Decolonization for Children

Medicine Wheel Adapted from Anderson 2000

Last night, inspired by my days reading I introduced the children to the term decolonization.  In my head I imagined a nice friendly book laying it all out for them with nice graphics, clear concepts and a friendly bear or buffalo to guide you.  As it was they got me over the dinner table on the fly trying to explain why we had to keep asking questions about all parts of our lives and why we live the way we do now.  This was inspired by an article by Susan Blight "Where You’re From and Where You’re At: Place, Space, and the Assertion of Nationhood in Shibastik’s “Moose River”." I had brought home the following paragraph for our dinner discussion and my introduction got a lot deeper than I planned...


"Often humility is understood as not thinking of yourself as above anyone, but it was Shibastik who reminded me, when I interviewed him, that humility is also about not thinking yourself beneath anyone. White supremacy hates when Indigenous people love themselves. I am championing an unapologetic love for our people that rejects the colonizers’ gaze and the desire to perform for colonial recognition. We rep for our nations out of love for ourselves, love for our communities and love for our lands. Repping your Indigenous nationhood, as Shibastik does the James Bay, is medicine for all of us who have been fed a false narrative about how behind we are and what we are lacking."


I wanted to focus in on the idea that humility was a balance between not seeing people as below you while also not putting yourself down - a current issue with a ten year old girl getting teased for being a tom boy.  We had a good talk about this, the need to love ourselves and looking after our circles and who we let into our circles.  This conversation also made me realize that there is a lot more for me to unpack/decolonize with the children.  We have been focusing a lot on the "reclaiming" quadrant and we need to work towards a balance of those concepts but also on the building the skills needed to do this work.  That is going to take a lot more thinking.