tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/daniel-heath-justice-43497/articlesDaniel Heath Justice – The Conversation2021-10-06T12:30:47Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1675202021-10-06T12:30:47Z2021-10-06T12:30:47ZHow stories about alternate worlds can help us imagine a better future: Don’t Call Me Resilient EP 7 transcript<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422754/original/file-20210922-15-1hyg01u.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2000%2C1122&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Comic books like Elfquest were an inspiration to Canadian Indigenous author Daniel Heath Justice, who writes about 'wonderworks.' </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://elfquest.com/">Warp Graphics/Elfquest</a></span></figcaption></figure><iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/add6ca9a-00ee-4443-b95b-e20204f36a6f?dark=true"></iframe>
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<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-stories-about-alternate-worlds-can-help-us-imagine-a-better-future-dont-call-me-resilient-ep-7-165933">Episode 7: How stories about alternate worlds can help us imagine a better future</a>. </p>
<p><strong>Episode Description:</strong> Stories are a powerful tool to resist oppressive situations. They give writers from marginalized communities a way to imagine alternate realities, and to critique the one we live in. In this episode, Vinita speaks to two storytellers who offer up wonderous “otherworlds” for Indigenous and Black people. Selwyn Seyfu Hinds is an L.A-based screenwriter who wrote for Jordan Peele’s The Twilight Zone and is currently writing the screenplay for Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black. Daniel Heath Justice is professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous literature and expressive culture at the University of British Columbia.</p>
<h2>Transcript</h2>
<p><em>NOTE: Transcripts may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.</em></p>
<p><strong>Daniel Heath Justice:</strong>
I don’t see the world as a trash fire. I see the world as relatives who are under incredible strain and who are in a lot of danger. And I think thinking about the world as a trash fire, does an injustice to our relatives as well as to ourselves. </p>
<p><strong>Vinita Srivastava:</strong> I know we’ve all been stressed and anxious. Being in the middle of a global pandemic this past year has felt almost apocalyptic, reminding me of themes I’ve read about in dystopian novels. There are two Americas, one where people are taking to the streets, risking their lives to protest racism and police brutality, and the other, where citizens are storming their own capital. Here in Canada, we continue to find unmarked graves of Indigenous schoolchildren. All this against the backdrop of a series of life-threatening and raging forest fires. </p>
<p>How are we supposed to deal with all of this? How do we find the strength to get out of bed every day? How do we find the joy in these times? </p>
<p>Today, I’m talking to two fiction writers who have given these questions a lot of thought. They say stories about alternate worlds can help us deal with and critique our own world. </p>
<p>Daniel Heath Justice is a Colorado-born member of the Cherokee Nation and the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous literature at UBC. He is the author of <em>Why Indigenous Literatures Matter</em>, as well as the epic trilogy, <em>The Kynship Chronicles</em>. </p>
<p>Also joining us is Selwyn Seyfu Hinds. Selwyn is an L.A.-based screenwriter and producer. He has been writing comic books and screenplays for a decade, including episodes for Jordan Peele’s <em>The Twilight Zone</em>. Selwyn is currently adapting the award-winning fantasy novel, <em>Washington Black</em>, by Esi Edugyan, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2018. Welcome to both of you.</p>
<p><strong>Selwyn Hinds:</strong> Good morning.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> So, Daniel, it’s been a heavy few months - or a heavy a few years - in the real world, or our wounded world, as you’ve called it. What does it mean to create a different world in these times?</p>
<p><strong>DHJ:</strong> I think we need anything that will give us strength and hope. And that helps us see the world through a lens of wonder and not despair. A lot of people say, oh, the world is a trash fire. And, you know, there’s that meme that goes along with the little dog drinking coffee at the table and everything’s on fire and the little dog saying “this is fine.” I think about that image a lot. But I think for me, I don’t see the world as a trash fire. I see the world as relatives who are under incredible strain and who are in a lot of danger. And I think thinking about the world is a trash fire does an injustice to our relatives as well as to ourselves. So I think thinking about other worlds and other possibilities aren’t just about kind of fantasy possibilities, but actual other worlds that exist alongside us now. And that can hopefully help make what we’re doing mean more and maybe make a difference in the lives of those around us and not just the human lives.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> Oh, you’re not talking about other worlds like parallel universes, or are you talking about other worlds like other possibilities?</p>
<p><strong>DHJ:</strong> I think both. I think part of it is we’re imaginative and creative people and it’s not just about the world that we’ve inherited, and it’s a really cruel and painful world that we’ve inherited. But there are so many other inheritances that we have and that we have not only the right to hold on to, but the obligation to. And whether those are worlds in a galaxy far away or otherwise histories of the past or potential futures, I think, focusing only on the here and now often focuses on a very narrow abusive here and now. But we are more than that.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> And Selwyn. What about you? The same question. It’s been such an intense year. What does creating these other worlds mean for you?</p>
<p><strong>SH:</strong> You know, I think the artist’s job, the writer’s job, as I’ve always seen it for myself, has been about wrestling with and speaking to the state of the world conditions this last year. I would say for me it’s meant - I think Daniel used both of these words, hope and optimism. Finding those things, finding those things in the work. I have been lucky enough to be writing a show in <em>Washington Black</em> whose just sort of philosophical tenet is is optimism, is hope, because it’s a story of a young boy whose story whose narrative begins in a plantation in Barbados in the 19th century and goes to heights of magic realism and steampunk magic as he journeys around the world and finds his agency and finds his manhood and finds himself. And when I was pitching that show to networks, one of the phrases that I used was there’s a universality in this because there’s universality in the idea that the sun eventually rises. That night becomes dawn, and that we all identify with the journey from despair to optimism. So I think that’s been an essential part of my own work for decades. But particularly this last year, it’s been much more tangible.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> Daniel, a lot of people use the labels futurism or speculative fiction, but I know that you don’t love using those terms. You call these kinds of stories wonderworks. Can you explain why?</p>
