrielle Weasel Head, and, of course, Alex is back with us. I’m thrilled to say that we may have a couple of others join us today, but we’ll proceed for now and see how it lands. Just reintroduce everyone briefly and then I’ll give you feedback on the last conversation we had and then introduce today’s topic as well. And then we’ll just go in a circular fashion for everyone to weigh in. I’ll start with Jules. Jules is a creative director, writer, and Indigenous educator. Gabrielle Weasel Head is a professor at the MRU in indigenous studies and from the Kinai First Nation, Lizbeth Fox is working in many areas, one of which is to bring together three groups, the Wayfinders Group, the Natero, and the Blackfeet Eco Knowledge Groups.

There is a movie she is premiering we’re going to hear about. That’s where we’re at. Everybody knows Alex. We’ll let Alex do a little introduction for himself. I just want to reflect a little bit on the last conversation I had with the two of you, Jules and Gabrielle. One of the things that stuck with me is speaking about misrepresentation being a form of violence. I think something that I carried forward from that, and I read your article, Jules, and it’ll be a part of our blog posts when we launch the new website right away here. Finally, everybody can see what Alex and Andy have been working on. But anyway, I just wanted to say I had a conversation right after that one about greenwashing. We (us three) [spoke] about this a little bit in our meeting, about greenwashing and I realized that that is also a form of violence, being lied to, on a regular basis, in terms of the climate crisis, for example.

It goes, obviously being misrepresented as a person is probably the most severe form and I’ll let you guys speak better to that, but also of ideas. I think it’s just really interesting to now understand why I feel, let’s say angry or hurt or afraid when I hear those things that are wrong being said over and over again in our media. I just thought it was really interesting to see those two ideas come together in the same way, and I’ll let you both speak to that, as well. The other thing that you brought in, Gabrielle, was the lack of identity in Canadian culture today. I’m grateful that you brought forward this idea of “Who am I?” We’re doing a course as we’ve discussed with you offline in the new year with Brad Chapin and I. Actually, I have the book right here.

Jenny:

It’s “Self-Regulation Skillset”, and we’re going to be going through this over eight weeks and Gabrielle has offered to bring in some thoughts about “Who am I?” into that conversation. And Brad is graciously accepted and is thrilled to be bringing in those concepts as well. It’s just so nice to see these things come together in ways that empower us. And then the other thing you talked about when we were going through the courses next year was an Indigenous perspective on power. And Alex can weigh in on this, but I brought up this idea of the “Organising for Power” course with Alex, and he immediately said, “What are you talking about?” And yeah, collective power. I just want to make sure I’m making [that clear], it’s interesting how I’ll say a word and not even realize what the implications of what that can be.

Jenny:

Power can be good and bad depending on how it’s being wielded, if you will. I think that’s everything I wanted to say about that. I think I’m just going to offer a little bit about this conversation. Today we’re talking about decolonization. We’re going to do this in three rounds as we did last time. The first time we’re going to let everybody introduce themselves and then talk a little bit about colonization. I’m just going to define it for us. Alex and I are definitely really glad to be learners today. Just going to define, I read a definition today, colonization is “the action or process of settling among and establishing control over indigenous people of an area.” And the one thing I’ll add to that definition is it’s an ongoing process I would say. It’s something that obviously is continuing today, but even still, it’s actually growing for all of us as people come.

This is an ongoing discussion. I would say, I think the one thing, especially with the war in Palestine, I’ve really realized how much this impacts all of us and not just indigenous people that were colonized, but all of us are under this umbrella, if you will. And the last thing I’ll say is KJ, because I just tweaked my memory, is this idea of the Two Row Wampum. I definitely appreciate that we’re on two different paths and we’re coming together in our knowledge, and our perspectives are quite different and sometimes they can be potentially ignorant. I’m going to stop there. KJ, if you wouldn’t mind leading us off just with again, an introduction of yourself and a description of colonization, if you would.

Jules:

Oh, sure. Well, thank you for that. That was a fantastic intro to the show and the whole team group here. I really appreciate being a guest. Got a great lineup of people. Well, you started with the introduction, KJ, my friends call me Jules, and I’ve been a creative director for most of my career life, like 30 years almost now, working from everything from branding and advertising for beer companies to now almost a hundred percent devoted to indigenous projects over the last 15 years. And I’ve worked on everything from men’s healing to now really diving deeply into education and transformation, looking at specific things related to how we better inform our communities to grow into the next generation. That’s mostly my focus now. I think when we talk about decolonization or indigenization, it’s the top tier of concerns because I think we have a lot of different perspectives on that. But that would be my baseline for an introduction. I’m Dene from the Northwest Territories, a little community. I was disenfranchised when I was adopted out in Edmonton from a little community called Fort Simpson, and my grandmother is Inuit as well, she was also introduced into Fort Simpson. That’s where I get my informed perspectives from. It’s a land-based [perspective] and a lot of it’s about our genetic history. That’s where my informed ideologies come from.

Jenny:

Excellent. Thank you so much. KJ or Jules, I don’t know which to use today. I’ll see what happens. Either one’s great. Okay, Liz, if you wouldn’t mind going next, please. Thank you.

