Decolonization Is for Everyone | Nikki Sanchez | TEDxSFU

[Nikki Sanchez introduces herself in an Indigenous language]

I'm so happy to be with all of you here today what a

special thing to come together to learn

thank you so much to the Nahani family

for their beautiful welcome toward their

territories because I'm speaking to you

about decolonization today I couldn't

begin without once again recognizing

that not only are we on the territories

of this beautiful family but we're also

on the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish

nations' territory and although that's

become a really common thing to

acknowledge in Canada: that you're on

someone else's territory what often goes

unsaid is that those are unsurrendered

and occupied territories. So some of us

might be here today as guests and some

of us have found our way here in other

ways but ultimately we're on someone

else's territory. And so I really invite

you to think about what that means as we

discuss... explore this idea of

decolonization. And as a decolonial

educator I get to have a lot of really

interesting conversations with people

often really difficult conversations but

to my surprise one of the most difficult

conversations I have one of the most

difficult questions that I ask is if

people can name the territories and

nation on whose lands their grandmothers

were born and for a lot of settler

Canadians this is a really difficult

question to answer and it's also one

that brings up a lot of pain and that's

where I want to start this conversation

today is around this notion of

colonization in relation to historical

amnesia because although it's become a

common theme in Canada, that we talk about

intergenerational trauma for Indigenous

people one thing that's not talked about

is the intergenerational trauma that

also had to happen for settler people to

be complicit in such a violent history

and in order for us to know where we

want to go together we need to know

where we are and for us to know that we

need to know where we've been so I'm

just going to speak briefly about the

history of colonization in Canada but I

really want to emphasize this is a

global phenomenon

there's not a single corner of the world

that colonization hasn't been enacted

upon so whether you're a settler

Canadian, whether you're a visitor,

whether you're a newly landed immigrant

this applies to you and if you want to

learn more about your own particular

history just go home and Google

colonization and your nation and you'll

see a long and violent history. But for

today's purposes we're just going to

talk about colonisation in Canada. And so

one of the most common things that

people are really aware of in terms of

our colonial legacy in Canada is that of

residential schools however what's often

left out of that conversation is the

fact that those residential schools were

in effect for over 150 years, that the

last residential school did not close

until 1996, that the mortality rate and

those residential schools was often

around 50% that the Canadian government

intentionally used the subjects of those

schools to test the impacts of

starvation on human bodies as well as

the impacts of electric chairs. The

creation of the RCMP was in fact to

remove children from their homes in

order to bring them to these schools as

well as to police indigenous people to

remain on the lands that were designated

to them as a reserve lands in their own

home territories. And finally this legacy

resulted in the kidnapping of over a

hundred and fifty thousand children and

that's just the children themselves that

were removed and that's not even talking

about all of the generations that were

implicated because of the horrible abuse

that went on in these schools. So the

other forms that colonization took in

this country were that of biological

warfare: intentional systematic

biological warfare. Ninety percent of

some of the first nations in British

Columbia were wiped out at a time when a

vaccine for smallpox was available and

and well used among settler Canadians

this is I think one of the most powerful

pictures that depicts the history of

colonization in this country. Another

strategy that was used to clear people

from the land and forced people into

submission, into capitalism, into living

on reserves, was the intentional

extinction of keystone species like the

Buffalo in the prairies

but this happened in the north with sled

dogs, it happened in the East Coast with

different fisheries, and so this strategy

of extinction to force people into

submission is part of our colonial

history in Canada so this means that if

you're more than a 1st generation

Canadian this is historical bystander

trauma that your parents and

grandparents have lived through and that

in fact, also lives in you. And I really

want to dispel this myth today that

decolonization is the work of Indigenous

people. Whether you have ancestors that

were colonizers or colonized we are all

colonized people and so this work of

decolonization is really work that we

need to come together to do with one another

equally accepting our roles our

locations our privileges and ways in

which we can start to move towards a

future that looks like healing, that

looks like justice, that looks like

dismantling systems of oppression. So I'd

be very happy if I could say that this

historic colonization is where it ends

but unfortunately that's not the case.

