I had a lot of different thoughts while I was going through the material for Unit 1 throughout the week. However, as I read Smith, Tuck and Yang’s “Introduction” chapter, I found myself very defensive.
After reflecting, I realized my reactions could be easily compared to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and the accompanying social media outcry. There has been a lot of media focus lately on negativity and outrage. On protests and shootings. You’re either with us or against us (a lot like the inside vs. outside discussed in Smith, Tuck and Yang (12)), and if you’re against us then you’re officially Cancelled. There is no middle ground, and any side that you stand on you’re in danger. So we’re all constantly playing defense.
You see, it’s a cycle. My defensive reaction to the reading responded to the defensive tone taken by the authors throughout much of the chapter. From the attack on the idea of “purity” on page 3, to the repeated use of “white settlers” as a blanket term, to the statement that so-called white settlers are self-centered (14), Smith, Tuck and Yang made small but significant attacks on things that are important to me. They themselves made these attacks in response to attacks that have been made on them and their culture in the past. It goes on this way forever!
Of course there are people out there with bad intentions, people out there who really are trying to belittle us, or asking for more information in search for our Achilles’ heel, but I have to believe that not everybody is like that. So why are we all on the defensive? Why do we go to such extremes? Getting mad at white settlers for not understanding or subscribing to Indigenous culture seems to me a lot like getting mad at Indigenous people for not understanding or subscribing to white settler culture…
As stated at the end of “Introduction,” we have to figure out how to meet each other where we’re at (22), and I don’t think any good conversation is happening if we’re all on our defense lines.
Federico Angel
September 24, 2020 — 2:14 PM
I think you are being both dismissive and unsympathetic to Smith, Tuck and Yang and I think they would call you out on settler fragility. While you might feel like you are on the defensive about criticisms they have leveled towards the role of white settlers Smith, Tuck and Yang have for generations been on the defensive against the violence, theft and injustice committed against their people since colonialism began. Materially and culturally speaking they have dealt with genocidal assimilative practices instituted by white settlers for generations. The systems that uphold the settler state of Canada were created to explicitly deny indigenous existence at the benefit of white settlement.
The authors have every right to be angry when it comes to “self-serving” settlers that A) don’t take responsibility for their role as settlers and B) don’t take personal initiative at decolonizing practices in their field. The middle ground you seek is a construct that recenters the feelings of white settlers and does not promote reconciliation in the least. The “mediated” half-way point is not decolonial it is an explicit concession to the terms of white settlers.
Also cancel culture is not real, holding people accountable is.