Liz:

Hi, my name is Liz Fox and I wear a lot of hats. I’m a private contractor, I do a lot of work. I like to say I’m not an environmentalist, but somehow I always end up back in the environmental sphere of things. I am very passionate about projecting and furthering my people, their voices and who we are and telling our stories from our point of view opposed to allowing outsiders to come in and tell those stories. I am currently working as a contractor for Wayfinders in NiTaro through Blackfeet Eco Knowledge, and that is with the Blackfoot Confederacy. I’m working to get our points of view out. We’ve recently just made a film, just worked with the Buffalo project, the Buffalo Treaty in September and put on the 10th anniversary of the gathering of that. As you can see, I do a little bit of everything.

Jenny:

Yeah, wonderful. Thank you, Liz. Go ahead, Gabrielle.

Gabrielle:

Oki, everyone, [Blackfoot greeting]. Good evening everyone. I’m really glad to be invited back to this space and thank you Jenny. Thank you, Alex. Good to meet you. Good to see you again, KJ and good to reconnect Liz. It’s been many, many years. Liz and I, as she mentioned, graduated from high school a long time ago. I work as an associate professor in indigenous studies at Mount Royal University and a lot of my career has been focusing on my own personal journey of decolonization and what does that mean and what I do particularly, I guess like Liz, I am a bit of a generalist as Dr. Leroy Little Bear would say in terms of my focus, it’s really, I guess at the end of the day what it really is is taking up my responsibility towards ensuring that there’s going to be Blackfoot people 200 years from now.

That’s what it’s about. It’s about cultural continuity, it’s about being a good relative to myself, to people around me. It’s looking in the mirror and being my own source of inspiration rather than looking to outside sources to inspire me. Because if I can inspire myself, then where’s the fire? Where’s that fire to keep going? I do a lot of teaching, I do a lot of research and I also have a small little consulting business as well where I mobilize indigenous research methodologies in a variety of contexts. I’ll just stop there. But yeah, happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Jenny:

Wonderful. Gabrielle Tara, thank you so much for joining us. All we’ve done so far is started doing some introductions, so this is a perfect time for you to join and introduce yourself please and then we’ll explain a little more for you in a minute.

Tara:

Go ahead. My name is Tara Weaselhead-Running Crane. I am Amskapi Piikani. I feel like, honestly, if I can be entirely transparent, I was really on the fence about joining this conversation for a couple different reasons. One, I’m always trying to, one amplifies people that know more, I guess my elders and my aunts and all of them. But I was invited to this collective conversation because in the spirit of amplifying indigenous voices and lived experience. A little bit of my background, I have degrees, our western education, communicative sciences and disorders as well as psychology. I’ve done research in land-based prevention. Liz, I’m actually familiar with Blackfeet Eco Knowledge and all the good work you’re doing, and that’s really exciting to me. I’ve worked in the mental health field for over 10 years, which feels wild to say out loud, and I’m really excited to hear us telling our own stories. As Liz and Gabriel mentioned, it’s important that we get to tell our own stories because that’s what decolonization is. It’s dismantling that colonialist view or perspective and centering our indigenous perspective and our ways of knowing. Thank you all for the invite here,

Jenny:

Tara, thank you so much. That was wonderful. I’m so glad you decided to join us. I greatly appreciate that. Okay, Alex, please go ahead and introduce yourself.

Alex:

Hi everyone, it’s nice to meet you all. My name is Alex. I spent most of my life in the arts, majoring in fine arts at the Alberta College of Art Design. Now it’s Alberta University of the Arts, it’s a little more professional, but back in the day it was just a college. I also spent time working in heavy duty construction and private security. The reason that I met Jenny, who was door knocking when she was running for office, and she asked me, what are your three top priority concerns? She just delineated it down to something that simple, can you bring it into the three biggest concerns? We got to talking and then election happened and unfortunately she lost, but I sent her a follow-up letter and then we started working together and we developed the gravity well for a specific reason, which is to give people who would maybe not otherwise have a platform, a platform, but also to bring up dialogue between people that may not necessarily ever agree with each other.

Alex:

I think there’s something strange going on and in our dynamic in the world today where we’re supposed to be pitted against each other, but that’s actually exactly the opposite of what we should be doing. We should be trying to share each other’s stories and learn each other’s stories and build those histories so that we can have a larger foundation of understanding together and move forward in a better direction. That’s what brought me into creating the Gravity. Well, along with Jenny, and I’m really looking forward to hearing your stories and your wisdom. And with that, I will, that’s the mic.

Jenny:

Thank you, Alex. Yeah, I think the thing that Alex and I talk about is we definitely could be at odds with each other, even just from our general speech. We can say things that come off as totally different, and then when we actually get down to the details, it’s quite similar, but anyway, okay. Yeah, let’s explore this topic a bit more. I’ll just reflect a few things I did hear from you guys, which is decolonization is number one, preserving indigenous people, making sure that we have Blackfoot people in the future thriving for that matter. I know last time we spoke, Gabrielle, you mentioned the number of people in jails is going up, the people that are struggling are going up, we’re moving in the wrong direction. And I think that’s something that I’m definitely seeing from my point of view as well, from an environmental standpoint.

What Are Colonization and Decolonization?