<p><strong>DHJ:</strong> It’s not that I don’t like them. I think they’re really important terms. But I think when we’re talking about Indigenous imaginings, they’re really limited. There’s actually really some amazing work happening in Indigenous futurism and that’s a different kind of thing. But it’s definitely looking to see Indigenous Peoples in the future and not just relegated to the past. Wonderworks for me takes up our worldviews. In so much of Western culture, the idea of animals speaking is seen as fantastical or trees having teachings to share is seen as fantastical. But in our traditions, these aren’t fantasy. These aren’t speculative. These are realities. And all peoples have language. Not all peoples are human.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> Wonderworks is also just a beautiful way of putting it.</p>
<p><strong>DHJ:</strong> Thank you. I have to say, it originally comes from an old PBS series where they would show dramatizations of classic literature when I was a kid and it was called PBS WonderWorks and that always stuck with me. So I did something a little bit different with it. But I can’t say that I coined that. I just repurposed it.</p>
<p><strong>SH:</strong> That’s super cool.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> If I can ask what’s your origin — what got you interested in wonderworks, Daniel, what got you started?</p>
<p><strong>DHJ:</strong> I’ve always loved fantasy. I’ve always loved the world beyond the world of now. I grew up in a little mining town in Colorado and it was a hard place to hold on to dreams, and I was a very, very dreamy kid. And I was really fortunate that I had parents who indulged that. My dad was native and my mom was white and we were one of the very few mixed-race families, but very similar to other people in that working-class town. And so there were some things that were different about my family and some things that weren’t. And so there were always other worlds at play and other experiences. And I think from the very beginning, I loved telling stories. I loved thinking about other possibilities. I longed for worlds where my weirdness wasn’t seen as a deficiency and where nerdy kids like me could be heroes and not relegated to villains or sidekicks or the slaughtered ones. So, from the very beginning, I’ve always loved these things.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> Selwyn, I see that you’re nodding and saying, yes, can you relate to this? What got you started exploring the alternate realities?</p>
<p><strong>SH:</strong> Daniel’s story resonates because I think so much of who we are is rooted in where we’re from. And for me, I was a kid who grew up in the nation of Guyana in the ‘70s. This is an environment where there’s no television, where you’re reading for your information and you’re also reading the things that are both local to the country and that come from the great external sources which for us, were the U.S., the U.K. and India. So I read a very particular mix of fantastical work as a kid. And I remember being eight years old in a school playground reading Giant X-Men Number One from Chris Claremont. That was my introduction to comic books. I was also reading a line of comics whose title I don’t remember, but they were from India and they essentially were narrative re-tellings of bits of the Hindu pantheon. So all the gods of the in the Hindu pantheon of these Homeric style stories. I think they were called ASK comics. I can’t remember, but they were extraordinarily influential to me as a kid. And I was that kid who I prefer to stay in during lunch hour in the corner of the cafeteria reading a book. And so, adapting to some of the social mores of American culture vis a vis the kids who look like us, who read, was its own sort of adventure, if you will.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> But you both use superhero elements in your writing. So, Daniel, I know that you created a character with rage so powerful that they can uproot trees and Selwyn, in one of yours, in the <em>Twilight Zone</em> episode, can see the future. What did those superpower elements allow you to do or say that you couldn’t otherwise?</p>
<p><strong>SH:</strong> Some of it - a lot of it tracks back to, from my case, probably for Daniel too, that childlike imagination that we have to retain to write the things we write today. You know, I was always a kid who was running around arms spread akimbo believing I could fly. And what I’ve been able to do professionally is find the ways, spiritually and metaphorically to fly. So I think that ability to create worlds and create characters where you stretch the limits of the imagination just harkens back to those sort of childhood ambitions that I think we’ve been fortunate enough to manifest as professionals.</p>
<p><strong>DHJ:</strong> Yeah, absolutely. You know what I was thinking, Selwyn, when you were talking about some of those early comic books, there was one that I was just completely enchanted by, and it was called Elfquest. And it’s these elves. There’s one group of elves who ride around on wolves. And then they encountered these elves who live in the desert and they’ve got brown skin.</p>
<p><strong>SH:</strong> Mm hmm.</p>
<p><strong>DHJ:</strong> And I was totally floored. I could imagine so many things, but I couldn’t really imagine elves who looked like my dad, right. And then all of a sudden, here they were. And so I think for me, like, there are all kinds of powers that make a difference. But I think there was also just the idea that there were different kinds of heroes. But also, just to be able to inhabit bodies that were not the so-called norm, but were inhabited without anxiety. As an embryonic queer kid, as a mixed-race kid who looks white. That, you know, the body was always really complicated to me, and so it wasn’t even just the big powers, like I really wanted to shoot lightning out of my fingers, like the emperor that was my kind of go-to power. But it was really the inhabiting of a body that wasn’t pathologized for its difference, that really fascinated me. And then to see it in comics and to see it in books. Tolkien, also a huge love of mine but the hobbits are described as brown-skinned. You wouldn’t know that from representations, but they are clearly little brown people and there are so many aspects of these stories that other people didn’t, they missed. I didn’t care about Aragorn. He was not interesting to me. It was the weirdos that interested me.</p>
