Colonization

Ever since I’ve known Chris Corrigan (we met in the early 2000s), I’ve been learning from him about colonization. It’s a history that I was mostly blind to. Chris has been advocating indigenous ways of knowing and being from his studies and from his practice. He’s been advocating awareness and action that interrupts colonized ways blindly perpetuated forward. In organizations. In government. In schools. I’m grateful for his grounding. I’m grateful for this learning.

I’m a Canadian that has lived long term in the United States. In both nations there are unclaimed harms that have festered to unresolved and very damaging wounds. In Canada, colonizing is taking land, cheating, killing. It’s ignoring habitants in a land. It’s ignoring indigenous wisdom. It’s imposing ways of being. Not just “then” but now also. This is true in the United States also. In the United States also exists a deep unresolved wound of slavery and the capitalist model built upon it. The healing isn’t done. The wound is being opened further. My hope is that the open would can be handled with care. For all of us. And evolve us in needed and significant tough roads.

It is no understatement that these wounds are festering in contemporary society. At a collective level. And at very personal levels. We all have awareness to gain. We all have actions to take. I appreciate the naming by Dr. Kenneth Hardy. “We are all entitled to safety. We are not entitled to comfort.” Digging into the colonization and slavery / capitalist story is embedded with needed discomfort. And action. And clarifying what good, what healing, and what integrating we stand for.

Well, back to Chris. His post here on Colonization and The Shadow of Belonging is cogent, thoughtful, helpful. Give it a read in full. My encouragement is to sit in the stirring. Celebrate learning and awakening. Take a step large or small. Give it energy. Not ignoring. Engage it with others, whether at the heart or on the edges. This is what I’m learning. Thx for reading.