Jenny:

Liz, I know you said you don’t necessarily aim to be there, but they’re so related and I think that’s why we end up talking about these things in tangent. The thing that we also did talk about a bit last time Gabrielle and Jules is around land back. I really liked, and maybe I’ll let you say it better, Gabrielle, but I’ll just tee this off, which isn’t an idea of taking land, but rather having us all return to land. Appreciating that this is for all of us. Again, it’s not just about somebody getting something back, it’s about all of us coming to grips with the fact that the land is hurting and we have to be able to pull ourselves back from it and let the land heal. We need to do that together. That’s one thing when I, maybe let’s start getting into the discussion around decolonization, because I’ve been in groups where we say we believe in decolonization, and what does that mean? I can look up a definition. I don’t think that’s, I’ll say there is again, a definition for decolonization, which is a process of recognizing and dismantling power structures that oppressed, colonized people. Again, I feel that’s an incomplete definition. I’m going to stop there and let you guys help me understand it better. Jules, if you don’t mind leading us off again.

Jules:

Sure. No, I love that because I feel that that definition is a modern invention. I wrote a little bit about this in another thing. I think where I was going was if we looked at ourselves… I’m 55, I go back to age again because we see the dial change a little bit as society changes and definitions definitely do that. And I like to remind people, well actually the definition sits over here and I go to the French West Indian psychiatrist and political philosopher-friend Fanon. He wrote the book, The Wretched of the Earth and that decolonization is always a violent phenomenon. Then I also go to the flip side of that because in the same period we also had Mohad Gandhi who also experienced and spearheaded decolonization, but represents a vastly different perspective, right? Because he was looking at the passive approach of dealing with your conqueror.

And if you look at India and their conflict with England, it’s quite violent, brutal, and horrible and not so different from ours, just a little different in the way it went down. But then if you go out to Fanon and he lays out a convincing argument about decolonization and violence go hand in hand. I think a lot of young people “rah rah” decolonizing. I mean especially even among indigenous groups, we like to say it. I see it said a lot, Red Nation and things. I mean, I’ve been around for quite a long time and seen quite a few movements occur, and the one thing that he mentioned that he dismissed entirely, that nonviolent resistance is the preservation of capitalist colonial states. It’s not the deconstruction of it, and I’m not saying that I’m a proponent of violently destroyed colonization. I think we have to understand that decolonizing, that’s not such an easy thing to do, and I think a lot of us look to indigenization and I would love to see what other people’s opinions are because I value other people’s insight on that. And when you’re working towards being a subjugate of a society or working to eliminate your oppressor, these are real realities and we’re in that odd situation. I’ll just leave it at that because I think when you frame the definition, I just want to remind you of that definition of decolonization, I would more or less point to that. I think he locked that down and that was widely globally accepted as a realistic approach to how you deal with your oppressive colonizer. And they did. They revolted and they did take over from there.

Liz:

I think you’re absolutely right. That definition of decolonization is pretty generic and baseline for what it is that you actually, the work that actually has to go into it. And in order to look at what decolonization is, you have to first acknowledge and accept the facts of what colonization was to our people. It was a multi wave, multi, multi-tiered, constant barrage of things that were done to us in order to make us oppressed. And saying you were an oppressed person doesn’t necessarily mean that you are a conquered people. It means that you were pushed into a society or pushed into these bounds that you no longer had the control of. So in order to start to decolonize as a people, I think the first and the very first thing that we as people of the Blackfoot Confederacy have to do, because the very first act of colonization that was done to us as a people was to separate our confederacy into four tribes and draw imaginary lines and put space in between all of us because if we were broken apart, then we were easier to control.

I think the very first thing that we have to do as people is acknowledge that yes, we are all one people because a lot of the infighting that happens now within the Blackfoot Confederacy is, oh, they’re, they’re from Browning, or Oh, they’re from Brockett, or they’re from whatever. And we’re not the same. We all speak the same language. We all believe the same things, it’s all the same, but because of colonization, and that was the very first tool that was thrown at us was we’re going to put you on these reservations in our minds. And because it’s generational now, there’s this imaginary battle, and if you are busy fighting yourselves, then you’re not going to fight the real enemy. And that was only the first wave. I mean, we were starved. There were so many things that were done to us, but if we acknowledge that first step and we start to look at the world as one people again and not for separated tribes, then I think that that would be the first step in colonization that the Blackfoot Confederacy would have to do.

But as far as the generalization of, “Oh, you just have to fight back the oppressors.” My mom was part of the Aim Movement and she fought way back in the day and it didn’t do anything but to perpetuate the theory that we were the savages, that all we wanted to do was fight. And I think now we have tools that we are able to use, knowledge, we have a lot of knowledge that we’ve learned in your world, but also from ourselves. And if we find a way to link the two, and I think what Gabby’s doing at the university and a lot of the professors are doing is showing that you gave us these tools and now we’re going to use them to push back on you for the things you did to my ancestors.

Jenny:

Yeah, that was wonderful. Liz. I think Alex can probably offer some things that Shannon Stunden Bower taught us as well on colonization when it comes to you, or I can as well Go ahead, Gabrielle. Thank you.

Gabrielle:

I appreciate those perspectives. I like KJ when you started off with Fanon’s definition of decolonization and then Liz talking about colonization as the first thing it did was sever connection. If we think about colonization as a process of disconnection, a violent process of disconnection through domination, forceful force that was domination, that was totally started with the land and then moved to each other, to humans. And of course the loss or the destruction of the buffalo was another part of just that totality of violence say, and this idea that it’s ongoing. I want to think about it in terms of how we think about colonization as disconnection, and then so what is decolonization then? Decolonization should bring us back into connection. I’ve read Fanon’s work, and this is just my own perspective of it, just based on my experiences, not necessarily academic, but just my experiences in life.