<p><strong>SH:</strong> I totally get it. I tell you, I was always a Gimli fan as a kid. Yeah, that’s a good one.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> Selwyn, do you have one of those superpowers, like Daniel’s shoot lightning out of his fingers?</p>
<p><strong>SH:</strong> Oh, I always wanted to be a Jedi. I think that’s probably true for most near 50-year-olds. We also had Star Wars in 1977 and I always wanted to be able to use The Force. I distinctly remember staring at rocks in my backyard at eight years old, just willing them to move.</p>
<p><strong>DHJ:</strong> See, I wanted the flashy powers. I wanted stuff that is very dramatic.</p>
<p><strong>SH:</strong> I love it. I love it. I love it.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> I want to talk about <em>The Twilight Zone</em>, Selwyn, because first of all I love it, but you created this episode on <em>The Twilight Zone</em> where a mother can foresee the future and she’s able to save her Black son from being shot by the police. I saw the episode is very hopeful. And I’m wondering, was that your intention? What was your intention with this episode?</p>
<p><strong>SH:</strong> Well, it was the intention of the show as a whole. The writers’ room was a whole, which was to take and the sort of larger systemic sociopolitical issues that were, and still are, rending the country and figure out how we can tell them dramatically. And really, at the core of that question, figuring out what does a <em>Twilight Zone</em> episode mean today. In our writers’ room, we had these boards up, just all these big topics, the gun violence or police brutality, opioid addiction, transgender. And that’s not the usual way a TV show gets written. But for us, we had to locate it in the psychology of the real issues. And I knew that I was going to write the police brutality one as soon as I walked in the room. That just was something that was personally very important to me. And then it just became a matter of, well, how do I tell the story? And people always assume that the central device in the episode, the idea of rewinding time, came from <em>The Twilight Zone</em>, sort of sci-fi and general paradigms. And I always tell people no it actually came from real tragic life, because the way I cracked the story was I was sitting down in front of YouTube and I think I played one video of a bad police encounter. And you know the way YouTube works. So it was one video and then another and then another and then another and then another. And then an hour later and it hits me. I was like, oh, this is just like time rewinding itself and nothing changing. And once I articulated that, I knew what the episode was from a creative conceit.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> It was a beautiful episode. I have to say. It’s there’s kind of a hopeful element to it, but there’s also this kind of warning in it that’s still there.</p>
<p><strong>SH:</strong> On the ending there’s a deliberate ambivalence there. And it was funny, the ending was one of the most difficult parts to land. How exactly do we get out of the story? What is the right emotion? What is the right look on the actor’s face? What is the right story? I went back and forth for days on that, trying to figure that out with Jordan Peele. And I think the one we landed on was just the right note. There’s a sense of — there’s the story of branching left or right. It wasn’t realistic to sort of present an episode where the sci-fi or the magic gets this family out cleanly, but that the possibility was always there. You know, the monster still lurks within the maze both for them and for the rest of us.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> Daniel, you write about how wonderworks can be an antidote to despair. How important is it for you to bring a sense of hope to these types of stories?</p>
<p><strong>DHJ:</strong> Hope is an interesting concept because I think hope doesn’t mean freedom from struggle. When Selwyn was talking about that ending not really resolving everything for that episode, I really feel that. I really appreciate that because I think the hope for Indigenous people, certainly for me, isn’t a presumption that things are going to be hunky-dory in the future and that all things are fine. I think it’s an idea that there is still a possibility that we are able to keep fighting. That the magic doesn’t fix everything because there are too many of us who haven’t made it here. And there are too many of us today who are not making it. But the possibilities of hope mean that there will be a time when more of us will make it and more of our lands will be restored and more of the health of our communities will be maintained. So I think when some people talk about hope, they see it as a really naive thing. But when I think of hope and the teachings I’ve gotten on hope, it’s a really practical thing. And it’s a really — sometimes it’s a really modest thing. It’s not necessarily the big transformative “everything is changed,” but it’s what gets us out of bed, it’s what gets us into those tasks that we have to do. So I think hope is vital. That hope is not naive. We brought up Tolkien already, but Tolkien talks about, in one of his early essays, some of the critiques of his work as escapist. And he said, you know, there’s a difference between — I’m paraphrasing really roughly here — but he said there’s a difference between the flight of the traitor and the flight of the captive. And that escapism isn’t a retreat from the world, it’s a movement into a place of sanctuary so you can re-engage the world stronger. And that’s how I see hope. It’s not about naive expectation that everything is going to turn out right, but it’s it’s what gives us strength to keep fighting.</p>
<p><strong>SH:</strong> Mm hmm. Love that.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> Is it hard to do sometimes? To create this sense of hope given what is happening in our world?</p>
<p><strong>SH:</strong> Writing is hard, period. And I’m not going speak for Daniel - we all have a different process. I don’t necessarily go into the story saying I’m finding hope. I may have that amongst the macro-thematic thoughts that I always ask myself before I do anything, which is what is the story about? What am I trying to do? What does it mean to me? What will it mean to the world? So there’s a box of those kinds of questions that I lay out first. And then from that we then eventually get to the hard work of building a world and then the people who populate that world. But hopefully, as you’re doing those things, your thematic goal happens organically. But then there’s a point where you do give control of the story to your characters and they’re like your kids. They grow up and they walk the path that they’re going to walk. And hopefully, in the end, when the narrative is done, it reflects the intentions that you had at the outset.</p>
