On decolonization
Beyond truth and reconciliation
Update from February 21, 2025: This article was originally published in September 2021.
Hello friends,
Thursday is the new Wednesday. From now on, I will be releasing The Weekly at 5pm PST on Thursdays (halfway through the week). Its purpose? To pause and take a close look at one of the issues dominating the headlines. In true Sift. Shift. Lift. fashion, we turn to journalism or academic research, artists, and activists to better understand (and respond to) the story behind the headlines.
Thanks, as always, for joining me. If you appreciate The Weekly (or have something to add) please “like” or “comment” below.
Sift.
The federal government of Canada recently declared September 30th the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, a day to honour and remember the lost children and survivors of Indian residential schools.
Truth and reconciliation are necessary goals, but they are not the only ones. I believe we also need to identify and seek out opportunities to decolonize our society, our systems, our language, and our selves.
Want to learn how (or why)?
Watch “Decolonization is for everyone”, a presentation by Nikki Sanchez at TedXSFU.
Shift.
Earlier this week, Prairie Fire Magazine published my review of Best Canadian Poetry 2020 (Biblioasis, 2021) edited by Métis poet Marilyn Dumont. The anthology is:
a radical and wholly revelatory re-imagining of the country’s poetry canon. As Amanda Jernigan, advisory editor of the well-regarded series states in her preface, guest editor Marilyn Dumont’s carefully curated collection “is not English, exactly; certainly not ‘the King’s English.’ It is, rather, ‘something else’—something emphatically not less, not half, not lacking. It is pleasure not doubled but multiplied fifty-fold.” (12)
In it, Dumont shows us how Canada’s poets—settlers, immigrants, Indigenous people and others—are decolonizing language and so much more.
Curious?
Read my review of Best Canadian Poetry 2020.
Lift.
Once again, I’d like to use this forum to raise awareness of the Indian Residential School Survivors Society (IRSSS). Please support them if you can.
Before you go
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Thank you my friends.
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I am so appreciative of this pause in my evening and week as an invaluable time to reflect and to listen to Nikki Sanchez, seven days ahead of Orange Shirt Day. It is such a great echo to carry all the way through to next Thursday. Thank you for this message that landed in my inbox tonight, Shelley.