And that is you can’t fight violence with more violence. You can’t fight negativity with more negativity. You can’t fight hate with more hate. You can’t fight disconnection by becoming even more disconnected. If colonization is about, I said disconnection, and then decolonization needs to be about connection and reconnection. And that reconnection starts with self, that reconnecting to emotions. And if we start even just right at the base, the foundation, so the philosophies of that drove colonization. Like for example, Renee di Cartes and his whole Cartesian duality of separating the mind, disconnecting the mind from the body. And now we have this lack of emotional regularity, this inability to even connect with self in ways where we can actually regain sovereign imagination. I like the way Dr. Betty Baine, my mentor and dear friend who has passed on, but she talks about this idea of colonization. If it’s done one thing to indigenous people, it has stripped us of our freedom to think for ourselves.

Regaining that sovereign imagination about decolonization. But we can’t think our way to decolonization, we can’t think our way through that. We need to feel our way and understand how our emotions are shaping our thinking. It’s not necessarily about how we can theorize about decolonization or colonization. And I remember, and I’ll just quickly say this briefly, but I listened to a podcast on CBC once and it was a hardcore white supremacist gal, and she was talking about her journey out of a white supremacist group in Alberta. And the interviewer asked her, “What can we do? How do we fight this? What can we do?” And she said, “The only thing you can do is be loving because these groups thrive on hate, they thrive on it. It’s part of them.” When we push back with hate, with disgust, with all of that, that’s what they like. Energy attracts like energy. Anyways, that’s just my thinking when I read Fanon and others who talk about decolonization as an incredibly violent process, well colonization is an incredibly violent process as well. What are we hoping to achieve? I’ll stop there.

Jenny:

That was awesome, Gabrielle. Go ahead, Tara.

Tara:

Wow, it’s going to be hard to top all of that, but I’m glad that I got to hear all of that as a basis of where I feel in my perspective. I feel like I agree with all of it, and I know that some of it is unpacking it right now. Decolonization, realistically, I don’t think people are going to fight for decolonization because historically they fought to colonize us. As Gabrielle said a lot of people, those people that are colonized in the mind, all they see is hate. All they see is that hatred and they’re led by it. You mentioned you don’t think for yourself, and I think that’s been my own journey with decolonization. Going back to what Liz said, I actually got to experience that in ceremony spaces recently where, well, actually at a funeral most recently my De Chi family came down because my uncle had passed and I saw colonization in the room with us. I saw my northern relatives speaking our language and fluently, I’m going to get a little emotional, but it was amazing to see. But I felt like, and my siblings, we know our language, but we’re not fluent. And that was a disconnect.

But what I loved about it is that they didn’t judge us. They took us to the side and throughout that whole body, we got to speak and we got to learn. And it felt really good. That connection and that was in that moment that was decolonization, is like even despite the pain, the addiction that took our uncle, we were together and we were sharing our language and our space and a meal, and eventually we’re sharing our homes and they stayed with us in Har, I’m from Har, but by the way, and it was beautiful. And I feel like realistically, I don’t think people, a lot of people, especially the ones that hate, people that don’t look like them or don’t speak like them, I don’t think it’s going to be peaceful, even though that’s how we were raised to love and to treat people the way we’d want to be treated or how our siblings would want to be treated or our grandparents.

I think that’s where I’m struggling. And going back to what I said before about hesitating to even contribute to this conversation because I’m there, I’m questioning what that means. And also while trying to heal, that’s my self-work for decolonization is what, going back to what Gabrielle said, it’s our, it’s up to us. We can’t think our way to that. We have to do it. We have to live it to decolonize. And how I do that every day is I question my judgments and my biases and I ask, where did that come from? Is that trauma or is that tradition? I’m constantly asking myself that, is that trauma or is that tradition? And then I teach my son that because he’s the next generation and he’s, he’s going to bring that forward. And hopefully as we all talked about here, our people will exist moving forward. Yeah, I guess I don’t know if I contributed too much.

Jenny:

Oh my, that was incredible, Tara. Alex, please, I’ll let you go first.

Alex:

Yeah. Wow, that was a lot to take in. But I think the commonality that I’m hearing between everyone is that hatred is a vacuum and it will suck you dry. It’s like the poison that you take to kill the other guy. It is completely useless if we collectively as human beings try and bridge those gaps instead of build walls and try and understand each other and embrace these different histories so that we can walk forward in a new place of wisdom. I think that’s collectively what I’ve heard so far. And I think even though we’re just theorizing about it right now, we’re just talking about it right now. This is a good step in the right direction. Other actions can be taken, but they don’t need to be violent because I mean, violence is all fine and dandy when it’s John Wake on a movie screen, but when you see it in real life, man, you do not want to experience that. And I pity the fool, whoever wishes it on anyone on any society. There’s got to be another way. And if this is the start of that, so be it.

Jenny:

Thank you. I’m going to offer a few things. I did comment on it. We had a guest, Shannon Stunden Bower, who has studied agricultural history and the connection with indigenous colonialism. She opened my view. I ignorantly didn’t understand that when we talk about the dirty thirties, that was in combination with the land grab and not understanding the way to manage land in a less water-abundant timeframe. It was this, all of these things coalescing together with the European agriculture practices being placed here when it wasn’t possible to be continued. And then at the same time, they were giving indigenous communities old equipment. So again, setting them back in a way that wasn’t allowing them to thrive in this forced farming world, if you will. Many layers as you were describing, Liz, of this wave of colonization. And then I want to talk a bit, I agree.

