Decompiling Oppression #24
Sam McVeety
I would like to acknowledge that we are on the traditional land of the first people of Seattle, the Duwamish People past and present and honor with gratitude the land itself and the Duwamish Tribe (source).
As we reach the end of Native American Heritage Month and celebrate Thanksgiving, I'd like to center indigenous voices this week. As we look at giving thanks for the communities around us that have gotten us to today (still in the midst of pandemics of COVID and racism) I'd like to focus on Edgar Villanueva's concept of "decolonizing wealth". Coming from a career in the world of professional philanthropy (think: managing grants for large foundations), he asks us to think much more deeply about the nature and origins of the wealth around us, and how we can thoughtfully be in community with those who are most in need, acknowledging that those communities are often harmed by many of the same systems that have helped others accumulate wealth (for example, he asks us to consider what it means to be working at a foundation paid for by tobacco money, donating to public health).
This philosophy comes from a deep place of empathy, and I want to model that here as well. One of the things that I find so compelling about the ideas that he presents is that he presents them with both love and accountability, and expects truth and humility from both himself and his reader ("Humility is characterized by an accurate sense of self – assessing not just our weaknesses but also our privileges and strengths, being honest with ourselves about both.") In connecting this empathy, love, and accountability, he quotes Dr. King:
Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.
When talking about the colonial origins of many modern nations, Villanueva requires that we all (both descendants of colonizers and descendants of the colonized alike) be honest about the nature of colonization ("Make no mistake, colonization is an atrocity, a close relative of genocide"). Critically, this isn't intended as an accusatory statement, but as a factual one. He doesn't seek to distance himself from the reader, but instead seeks a common understanding and a common way forward towards healing the wounds of the past. Uncomfortable as it may be, forgetting is not an option. The reason that this honesty is so important is that there are still oppressive systems today or their aftereffects (whether those are redlining, educational opportunities, generational wealth, etc.), and we cannot ignore their presence if we are going to go about the challenging work of healing past and present trauma.
Throughout, he acknowledges the complexity of the many situations that he and we find ourselves in. As someone who works in philanthropy, he questions his own motives and position and how he might be perpetuating oppressive systems. At the heart of this ambivalence is his relationship with money, and the many systems it represents. He elects to reframe money as a tool that can be used for good or evil, and specifically as "medicine" in addressing trauma. While that framing might come as a surprise to some readers, after reflecting on it myself, I see it as consistent with the evolutionary, both/and (rather than either/or) thinking that he advocates throughout. Here is this tool; here is the world we live in; how can we combine them in a way that heals, rather than harms?
He asks us to join him on this journey, outlining seven principles (excerpted here and reframed for Thanksgiving here) towards addressing and healing this historical trauma. While presented as a series of steps, there isn't necessarily a linear or one-directional path through them, and they are meant to grapple with the deep complexities of historical trauma, wealth redistribution, and more. Some of the principles echo themes that we've explored here in the past, including looking to the bottom, the importance of representation, and community control.
Personally, one of the most challenging steps for me has been the idea of apologizing (and to be clear, this is something he suggests for everyone including himself, not as a point of division) for trauma past and present, in a way that feels authentic and rooted in community (and doesn't also pull focus from the very communities that I am trying to serve). I can rationally acknowledge this trauma and the wrongness of it, but placing myself fully in its context means going to a place that is tentative and vulnerable, looking inward and outward with curiosity and humility. I believe that it's important, though -- when contemplating where and how to give away money this year, it might have felt easier for my husband and I to write anonymous checks, to avoid the conversation of where money and wealth come from, but it wouldn't have been true.
Here are this week's invitations:
Personal: What does an apology look like for you: for trauma you have caused or that has benefited you, or trauma that was done to you?
Communal: Think about what a land acknowledgement would look like for your community. What would it take for it to feel authentic and genuine?
Solidarity: Na’ah Illahee Fund is an Indigenous women-led (in as many ways as they want to define themselves) organization dedicated to the ongoing regeneration of Indigenous communities.
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