<p><strong>DHJ:</strong> I like that. For me, the first thing is story. And what is the story that you want to tell? And I’ve written some really dark stories that aren’t very hopeful, but it was the story that needed to be what it was. Because I get tired when I see people who are trying to drive home a particular lesson and forget the story. I can be preached at on Twitter all day long. I want to hear a story. And the story that carries lessons, I’m totally down with that. But story first. And then, after that, also those questions, whether it’s the toolbox that someone was talking about or just what the questions are that you ask. For me, I don’t ever want people who’ve experienced violence to feel hurt by my work, that’s really important for me. I don’t want any Indigenous person to step away from my work and say this did violence to us. There’s a relationship that you have not just with the work, but also with the readers and of course, you can’t write to please every reader and you don’t even try to do that. But at the end of the day, I want to do less violence with my work. And I want to make space for different kinds of readers to see themselves and their dignity in these works. I’m not particularly concerned about colonizer feelings, I’m not particularly concerned about people who make a point of causing harm. Whether they feel included, that’s not my interest. But I think the story has to carry all of that. And if it does that, well, then I think I’ve succeeded.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> Selwyn, you’re in L.A. working on writing the screenplay for <em>Washington Black</em> by award-winning novelist Esi Edugyan, a book I love, and when we talk about speculative fiction, we often talk about looking into the future. But the story re-imagines the past. And it’s about a Black boy who escaped slavery, as you talked about at the beginning, in a hot air balloon in the 1800s. So why is it important to re-imagine the past?</p>
<p><strong>SH:</strong> Because that’s where we’re anchored. When you think of time and the infinite loop version of it, what’s future, what’s past, what’s present, especially as people of colour, our POV of the past, our emotional relationship with the past is so fraught. Looking backwards for us as a people is hard. And if I can write a narrative that lets us look back at the past with the same sort of wide-eyed what if magic that we do when we look at futuristic things or things that imagine a different future? I think that is some of the emotional and psychological work that I want to be able to do as a writer. So that’s a big part of my reasoning.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> I’m so looking forward to the series. Daniel, in your book, <em>Why Indigenous Literatures Matter</em>, you close with an inspiring quote by author Gary Hobson who wrote <em>Keep a Fire</em>. What does that mean? How would you like to see people keep a fire?</p>
<p><strong>DHJ:</strong> I think part of it is just to bring generosity to one another. And to bring a lot of courage and hold up those stories and those storytellers whose voices maybe haven’t been given a centred space and encourage them. We have to hold up our own and help our own creatives keep those fires. And really really encourage and support and expand and train. And for allies to be reaching out and providing resources to help folks get in the door. We have a lot of allies who want to help us tell our stories when what they really need to do is help open the door so that we can tell our own stories. So I think keeping a fire is about kind of not just keeping our own fire, but helping others do that as well and centring different voices, centring different people, not having the same limited range of stories being told. And I think we’re seeing much more of that. But we need to buy those books from Black writers and from Indigenous writers and from trans writers and a whole range of writers. If we really believe in a range of representation, we need to bring our support to that and not just ask for more inclusion in Harry Potter or whatever.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> Selwyn, how about you? How do you keep a fire?</p>
<p><strong>DHJ:</strong> Well, I think it’s unfortunately relatively easy to keep a fire because there’s so much in the world that sort of jags at my consciousness as a writer. There’s so many things that you want to engage with and even if it’s not the sort of direct on the nose engagement I’m writing about X thing in X manner you’re still influenced, motivated, inspired by and moved by real world events that you didn’t want to explore in your art. And it’s not just the negative. It’s not just the world is burning and therefore it inspires me to figure out how to become a fireman in my art. It’s also there are beautiful things. There’s a project that I’m setting up to write with because I promised my daughter when she was very young that one day I’d write a movie for her and I’m going to do that next year. Finally, after what you know, it’s been 12 years since I made that promise. So that’s as big a motivator for me as any sort of huge, systemic, pathological thing that’s motivating me to fight against it.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> For me, having the three of us here together was really special. And I really appreciate your time and space for this. This idea of having both of you here, two people I really admire a lot. Both of your work is really special to me. So thank you very much for agreeing to take the time out of your lives for it.</p>
<p><strong>DHJ:</strong> It was wonderful. Thank you so much.</p>
<p><strong>SH:</strong> You’re so welcome.</p>
<p><strong>VS:</strong> That’s it for this episode of Don’t Call Me Resilient. Lots of hopeful and important ideas from Selwyn Hinds and Daniel Justice to think about. We’d love to hear what you’re thinking after our conversation. I’m on Twitter @WriteVinita. And don’t forget to tag our producers @ConversationCA. Use the hashtag #DontCallMeResilient. If you’d like to read more about Indigenous and Black writers building other worlds, go to theconversation.com/ca. We have all kinds of information in our show notes with links to stories and research. Finally, if you liked what you heard today, please help spread the love, tell a friend about us or leave a review on whatever podcast app you’re using. Don’t Call Me Resilient is a production of The Conversation Canada. It was made possible by a grant for journalism innovation from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The series is produced and hosted by me, Vinita Srivastava. Our producer is Susana Feirrera. Our associate producer is Ibrahim Daair. Reza Dahya is our incredibly patient sound producer and our fabulous consulting producer is Jennifer Moroz. Lisa Varano leads audience development for The Conversation Canada and Scott White is our CEO. And if you’re wondering who wrote and performed the music we use on the pod, that’s the amazing Zaki Ibrahim. The track is called <em>Something in the Water</em>. Thanks for listening, everyone, and hope you join us again. Until then, I’m Vinita. And please, don’t call me resilient.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