Today, colonisation in Canada looks like

the fact that we're here occupying

someone else's territory well there's

never been treaties made or honoured at

least on these territories. It looks like

over 4,000 missing and murdered

Indigenous women and girls in this

country; a number that keeps on rising

despite government promises of an

inquiry or an intervention

it looks like common practices such as

the apprehension of indigenous

babies when they're born by child and

family services if their families are

deemed unfit by the state. It looks like

over 200 First Nations who live without

access to clean drinking water and other

forms of infrastructure that almost

every other Canadian feels entitled to

and finally it looks like the ongoing

poisoning and removal of indigenous

people from their traditional lands and

territories for resource extraction

processes like the tar sands, and like,

we're all probably very familiar

with right here the trans-mountain pipeline

I've worked with a lot of settler people

who really want to do something about

this but they don't know where to begin

and they feel paralyzed with guilt and

shame about this truly ugly history that

we've all found ourselves in. And so if I

could just leave you with one message

today it would be this: This history is

not your fault but it absolutely is your

responsibility. What happened what has

been done is not your fault but where we

find ourselves here together whether

we're Indigenous people, whether we're

settler people, whether we're somewhere

in between: This is work that we need to

pick up we need to have the courage to

look at our past we need to have the

courage to look at where we are now and

we need to work together to figure out

how we can collectively heal moving

forward. I think it's really important to

make the distinction between Indigenisantion

and colonisation, as Nigel mentioned

I had the incredible privilege

of working on the vice land documentary

series Rise and in that role I got to

work with Indigenous communities and

every continent of the world and I want

to give a shout out to all the

Indigenous people on earth because the

work of Indigenisation, the work of

linguistic revitalization, the work of

ceremony, the work of land-based practice,

the work of land-based defense?

Indigenous people are holding it down.

And that is work for Indigenous people

to do, that is not work for anyone else

to pick up and start to appropriate and

call their own

however decolonization is work that

belongs to all of us. Decolonization we

are never going to go back and erase

that past, it has already been done, but

what we can do is we can start to put

spokes in wheels of oppression of

movements that create our social

systems of inherent inequity and to be

totally honest if you wanted to just be

motivated to do this for selfish reasons

that would be good enough! We're looking

at a state of global climate catastrophe

we're looking at mass migrations because

when people can no longer inhabit their

homelands and these are all

ramifications of a colonial and

capitalist world view that eradicated a

balance, a sense of reciprocity, a sense

of spiritual

connection to our homelands. And so if we

continue forward without acknowledging

the Indigenous people on whose lands and

territories we live we're headed for

certain disaster. One of the

biggest gifts I've ever been given in my

life is the gift of my own prophecy, the

Mayan prophecy, which speaks about this

time, particularly, on earth and it

teaches us that this is the time for the

first time in all of human history that

our consciousness have come to a level

of evolution where we can actually see

from one another's eyes. The way that

it's explained is that the eyes of the

serpent can see through the eyes of the

eagle and so the eyes of the North and

the eyes of the South can actually see

through one another's eyes and begin to

work together and understand each

other's worldviews. And the secondary

part of that prophecy is that absolutely

every person who came to be alive on

earth at this time came for a specific

reason and came with specific gifts that

are needed to do this work that we have

laid out in front of us. and I really

believe that. And that's why I really

want each of you to pick up this work of

decolonization as your own because we

need you. Whether we like it or not

colonization is a messy and shameful

history that connects us all here we are

all in this room together so what do we

do moving forward? When people ask me

"What can I do to decolonize?" I give them a

caveat and I tell them well that's not

going to be a one answer it's not going

to be a one-day fix however I can give

you a few first steps because if you do

your work then we can come back together

and collectively do the real work that

needs to be done. So if you want to go

home today and start to enact your

journey of decolonization you can figure

out how to answer that first question I

said to you: Where do your people come

from? How did you get here?

Learn whose land you live on and what

has been done to them in order for you

to occupy their lands. Address the

oppressive systems and history that

enable you to occupy the territory you

do now. Find out how you benefit from

this history and activate one strategy

wherein you can use your

privilege to dismantle that and share this

knowledge, share this conversation with

your barista, with your babysitter, with

your tinder date I don't care but I want

you to have these conversations and I

promise you when you start to have these

conversations of looking at a longer now

of asking the history of people your

world will suddenly become a lot more

interesting and so will your identity.

Finally, what's it all for? Why should we

do this?

Well, because decolonisation looks like

living without paralyzing guilt and

shame about who you are and the social

identity you've inherited. Decolonization

looks like giving up social and economic

power and privilege that directly

disempowers, appropriates, and invisiblises

others. Decolonization looks

like smashing the patriarchy

[Laughter]

Decolonization looks like doing the work

to find out who you are where you came

from and committing to build communities

that work together to collectively

create a more sustainable and equitable

future. And finally decolonization looks

like celebrating

who we are and connecting with the

unique knowledge with the unique

knowledge that we each bring to this

time and that we need to solve the

problems that are laid out in front of

us. So it's really easy to think about

our future ancestors because we have

such beautiful little ones in the room

good reminder. Thank you so much for

opening this space today. But I really

invite you to look back and think about

your grandmothers that I asked you about

and take a moment to look forward and

ask yourself what you can do in your

lifetime what you can do today and in

your work and with your passions and

with your gifts to start to dismantle a

history that none of us should be proud

of so that maybe we can offer an

inheritance for our future ancestors

for not only a planet that's livable but

a social system and community that's

equitable and just. [Sanchez thanks audience in an Indigenous language]

Thank you so much.

[Applause]