I liked your comment, Tara, about this being a bit of everything because we had a conversation, our third conversation, and this was with a friend of ours, mine, Reagan Boychuk, and he was talking about projecting our warm feelings on the system that we’re in, if you will, because we are different than the system that serves us, meaning that system doesn’t have warm feelings. I think this is the juxtaposition that we’re in. The other thing is I wonder, and this is a question, but coming into ourselves, I’ll use something else for a second. I went to the Pride Festival two or three years ago and I was struck by the feeling of community. And you guys have said over and over here, this is about reconnecting and connecting with each other. And I long for these things just like you. And I think that’s where this definition fell short for me. This isn’t about just freeing indigenous people, but it’s about freeing us from the system that isn’t serving us, as well.

I think it’s this when people, again, I’m totally generalizing, but when people are offended by pride, I think it’s because they potentially feel left out. I think there is a bit of this back and forth with people where coming into ourselves is hard. I’m working through with a coach right now trying to love myself as you were talking about Gabrielle knowing ourselves. And that process isn’t easy in itself, and I don’t know if you would call it violent, but I think it is difficult to be present with the hurt and the construct that we’re in that’s not serving any of us. So I think there is in a sense, a form of violence in facing this. I would say as somebody, like I was saying, who sees misinformation frequently facing it is violent in itself. I think it’s there. I don’t know what it necessarily looks like, but I’m totally with Alex and I’m sure that’s the same for all of us that we don’t want to experience and be a part of.

I love the thought that love is the way to solve hate, not violence with violence. I totally agree with that. I think the way our political system works, there’s this idea that once we get in, we’re going to make change. No, we have to try to make change now and not get in that way and think that it’s going to cause change. And I did love this concept that you said, Tara, about questioning our judgement , whether it’s trauma or tradition. I totally agree. There’s a lot of traditions. I am just using a simple one, mowing the lawn. This is their tradition that’s here, doesn’t serve us especially in a drought. So that to me is something that we could shed rather than carry forward as tradition. Those are my thoughts. I’m just going to offer, so this round, and this will be our last round if you will, and obviously some final thoughts.

What Is Our Life-Work or “Heart”-Work?

Jenny:

What are we doing in our lifework? As Alex said, this conversation, I am thrilled. To me, if we can give voices to people that don’t otherwise have their story told, this is where we’re succeeding, and I’m thrilled to have that opportunity with you guys. The conversations are one thing, as I discussed, we’re doing these courses next year. Please know that you guys are invited and I’d love you to share this with your community and help us understand how this can be better from what we’re thinking. And I think I’m going to stop there. To me, those are the things that I’m working on and I’m just going to let you guys talk about that. What’s your lifework and what do you do in your life to help move us closer to decolonization?

Jules:

Sure. No, that was great. I mean, I love the circle that’s occurring here because the input is strong, I don’t want to say, [has] a strong indigenous input. I hear the concept of love brought up a great deal and it’s one that I don’t think a lot of people are truly listening to. And then when we went back to, I did a slippery thing in the beginning there about “What is decolonization?” I just threw these elements on the table, but I didn’t give you my real opinion about it. But we’re not going to be able to move forward without some violence. It’s just going to happen. It’s happening whenever it is a perfect example of that violence. What happened with the Woodland Cree just recently on their lands trying to get an injunction to put the chief in jail. It’s never been done. It’s unprecedented, but yet they’re doing it. That’s a violence, that’s what we’re up against. That’s the reality. That’s not nicey-nicey, come to the table, have earnest. No, it’s like we want that and we’re going to take it regardless and we’re going to arrest you and throw you in jail or shoot you in the process. That’s the reality.

I was just having a conversation about, I love Arvol Looking Horse. I do appreciate him. I appreciate his persona and what he’s teaching it is the “Don’t pull a gun” approach to this subject. And he was there, they went head to head and they tried to use that approach when fighting for their territory against the pipeline. And I don’t want to circle around that, but I find that there’s a massive difference between Indigenizing and Colonizing and some things just cannot be indigenized, and that’s just a simple fact. Yet indigenizing in most cases is more or less to do with colonial systems that it has to do with deconstructing education for example, which is what I’m trying to do. What I’m trying to do is deconstruct a colonial construct and re-look at curriculum and re-look at curriculum systems of education from JK to grade nine and up.

And that means indigenizing the school curriculum according to culture, which is based on geography, based on location, based on where they are. That’s the work that I’ve been doing for some time now in context, it’s about, for me, when we work to indigenize our home territories, how does the rest of the population gain insight from that? I’m not quite sure if it’s ready because just like you were pointing out earlier about this, the reality is that we as a culture, as peoples, our peoples have been trying to educate about our worldview since first contact and it’s not registering and it’s just not. And that’s a lot of years to be going to school for people who’ve been here that long who have ancestors that arrived here in those early days and are still here. They’ve had an education from us and still not taking any cues.

It’s a bit of a conundrum. I tend to focus my energy within our own communities and look at things like how do we transform or indigenize mathematics, how do we bring traditional language programs back into everyday school environments? How do we practice traditional harvesting? The goose season is a fantastic example of that. In this context, the goose hunt season becomes part of the regular school curriculum. These elements, these things are not acceptable norms to what are the provincial and federal school board regulatory systems that exist today. For us to try and say, “Well, this is what we’re doing, this is how we’re asserting our sovereignty, this is how we’re doing it, we’re doing it” and it’s happening maybe not at the rate that we would like to see, but everyone that’s working in those particular areas, that’s where my work is. I guess when you get back to that, it’s in that territory where we’re asserting our own ability to administer our own processes. Right. I’ll stop there.