This is the full transcript for Don’t Call Me Resilient, episode 7: How stories about alternate worlds can help us imagine a better future.Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientIbrahim Daair, Culture + Society EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1659332021-10-06T12:30:45Z2021-10-06T12:30:45ZHow stories about alternate worlds can help us imagine a better future: Don’t Call Me Resilient EP 7<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/423639/original/file-20210928-22-1fo8ban.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C4%2C943%2C402&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The work of imagining alternate futures is also about re-casting alternative pasts, as is done in the award-winning novel, 'Washington Black' by Esi Edugyan and adapted for the screen by podcast guest Selwyn Seyfu Hinds. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Washington Black/Random House</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/add6ca9a-00ee-4443-b95b-e20204f36a6f?dark=true"></iframe>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-572" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/572/661898416fdc21fc4fdef6a5379efd7cac19d9d5/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Stories are a powerful tool to resist oppressive situations. They give writers from marginalized communities a way to imagine alternate realities — and to critique the one we live in. </p>
<p><a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/ep-7-how-stories-about-alternate-worlds-can-help-us-imagine-a-better-future">In this episode of <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em></a>, two storytellers who offer up wondrous “otherworlds” for Indigenous and Black people speak about the crucial role storytelling has played in their lives. </p>
<p>Daniel Heath Justice is a Colorado-born member of the Cherokee Nation and Canada Research Chair and professor in Indigenous literature and expressive culture at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of <em>Why Indigenous Literatures Matter</em>, as well as the epic trilogy, <em>The Way of Thorn and Thunder: The Kynship Chronicles</em>. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425011/original/file-20211006-21-dct5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/425011/original/file-20211006-21-dct5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425011/original/file-20211006-21-dct5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425011/original/file-20211006-21-dct5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425011/original/file-20211006-21-dct5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425011/original/file-20211006-21-dct5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/425011/original/file-20211006-21-dct5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Cover of Esi Eduygan’s award-winning novel, Washington Black, Canadian edition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Harper Collins</span></span>
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<p>Also joining the conversation is Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, an L.A.-based screenwriter and producer. He has been writing comic books and screenplays for a decade, including episodes for Jordan Peele’s <em>The Twilight Zone</em>. Hinds is currently adapting the award-winning fantasy novel <em>Washington Black</em> by Esi Edugyan, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2018. </p>
<p>A full transcript of the episode is available <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-stories-about-alternate-worlds-can-help-us-imagine-a-better-future-dont-call-me-resilient-ep-7-transcript-167520">here</a>.</p>
<p>Each week we highlight articles related to the topics we discuss in the episode. This week, Lina Nasr El Hag Ali from OCAD University writes about <a href="https://theconversation.com/afrofuturism-and-its-possibility-of-elsewhere-the-power-of-political-imagination-166002">Afrofuturism and the power of political imagination</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/381818/original/file-20210201-13-1g0n3ld.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://theconversation.com/ca/podcasts">Click here to listen to Don’t Call Me Resilient</a></span>
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<p>You can listen or subscribe on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dont-call-me-resilient/id1549798876">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9qZFg0Ql9DOA">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/37tK4zmjWvq2Sh6jLIpzp7">Spotify</a> or <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/">wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts</a>. <a href="mailto:theculturedesk@theconversation.com">We’d love to hear from you</a>, including any ideas for future episodes. Join The Conversation on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationCA">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheConversationCanada">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">Instagram</a> and use #DontCallMeResilient.</p>
<p><em>Don’t Call Me Resilient is a production of The Conversation Canada. This podcast was produced with a grant for Journalism Innovation from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The series is produced and hosted by Vinita Srivastava. Our producer is Susana Ferreira. Our associate producer is Ibrahim Daair. Reza Dahya is our sound producer. Our consulting producer is Jennifer Moroz. Lisa Varano is our audience development editor and Scott White is the CEO of The Conversation Canada. Zaki Ibrahim wrote and performed the music we use on the pod. The track is called Something in the Water.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165933/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Stories about alternative worlds can be a powerful way of critiquing the problems of our own world.Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/833382017-09-19T22:34:33Z2017-09-19T22:34:33ZSettlers with Opinions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186665/original/file-20170919-22604-1igu0ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C52%2C750%2C442&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Scream, by Kent Monkman (2016), is part of a traveling exhibition this year on colonized Canada: Shame And Prejudice: A Story Of Resilience.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.kentmonkman.com/painting/">Kent Monkman</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s a depressingly common experience for Indigenous people in this country. It happens on a daily basis: At work with colleagues, in encounters with strangers, in news commentaries, in social media exchanges and at parties when we just want to relax. </p>
<p>It’s almost a guarantee that any time an Indigenous issue receives public attention, we will be subjected to the pronouncements of Settlers with Opinions. </p>
