Settler social location

On Apr 3rd 2015, James Janzen said:

One Winnipeg. It's a driving idea, an ideal, a hopeful place. It is not, however, where we are. While building strong intergroup relationships is of utmost importance there are barriers the average non-Indigenous Winnipegger faces. These barriers are mental, spiritual, personal. They have to do with privilege, narrative, identity, and empathy (and the lack thereof).

The Canadian conflict context, the colonial mindset and Settler narrative, is so pervasive, so subversive, that the average person does not even realize it is there. One must first recognize that one is, indeed, in conflict before one can begin to constructively transform it. One must first build peace within oneself before they can sustainably build peace with others.

The Settler faces an identity crisis - the decolonization of the mind - and it is lifelong, full of peaks and valleys.

Let's get at it.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
- Rumi