Liz:

First of all, I just want to say that what Jules said is probably the most correct thing that I’ve heard today, that there isn’t going to be any peace without some violence of some sort. And I think the way that he’s describing it isn’t necessarily violence that a European person would think, “Oh, well, we’re talking guns” and “battles” and whatever. To us, violence is standing up using our voices and saying, “No, we’re not going to take this anymore and pushing back. And I don’t think that a lot of the European world or the colonized world understands that we weren’t violent unless we had to be violent, unless it was pushed upon us and then we were violent in return. In that sense, I do believe that what he’s saying is a thousand percent true. And a lot of sadly, because we are so generationally colonized, a lot of our own oppression comes from our own people.

A lot of us call it crab in the bucket or, “Oh, they’re acting whatever or looking down their nose, or how come you think you’re better than so-and-so?” And a lot of that stems back to residential school from there and moving forward. What I’ve been trying to focus on is finding people at the point that they’re at and working with them to get them to the points where we need to be. A lot of people my age weren’t speaking. The Blackfoot language wasn’t spoken in our home. It wasn’t taught to us because our parents wanted us to be colonized. Our parents wanted us to fit in the white world. Oh no, don’t do that, because they themselves were part of residential schools and they were punished for it. They didn’t want the same things to happen to us that are lost on this generation of those of us that are adults now and in that role.

Liz:

Whereas my children, they know a lot more of our language because they’ve learned it in school, like Blackfoot is recognized as a second language in Alberta. We do have a lot of advances in that sense. But I also do know Tara saying that she sees one side and then she sees the other. Well, I’m in the unique position that I grew up… in the first 10 years of my life. I lived in Montana because my mom was going to the University of Montana, and so we lived there. I saw that side because she’s a member of the Blackfeet tribe. I saw that in how much culture isn’t there anymore and how much colonization did affect the Blackfeet tribe as a whole. And then moving up here when my mom was done school and we moved up here, my dad’s a blood tribe member.

Liz:

We moved here and seeing the vast difference in a 40 mile range is just astronomical. But there are things that both sides of the border, all four tribes can identify with. When you think of home, you think of what you think of Chief Mountain, you think of there’s landmarks that we identify with. I think that if we find those commonalities and we start to work together, that’s how decolonization actually happens. But as far as what I’m working on, I’m working on a lot of little things, but it’s crazy because the film that we’re premiering actually talks about the work that my brother, well, he’s my cousin, but we’re like six months apart, we’re kind of brothers. The work that he’s doing, because he’s trying to bring culture back to the Blackfeet, he’s trying to do that and the resistance that he’s meeting head on is giving me a bird’s eye view of what could actually happen if we start to lose those things.

And there’s a lot of things that we as Kainai have lost over time. Why do we have a name? What’s the purpose of this? What’s the purpose of that? A lot of people at the base level don’t understand those things anymore. And that’s where colonization just never stops. We want to fit in. We want to be the cool rappers, and we don’t want to be the cool educational people or the cool militants of our people or the elders. We don’t look to our elders or our youth don’t look to our elders the way that they look to famous people now. I think a lot of that needs to be taken apart and put back together so that they understand that our future generations do rely on them just like it relies on us. And there’s something that Tyson says a lot that I’ve adopted too, is, well, if I don’t do it, then who’s going to, if not me, then who? That’s if I get off projects, I take them on because if I don’t know who’s going to? That’s what I’m doing.

Jenny:

Yes, I have that same mantra. I have to say, Gabrielle, please if you wouldn’t mind,

Gabrielle:

Thank you Liz and KJ for your perspectives. I like that. Liz, what you said about “If I don’t do this, then what’s the alternative?” I always say that if not this, then what happens, which puts a lot of responsibility and a lot of extra work, but I think for me, it’s worth it. In terms of what I do towards decolonization or deconstructing is a couple of days ago, I’ve been going through quite a challenge over in my life over the past few years, and I was wondering that same thing is what do I do and why do I do what I do and why am I doing this? What do I do and why? What is my purpose? And this is a huge question. It’s like, why are you doing this? I prayed about it and I asked why. And it was about clarity.

I’m doing this not only because I need… Well, first of all, I need clarity and to make some sense about exactly what has been going on in not just my life, but the lives of so many people, all of us. It’s like why is it that when I was a kid, I grew up and I went through the social studies curriculum and the closest thing I could find about native people was that we were part of the local wildlife that I grew up on a reserve and it was okay. And you know what? Wild animals are in Africa and they’re on wild animal reserves and nobody questioned it. Okay? Everybody is okay that I’m on a reserve, a little kid on a reserve. I don’t get to learn anything about anything. My parents talk in Blackfoot in the next room, they whisper about it, but they don’t talk to me in Blackfoot unless I’m in trouble.