<p>Recently we have had to deal with the misinformed public opinions of a Canadian senator who celebrated Canada’s assimilationist policies in an open letter and who in the spring <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/beyak-indian-status-canadian-citizens-1.4284671">cited fake news in her defence of residential schools</a>. She is just one of many with inaccurate and distorted opinions, including <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/pg7q8m/a-bunch-of-white-canadian-editors-really-love-cultural-appropriation">editors of influential Canadian media</a> and <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/08/15/probe-into-proud-boys-incident-at-indigenous-ceremony-has-concluded-military-official-says.html">men serving in the Canadian military</a>.</p>
<p>Settlers with Opinions are far from those fair-minded non-Indigenous folks who bring generosity and humility to their interactions with Indigenous peoples: thoughtful professionals who do their research and build meaningful connections, curious and committed students in my Indigenous Studies classes, sincere strangers with challenging questions and friends who trust that their gaps in knowledge won’t be shamed. </p>
<p>Regardless of political affiliation — whether sneering Conservatives or head-patting Liberals — Settlers with Opinions are of an entirely different type. It’s attitude, not identity, that distinguishes the two. Mostly white and often — though not always — men, these apologists for colonialism can be readily identified by their relentless, resentful <em>Certainty</em>, detached from informed understanding or even empathy. </p>
<h2>Opinions without knowledge</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186653/original/file-20170919-22691-v4i58k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186653/original/file-20170919-22691-v4i58k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186653/original/file-20170919-22691-v4i58k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186653/original/file-20170919-22691-v4i58k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186653/original/file-20170919-22691-v4i58k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186653/original/file-20170919-22691-v4i58k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186653/original/file-20170919-22691-v4i58k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers such as Kim TallBear offer strong critique of the ways that scientific racism informs public misunderstandings of Indigenous identity.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Settler with Opinions doesn’t just have thoughts about these matters: He has important <em>Opinions</em>, and he insists on subjecting us to them. He is generally not trained in any relevant profession or scholarly discipline that would give some credibility to his assertions, nor is he even a particularly careful or selective reader. When more academically inclined, he typically adheres to <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/3/28/15078400/scientific-racism-murray-alt-right-black-muslim-culture-trump">long discredited 19th-century pseudo-scientific theories</a>. </p>
<p>Nor does he have meaningful personal experience or relationships that might provide understanding of Indigenous matters. Maybe he lived near a reserve or worked with an Indigenous person once. Maybe he’s among the growing ranks of settlers who has found an anonymous Indian in the family tree that seems to magically authorise commentary on all things Indigenous without accountability to a living community. </p>
<p>The Settler with Opinions believes herself to be above critique or even questioning, as she is The One with All the Answers. She assures us she knows our problems better than we do. Her lack of knowledge is no obstacle: She claims her ignorance as a badge of honour, for it confirms that she’s <em>Objective</em>. </p>
<p>Her solutions are a tiresome regurgitation of devastating imposed policies that have failed time and again. But because she doesn’t do any careful research, because she feels no need to actually engage with people who’ve experienced these things firsthand, she’s unfamiliar with this long and ugly history. </p>
<p>We’ve heard the exact same vacuous Opinions and ill-formed stereotypes a thousand times before. Our parents and grandparents and many generations before us heard them, too, and they resisted them as best they could. They had to deal with Settlers with Opinions in their times, too.</p>
<h2>Reconciliation without truth</h2>
<p>There’s nothing the Settler with Opinions won’t opine upon, no matter too intimate or too painful for him to intrude. </p>
<p>He loves to weigh in on matters of Indigenous identity. He knows next to nothing about the complex internal processes of belonging or the ongoing and destructive legacies of colonial intrusion into these most private matters. Yet this never stops him; it seems the less he knows, the more confident he is that we’ve got it all wrong no matter where we stand. </p>
<p>He has no investment in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/14/violence-indigenous-woman-canada-history-inquiry-racism">Indigenous women’s issues</a> of any kind and no particular concern about their well-being. But as a firm advocate of patriarchy and its values, he’s quick to offer a blaming assessment of their sexualities, gendered expressions and even their bodies.</p>
<p>He’s rarely, if ever, read <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/our-fire-survives-the-storm">a book by an Indigenous writer</a>. Yet he can explain, in detail, how much they’re lacking in literary quality, scope, sophistication and universal appeal. </p>
<p>The Settler with Opinions is allergic to all but the most partial context, and only that which justifies her pre-existing biases. She dismisses <a href="https://theconversation.com/cultural-appropriation-and-the-whiteness-of-book-publishing-79095">cultural appropriation</a>, but is the first to defend her intellectual property rights. </p>
<p>She insists Indigenous land activists should be held accountable to Canadian law but is unfamiliar with <a href="http://www.uvic.ca/law/about/indigenous/indigenouslawresearchunit/">Indigenous legal orders that predate those of Canada</a>. She’s predictably silent about the centuries of legalized racism that continue to strip us of our lands and imperil our relations. And she has no clue of the obligations we have to one another or to our other-than-human kin.</p>
<p>She dismisses <a href="http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=3">the Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a> as a guilt-inducing waste of time and money. She waxes poetic on the “good intentions” of those who empowered this system of child-theft and abuse and rape. She’s not particularly concerned with <a href="https://uofmpress.ca/books/detail/magic-weapons">the horrors that were visited upon little bodies, hearts and minds</a> as long as their souls were saved by their charitable Christian tormentors. </p>
<p>She says we shouldn’t judge the past by today’s politically correct standards. But she refuses to acknowledge the contesting voices of the past, and she refuses to see the privileging of only non-Indigenous perspectives as a political decision with real consequences for real people.</p>
