Thread by @sunnshiiny

As an indigenous person, reconciliation is of great importance to me.

I need people to hear this plea. I need people to share this information.

With everyone they know.

I’m asking for the attached thread to be amplified widely.

Inter-generational grief and trauma is not something we can gloss over in a news cycle.

It’s not a quick fix “yep I support reconciliation” so let’s move on to the next topic. Healing occurs at the rate of those requiring healing.

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1399485…

It’s disrespectful to the process & the healing required to rush this process by immediately seeking a solution.

We need to sit in the anguish and experience the discomfort as a nation.

To move on without respecting the process is a rejection of reconciliation.

Moving to solutions when we have only just begun to explore the trauma is disingenuous and extremely disrespectful at best.

I don’t care if this makes you uncomfortable. It’s supposed to make you uncomfortable to witness others suffering.

What made you think this would be easy?

Maybe you should examine your motivation to gloss over centuries of pain and horror.

Because healing takes as long as it takes. No less and no more.

My community and all indigenous Canadians have lived with this trauma for multiple generations.

Mainstream settlers have lived with the realization that 215 children were buried in a mass grave at a residential school for less than a week.

Your ongoing trauma is infinitesimal to the pain and suffering every indigenous person deals with on a daily basis.

Stop trying to rush through this process. We have about 500 years of grief to process. It’s going to take awhile.

I don’t want pity, reassurances, or commitment to do better.

I just want you to experience for a short time (in comparison to indigenous people’s centuries of trauma) the magnitude of what every indigenous person experiences daily.

I don’t want apologies, admission of guilt or sadness. It’s not my responsibility to comfort you for the trauma you experience while attempting to understand the profound magnitude of what an indigenous person carries every day as their history and current experience.

I don’t want to punish you. I only want you to empathize, not sympathize, with every indigenous man, woman and child who has endured this reality for centuries and continues to every day, including today.

That’s what represents reconciliation.

That’s what it means. Settlers witnessing and acknowledging their centuries of complicity, knowing or not, to the horrors my people have lived.

It’s the least you can do.

It’s not good enough to apologize, promise to do better, swear allegiance, feel shame and guilt.

You need to experience the weight of trauma indigenous people have carried through several generations.

Then we can talk about why it happened and who engineered it to be that way.

Only then can we consider solutions.

As the victims of genocide, we get to dictate the terms of reconciliation. Not those that inflicted genocide and not those who profit while it occurs.

Please understand you have no respect for this process if you’re trying to rush through it.

Grief and reconciliation doesn’t work that way.

Settlers need to know the depth of depravity that many have sunk to attempt to remove us from our land, our way of life, our families.

Until settlers fully understand the trauma, how can anyone propose a solution?

Again, it’s the very least settlers can do is to bear witness.

There will be many who try to derail this process. We need advocates and allies to speak up and speak out when that happens.

We need to create a safe (as possible) space for people to share their stories.

I’ve shared many of mine already. I’ll share them again.

For an analogy that is comparable; imagine being part of a couple that your partner has betrayed you repeatedly. You’ve voiced concerns repeatedly, but they don’t hear you. They don’t understand your profound trauma, grief and disappointment.

Before any couple reconciles, one person or both spend time reflecting on mistakes from the perspective of their partner.

Before a couple can move on and reconcile, each person needs to acknowledge their behaviour that contributed to the breakdown of the relationship.

It’s an essential step in reestablishing trust.

Reconciliation can not occur if there is no trust.

It’s obvious many indigenous people do not have any trust.

Think of a teen you’ve caught stealing from your wallet. Just because they say sorry & promise never to do it again, doesn’t mean you trust them. Trust is built over time and by measuring a change in behaviour.

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