And it’s like that clarity is first for me. Why is this? And it’s not just about filling in the knowledge gaps for white people and to say, this is what you need to know about Indigenous people as far as indigenous awareness training goes. And this is why clarity involves sense making and meaning making. Now, does it make sense if I flip things? Okay, let’s look at indigenous awareness training for example. Does it make sense if I flip it and all of a sudden, Liz, Tara, KJ, we get together and we develop our white awareness training and we give that to indigenous people. It’s absurd. It’s absolutely absurd. Why do we accept it when, and we say, “Oh, okay, professional development training, let’s do some indigenous awareness training. Oh, that’s cool.” Do you know what my parents got for white awareness training? The Indian residential schools, that’s what we got.

That’s what I mean, I guess in terms of what I do in my why I am here and what I do, what I do, it’s from I need some clarity and to make some sense of an incredibly surreal existence that human beings we find ourselves in like land. It’s absurd that people think that they could own land. It’s just utterly absurd. To me it’s absurd. But yet this is where we are. This is what we’re dealing with. And then the answers are all, it’s like this cognitive thinking theoretical pathway, and people get lost in theories, who’s right, who’s wrong? All of that. And nothing happens. Nothing gets done. We still live in this existence that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. And our first teachers, the land, the animal nations, we’ve completely disregarded them completely. They’re totally out of the, and then we get into questions about “How are we going to manage the land?”

It doesn’t even make any sense to me. It’s still okay, I’m going to go to Liz and say, “How am I going to manage Liz?” The land is living, it’s alive. Why do we need to manage it? Why don’t we just create a good relationship and let go of some hubris here? For me, that’s what I do. Why I do what I do is I need some clarity at the end of the day, and that’s what I am trying to find and that’s what I’m trying to provide is why are we doing this? Let’s look at the root of it and KJ, your work with the curriculum and trying to indigenize it, all of that work. We’re doing a lot of Liz, Tara, and Jenny, not just Indigenous people who are doing this work, but other people are doing this work too, but who’s also doing this work is the animal nations and they’ve been doing this work and yet we’ve completely disregarded that. I shouldn’t say I’m just essentializing things, but I mean for the most part, right? I will say that about that.

Tara:

Again, thank you all for sharing those. They’re good guidance for me in terms of how this is all coming full circle. Going back to what I said in my introduction, that’s what brought me here tonight was actually this all started, can I just be transparent on this, Jenny? It started with a Facebook post and somebody that had centered their knowledge that aren’t Piikani, but who manipulated their way into our knowledge ways and used them for self-serving purposes, and that bothered me and it wasn’t from a place… I’m not a hater. I ain’t. I always come from, I’m one of those people that always give the other person the benefit of the doubt and it kicks my butt sometimes, but that’s just who I am. That’s how I was raised. I was raised by my grandparents and that’s why I came here tonight was because I was like, you know what, Tara?

You’re upset about these non-indigenous people telling your story or telling our tribal knowledge. Well then you go do it. What my grandpa would tell me, he’d say, well, you go do it then. And that’s what brought me here tonight was like, you know what? I’m going to go do it. I might not know everything and I am the first person to, I don’t think any of us know it all, but what we do know is when I know energy, that’s one thing that I do know. I know energy and I know spirit and I know when somebody comes with the wrong intentions and that’s violent against our people. It’s indigenous erasure, telling our stories as if they’re their own and then silencing us. That’s violent against my mind, my wellbeing, my son’s future, and going back to what we were talking about, violence and love, all of it, it all connects.

Liz mentioned her parents didn’t teach her the language and the ways out of a place of love, out of a place of protection, and that’s valid. We had every reason to be scared. It was a self-preservation tactic, but did it help us in the long run? No. It led to disconnect and that’s what I’m always saying. I’m always being my own sounding board, asking myself, this might be out of a place of love, but is it right? Does it move us forward? Does it move me forward on my own? I guess going back to the question which is life work for myself, I refer to that as “heart work” because I have to use it even when I don’t have energy in life and I don’t have the resources, the money, the time, sometimes it just takes my heart to get me going. Even being here tonight, it took that heart work to be here tonight, and I’m going to be honest, I didn’t prepare for this very well.

I was like, I might not even go, not shouldn’t be a flake or anything, but I was talking myself out of it and going back to that heart work, that life work, what I’m doing is my work is I’m decolonizing, and what that looks like is I’m asking myself these hard questions. I’m showing up, I’m using my voice. My grandparents taught me to, I’m out here getting my education and I’m questioning my education. Thank you so much, KJ for talking about decolonizing what I’m taking in. Academics are really, I don’t know about up in the northern spaces, but down here it’s very toxic, academics, elitism, all of that. It just sucks the soul out of moving forward and gaining all this knowledge. I feel like the more I learn in these western spaces, the less I know of myself, the further I get disconnected.

I am always trying to find balance. As I said, I have a research background in land-based prevention. Sadly, not only is this, are we moving towards land-based prevention to reconnect our kids to their culture, but to teach them how to survive the environmental and climate change. They need these survival skills, sadly, and going back to colonization and how we’re talking about putting love into things and how it’s going to take some level of violence to fight it, I guess looked at violence and I’m going to be physically fighting people, although we do see that on the front lines of oil or the pipelines, we see those things. To me, colonization is violent in every way. It’s violent against our animal relatives. I cried my eyes out years ago when I was watching a Facebook video of these elk trying to outrun a wildfire and they had fences everywhere and they couldn’t outrun ’em.