<p>She’s fine with talking reconciliation as long as the status quo doesn’t change. It’s the Truth part of the TRC she simply can’t abide and won’t take any effort to learn. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186626/original/file-20170919-22632-1jdga4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186626/original/file-20170919-22632-1jdga4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186626/original/file-20170919-22632-1jdga4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186626/original/file-20170919-22632-1jdga4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186626/original/file-20170919-22632-1jdga4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186626/original/file-20170919-22632-1jdga4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186626/original/file-20170919-22632-1jdga4j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Children in Friendly Cove, B.C.: Indigenous peoples have always resisted oppressive policies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Conversations without exchange</h2>
<p>When we do counter his shallow stereotypes with <a href="https://uofrpress.ca/Books/C/Clearing-the-Plains">voluminous evidence</a> alongside personal or familial experience, when we <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/107178/1491-by-charles-c-mann">complicate his simplistic savage and civilized binaries</a> with <a href="https://theconversation.com/media-portrays-indigenous-and-muslim-youth-as-savages-and-barbarians-79153">more accurate and more complex realities</a>, the Settler with Opinions shifts tactics. </p>
<p>He’s a master at dismissal, tone policing, derailing and evasion. When we actually want to have a real discussion, the Settler with Opinions changes the topic. A real conversation or thoughtful exchange is the last thing he wants. He prefers an audience for his singular settler monologue locked on generational repeat.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186660/original/file-20170919-25319-9jbn86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186660/original/file-20170919-25319-9jbn86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186660/original/file-20170919-25319-9jbn86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186660/original/file-20170919-25319-9jbn86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186660/original/file-20170919-25319-9jbn86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186660/original/file-20170919-25319-9jbn86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186660/original/file-20170919-25319-9jbn86.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Seeing Red outlines a long history of racism and racist misrepresentation in Canadian media.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For years he’s insisted that we didn’t have the professional or scholarly credentials to legitimately respond to his Opinions. When we earn them, he sniffs about the academy’s diminished standards, the insularity of the Ivory Tower elite, the decline of traditional journalism. And he certainly has no patience with community-based knowledge holders whose deep expertise comes from enduring relationships and experience with the land.</p>
<p>He’s <a href="http://nationalpost.com/opinion/conrad-black-canadas-treatment-of-aboriginals-was-shameful-but-it-was-not-genocide">quick to condemn terms</a> like “settler,” “colonialism,” and “<a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2015/06/10/cultural-genocide-no-canada-committed-regular-genocide.html">genocide</a>,” insisting that they’re uncivil and ill-applied. He insists the bloody reality thus named is too alienating. Such forthright language makes <a href="http://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-a-rude-dismissal-of-canadas-generosity">people like him feel uncomfortable</a>. His comfort is the most important thing when discussing the oppression of Indigenous peoples. </p>
<p>We discuss the complicated relationships and emotionally challenging entanglements of belonging and kinship; she responds with simplistic soundbites about blood quantum and identity policing.</p>
<p>We critique the power inequities in appropriation; he condemns our delusional fixation on cultural purity.</p>
<p>We confront the devastating impacts of colonial policies on our nations’ diverse and complex languages, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-indigenous-american-literature-9780199914036?cc=us&lang=en&#">literatures</a>, technologies, political structures and social systems; she gives us a treatise on how her ancestors so generously dragged our benighted ancestors into civilisation. </p>
<p>And it’s not just the past: The Settler with Opinions finds invalidating fault in every facet of our 21st century being. Raised outside of community? Illegitimate. Raised in community? Anti-modern romantic. Of mixed heritage? Inauthentic. Phenotypically Indigenous? Retrograde. </p>
<h2>Racism without accountability</h2>
<p>He may be peddling the ugliest, most antiquated ideas and beliefs about Indigenous peoples, but if we dare to even hint that these are racist he’ll rage about how he’s the victim of reverse racism. He insists that his perspective is unjustly marginalized, that Indigenous people are the real bigots causing racial strife, that we need to stop being so unreasonable and just embrace his rightness — no matter how wrong it may be.</p>
<p>And, oh, if we have other things to do than respond to him, beware, because the Settler with Opinions insists on being the focus of every bit of our attention at all times. </p>
<p>He insists that we not only listen to him but we also give him all our time and energy to reply to every single point he brings forward, address every tired argument, every snide comment, every sloppy stereotype and demeaning insult with servile adoration. </p>
<p>When we fail to appreciate or acknowledge his self-evident brilliance, he hurls insults about our substandard intellectual capabilities and rails about our bubble mentality and inability to engage contrary voices. </p>
<p>It hardly matters that we’ve been responding to such voices for a long, long time, to little evident effect, and that we have busy lives that don’t always include being his audience. But when we point that out, he gets mean.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186646/original/file-20170919-14776-11atsoa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186646/original/file-20170919-14776-11atsoa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186646/original/file-20170919-14776-11atsoa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186646/original/file-20170919-14776-11atsoa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186646/original/file-20170919-14776-11atsoa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186646/original/file-20170919-14776-11atsoa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186646/original/file-20170919-14776-11atsoa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Excerpt from the 1920 testimony of Duncan Campell Scott, the.
