Thread by @sunnshiiny

To every Canadian who falls under the category settler.

I’m sorry the definition of the word hurts your feelings. But indigenous people don’t have the power to redefine and sanitize what terms that describe everyone who is not indigenous to the continent.

https://twitter.com/gill_godwin/status/1235650669589102593

If it bothers you that you are not indigenous to Canada, I am unsure how to assuage those feelings. But to be clear, it isn’t my responsibility to assuage those feelings. So I’m not going to try.

Asking me or any other indigenous person to stop calling settlers “settlers” is an attempt to distance yourself from the realities that have resulted from the inherent systemic disadvantage placed unceremoniously upon indigenous people.

It’s not up to indigenous people to absolve guilt or complicity.

Are some indigenous people angry and resentful?

Damn right they are!

And they are entitled to those feelings. Colonization has not been a pleasant experience for indigenous people in any sense of the word.

Why are you pissed off? Indigenous people are not trying to devalue your citizenship or the rights & freedoms that it holds. You or your ancestors came here as a settler. Your children are settlers, regardless of the place of their birth.

No one is asking you to leave or change your citizenship. (Ok some are, but they are the minority)

But if you want to address reconciliation, some agreed upon facts must be part of the conversation.

This region of the North American continent was populated with approximately 30 million indigenous people prior to European contact.

After contact and about 400 years later, we make up about 5% of a population of 38 million citizens.

Less than 2 million indigenous people.

How do you think that came to pass?

The systematic removal of indigenous people & repopulation with settlers from other parts of the world.

Unless you’re indigenous, your ancestors were settlers. Which makes you a settler. And your children and their children settlers.

That is the definition of settler. When you migrate to another region of the world to relocate permanently and settle in that place.

If you aren’t one of the 5% of indigenous peoples, you are a settler by definition of the word.

That doesn’t make you any less Canadian.

But it does come with some realizations that your ancestors and you profited from the dispossession and genocide of the people who were the original inhabitants of this nation.

There is no denying it. Efforts were made to eliminate indigenous people. Our reduced population is testament to that reality. Though we’ve mentioned it once or twice over the years.

Primarily this dispossession and genocide has been committed by the people who run governments and corporate interests.

But that doesn’t absolve everyone who didn’t commit murder, starve people or leave them homeless and to fend for themselves.

The government of any democratic nation is installed by the people of the nation. And only some indigenous people were afforded the right to vote upon confederation. Those that had already been dispossessed of their land title and had their political power suppressed.

First Nations were not allowed to vote or participate in mainstream society because they were housed in reserves and given limited resources to survive. Thus, the drop in population. Along with diseases we had no immunity to and cultural genocide.

No one is saying that as a settler you were directly responsible for the almost entire destruction of the peoples who first inhabited this region of the world.

But it’s undeniable that you have personally benefitted from indigenous people’s destruction. That’s fact, not conjecture.

There were limited benefits to indigenous people from settler colonization.

That’s what needs to be reconciled. And it starts with you.

Indigenous are well aware of what happened over the past 400 years. It’s about time the rest of Canadians looked into their own closets & examined their skeletons.

That’s reconciliation.

However, getting bogged down in guilt and remorse helps no one.

We cannot change the past. And we cannot return to pre-contact no matter how many try to pursue decolonization. (It’s a myth, we are stuck with settlers, whether we like it or not ~ for the record, I like most)

So we best get to work on how we can right the wrongs of the past and move forward.

Was that not what the last election determined? Wasn’t the slogan “choose forward?”

But asking for indigenous people to absolve you personally of any responsibility for what’s occurred over the past 400 years is too much to ask.

We only ask that you recognize what has happened and help change how we indigenous people are systemically discriminated against.

Are there some people that hold a grudge? Definitely.

Do you blame them? Many live in third world conditions not of their own making. So it’s your choice how you view their indignation. Your choice whether you acknowledge their anger and resentment.

I’ve made my peace with reconciliation. I know it’s a long process that I will only begin and never finish. I hope my great grandchildren will live in a different Canada. One that accepts them unconditionally and gives them the benefits of citizenship, freedom and rights.

Because I’ve lived 52 years watching members of my family and my community denied those rights and freedoms. And there are many trying to remove what little we have worked to achieve.

You want to bicker about a word that defines those who are not indigenous?

You want to ruminate about your angst and hurt feelings that comes with the label settler. Be my guest. I won’t stop you.

I’ll be choosing forward and trying to make this a better world for my family and my community.

Let me know when you want to join in.