They ran right into the fire. They didn’t have any other option, but colonization is violent against us every single day. And it’s funny because now that we’re speaking up, it’s not funny actually, now that we’re speaking up and saying Enough is enough, as Liz said, enough is enough. I’m not dealing with this any more. We’re the ones that are looked at as violent. We’re the ones that are being labelled these things. And, I guess, to wrap this up, if that’s the case, if me using my voice and standing my ground and standing in my knowledge ways and in my heart work is violent to somebody, then so be it. Because that’s how I know that I’m going to make sure my son doesn’t inherit all of this hurt. Going back to, I had mentioned earlier that I’ve worked in behavioral health for many years now. A lot of it’s been youth focused.

That’s always been my thing, something that I really love that fills my cup. But one thing that I’m really trying to normalize is what I always heard growing up was, “You’re the future as a youth. You’re the one that makes those changes.” But I’m realizing now, no, that’s a cop out. We are the ones that make those changes because our kids inherit the choices we make today. We are their future. We’re the ones that make those choices to help guide them. We’re the ones that really do make the decision of what tomorrow is going to be like for them. I’m always challenging that now anytime I hear it, because the truth is colonization is even violent against our generations and our community. We have so many people not even making it to elderhood. I’ve lost countless aunties and uncles in just the last three months.

It’s disgusting. I don’t even have family reunions anymore. We just have funerals. Going back to that, like I said, my heart work is showing up every day and just being brave enough to live in this world to continue on and still trying to live in love. That’s so hard, Gabrielle. But you’re right. The thing about it is, truth be told, I could probably go out there and just be colonized, try to turn a blind eye, and life would probably be easier for me. I could do these terrible things and try to get ahead, but the truth is my heart would never allow it. I’d be just as miserable. Anytime I come up to this space where I have to be strong and keep moving forward, I always ask myself, “Could you live with this? Not doing anything moving forward, could you live your life and ignore something that is an injustice or that isn’t the right thing?”

And, sometimes I can, but sometimes I know I couldn’t live with myself. That’s my life work is that I’m showing up in these spaces and I’m telling my story, but more importantly, I’m listening and I’m learning, and I’m making sure that whenever I transfer this knowledge to somebody else, especially our youth, that I’m doing it in a good way and that they’re receiving it in the way that I intended. I don’t want to pass on. The way that we make sure tomorrow is healed is that we healed today. We don’t save it for tomorrow any more. We don’t have time. We’re running out of time. Yeah. Thank you guys so much.

Alex:

Once again, a lot to take in thinking about the world and the word love, specifically the second letter and the word love is a zero. Replace it with an I, include yourself in it, and then you have your instructions. You need to start living. Just take the zero out of love. It’s not a mystery. Live. Include yourself in the process and then share that process with everyone else. No matter, race, creed, gender, denomination, doesn’t matter. We’re a family. All of us, we’re all on this rock together, whipping around a giant bottle of fire at 67,000 miles an hour, and it’s so consistent. We can be like, gosh, on a jacket.

It’s that much of a miracle this life that we have together. And the sooner that we embrace it together collectively and share our stories, the better off our children and grandchildren are going to be. But as long as we spend all of our time calling each other names nitpicking on little policy differences or this, that and the other thing, the true evil ones who are hell bent on controlling the rest of us because they feel as though somehow spiritual power is finite, as if it’s a limited resource. They’re terrified that they’re going to lose their grip on control of other people. But the reality of it is nobody has control over anything. Joe Biden shot his pants when he met the Pope. This is the most powerful man in the world, and he couldn’t even control his bowels. He’s a human being. We’re all human beings, and the sooner that we can find ways to connect with each other peacefully, respectfully with dignity and integrity, the better off we’re going to be.

Yes, violence sometimes happens as a result of conflict, but that’s usually because people aren’t able to face themselves and their own demons. You guys have taught me a lot about this, but there’s only one path forward. It’s just embracing each other. If you take the H at the end of the earth and you put it at the beginning, just talking, spelling here spells heart, right? If you reverse the word live, which means that you don’t, you get evil, right? And if you waste your entire life, the word lived, and you reverse it, you get devil, okay? The way that these things work, they’re actually right in front of our noses. And if we can just stop with the divisions and just learn from each other, from all sides, and just embrace all of these different histories and just rise up and say, Hey, not anymore. We’re working together. Now. These 1200 pit squeaks on the planet don’t really have that much power at the end of the day, do they? Because there’s 8 billion of us. I’ll just leave it at that.

Jenny:

Thank you, Alex. This is a soaker. As Alex said, there’s so much that you guys have brought forward for us, and I know we could go on for time, and I hope that we can do more of this. Thank you guys so much for your time. This has been incredible. The one thing I do want to say, Tara, I just love your concept of, or I think some of you, many of you mentioned it, is who do you look for inspiration? You guys are an inspiration to me, quite honestly. I am happy to. I’ve been saying to myself, Kevin Van Tighem and Lorne Fitch, the environmentalists of the world are now my heroes, rather than the people that we’ve looked to in Hollywood and things like that. I think the way that we can potentially avoid the violence as we’re all wanting to do, is to just acknowledge the people that are bringing true value to society rather than potentially just having, like you said, Tara, this elitist group that’s being promoted, let’s say, rather than what’s real. Anybody else want to offer some final things before we wrap up? Thank you guys so much. Let’s end it there. Have a great evening, and I’m sure we’ll be doing this.

Alex:

Thank you so much. It was a real inspiration. Thank you so much for sharing. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Jenny:

Good night everyone. Goodnight. Thank you everyone.