deputy superintendent general of Indian affairs, to the Special
Parliamentary Committee of the House of Commons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Critical Thinking Consortium</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We grow tired of the condescending dismissals, the racist epithets, the physical threats, the demeaning insistence that we’re subhuman and beneath contempt, the hypocritical evasions, the gleeful celebrations of our pain and loss, the relentless goading, the refusals to consider that we, too, have perspectives on our own being. </p>
<p>When we fight back with experience, <a href="http://www.portageandmainpress.com/product/indigenous-writes/">facts</a>, and rightful anger, the Settler with Opinions feigns shock and quickly turns petulant. He’s every bit as comfortable in the position of whinging martyr as righteous crusader. </p>
<h2>Generations of resistance</h2>
<p>He wails about our violation of his free speech, our cruel mob mentality, our animalistic swarming of his supremely rational self. He dismisses us as irresponsible, unhinged, sociopathic: Savages in all but name.</p>
<p>The Settler with Opinions becomes a remarkably sensitive soul when he’s the focus of public criticism. But he regularly turns a blind eye to the tidal wave of vitriol that Indigenous commentators experience on a regular basis — especially Indigenous women and transfolk who are regularly targeted with rape threats from his trollish supporters. It takes a particular level of courage to be an Indigenous person in Canada’s public sphere, especially online. He’s never been subjected to this kind of violence and bile, no matter how angry or frustrated we get. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185744/original/file-20170912-3737-c51qri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185744/original/file-20170912-3737-c51qri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185744/original/file-20170912-3737-c51qri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185744/original/file-20170912-3737-c51qri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185744/original/file-20170912-3737-c51qri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185744/original/file-20170912-3737-c51qri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185744/original/file-20170912-3737-c51qri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Resistance is crucial: About 1,000 Idle No More protesters demonstrate in Windsor, Ont., in 2013 to disrupt traffic to the country’s busiest border crossing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Geoff Robins)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ultimately, it seems that Settlers with Opinions can only see Indigenous peoples through a lens of inherent deficiency. Their driving, desperate need for us and our ancestors to be not only inferior but utterly inhuman doesn’t actually have anything to do with us. It’s entirely about their fragile self regard. But knowing this truth doesn’t make them any more pleasant to endure.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter whether the decree comes from <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/beyak-indian-status-canadian-citizens-1.4284671?cmp=rss">Beyak</a>, <a href="http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/conrad-black-aboriginals-deserve-a-fair-deal-but-enough-with-us-hating-ourselves">Black</a>, M. Wente, Blatchford, <a href="http://nationalpost.com/opinion/barbara-kay-a-lone-academic-dares-to-challenge-accepted-narratives-about-canadas-residential-school-system">Kay</a>, <a href="http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/la-loche-shows-us-its-time-to-help-people-escape/">Gilmore</a>, Widdowson, <a href="http://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-a-rude-dismissal-of-canadas-generosity">Murphy</a>, an anonymous social media troll or that uncle at Thanksgiving dinner, the message is always the same: Shut up and assimilate. </p>
<p>This is an old message and one responsible for incalculable misery. It was forced on our ancestors by churches, soldiers, policy makers, and everyday settler subjects who insisted they knew better and who insisted we should hate ourselves as much as they did. And it continues every day.</p>
<p>For those like me, who were raised outside of our nations and have spent the better part of our lives working to undo internalised family shame and trauma while trying to learn our responsibilities to kin and community from afar, this message is particularly painful. We know its deep generational consequences all too well.</p>
<p>Like all living human cultures, Indigenous peoples are fully part of the 21st century, but that’s not enough for Settlers with Opinions. They’ve decided we can’t be both Indigenous and part of the modern world. They insist we abandon the legacies, lands, languages, relations, commitments and complexities that have always rooted and sustained our nations. They insist we stop trying to rebuild what was destroyed, to give up restoring what’s been lost, to let go of what remains. </p>
<p>They want us to simply shut up and disappear as distinct peoples with values and perspectives of our own. They give us a single option: to accept settler claims to cultural superiority no matter how illegitimate or false the justification may be. </p>
<p>Worst of all, they expect us to turn our backs on generations of principled Indigenous resistance, the immeasurable sacrifices of our ancestors, and the continuing struggles of our nations and extended kin. </p>
<p>And for what? For the dubious benefits of assimilation into an exploitative, murderous mainstream that has for generations so relentlessly insisted on and worked toward our nations’ disappearance. </p>
<p>Then, at last, they would get to be right. Then there would be no one left to challenge the false mythology of settler sanctity or its ongoing devastations. Then there would be no one left to take up the hard work of righting relations with this wounded world.</p>
<p>Thanks all the same, but that’s an offer we must continue to refuse.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83338/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Heath Justice receives funding from SSHRC, as he holds the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Literature and Expressive Culture.</span></em></p>A leading Indigenous academic says too many Canadians take ugly pleasure in being ignorant about Indigenous issues. It’s time for some straight talk about Settlers with Opinions.Daniel Heath Justice, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Literature and Expressive Culture, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.