Descendants Of The Sun Canada

[Karleen Chura]

There are two types of people who live in Canada. Indigenous people, who have historically been here for thousands of years, and everyone else. The same could be said of all of North America, where there is a combined total of approximately five million Indigenous people.

What kind of privileges do settlers benefit from?
I don't want to blame settlers. I don't blame Black settlers, like people who were brought here against their will on slave ships and other technologies of ownership. I do think that we are not doing enough, for various reasons, to not be as complicit in the occupation of Canada and Canadian lands, which are actually Indigenous. As much as we have nowhere else to go, I think we need to do more to form allies with the Indigenous community because we have a mutual enemy, which is colonialism.

VICE: How do you define settlers?
Chelsea Vowel: Originally I used a binary wherein settlers were all non-Indigenous peoples. However, that approach is reductive, and in some cases, actively harmful in my opinion. I specifically refer to settlers as "the non-Indigenous peoples living in Canada who form the European-descended sociopolitical majority," aka white people. Now I recognize that other people can come here and "settle" on these lands, and be folded into the settler-colonial project that is Canada, BUT settler colonials, by definition, occupy lands and impose their legal orders on everyone. Immigrants from Somalia, for example, do not do this. It's not a bright line definition.

What kind of privileges do settlers benefit from?
Settlers benefit from the privilege of having their worldview imposed upon the lands and bodies of everyone living in these lands. Their metaphysics, their epistemological and ontological approaches, inform every aspect of their governance and society. This is true even though there may be differences between groups of settlers; the settler colonial project sets aside ethnic or national differences between settlers (flattening Russians and Germans and English together) via whiteness. As the default then, settlers are the "norm", and everyone else, Indigenous or not, must justify their existence, their worldview, through the lens of that dominating settler worldview. That is to say, all those people who are not part of the full settler experience, in dominance, are constant supplicants up against what is seen as immutable and universal (the settler worldview). Settlers benefit from the privilege of not needing to be named, of not needing to justify their thoughts or presence, and this plays out in countless interactions.

Can descendants of slaves be considered settlers?
The descendants of enslaved Africans absolutely cannot be considered settlers. Enslaved peoples could not consent to being brought here, and their presence cannot confer upon their descendants acceptance into the settler colonial system, especially since, being inherently white supremacist, settler colonialism is virulently anti-Black. Enslaved peoples were violently dehumanized and forced to serve settler colonialism, and all remaining ancestral worldviews and cultural innovations among their descendants exist IN SPITE of ongoing attempts to destroy Blackness. No amount of accumulation of wealth or social status changes this, because those things are acquired only through the settler colonial project.

It's important to also think about other Black presence on these lands. A Black person from Trinidad who now lives in Toronto is not, in my opinion, an "immigrant" per se, but rather an internal migrant. The descendants of enslaved Africans did not originate in the Americas, but the Americas are their home. I do not believe that is something that can be turned back or changed, it simply is, and we need to figure out what that means. However, Black immigration from other contexts also clearly exists, for example in Edmonton we have a large Somali population. While they are folded into "Blackness" under settler colonial white supremacy, and while ongoing colonialism and imperialism is a great factor in their presence here, their position is not the same as the descendants of enslaved Africans. They are also not settlers, but their history, context, and presence here is different.

What are some of the similarities between our histories and yours?
Enslaved Africans were Indigenous peoples, as we are Indigenous peoples. The history between us is complex, obscured, in some cases lost. From Indigenous nations who engaged in chattel slavery, to those nations who did not, kinship ties were formed under many different contexts. Both groups experienced metaphysical rupture that altered our connection to land and spirit realms, and we dealt with those ruptures in a multitude of ways, in some cases with similar or aligned resistance, in other cases, by harming one another. Indigenous peoples here were also included in chattel slavery during periods. Both of us are a post-apocalyptic people. Both of us experience the violence of white supremacy, but how we experience this differs in many ways. Trying to understand these similarities and differences requires understanding what Andrea Smith described as the three pillars of white supremacy: slavery/capitalism, genocide colonialism, and orientalism/war.

What can Black people do to stand in further solidarity between First Nations people and ourselves?
Solidarity between First Nations, Mtis, and Inuit (FNMI) and Black people, is something that must be co-constituted. We all have to better understand those three pillars, and how we harm one another with anti-Blackness, Indigenous erasure/displacement, and so on. We absolutely must find a way to hold two truths at the same time: these lands belong (outside of capitalism, in a kinship sense) to Indigenous peoples AND the Americas are the home of the descendants of enslaved Africans. What that means is again something that must be co-constituted, and requires us building deep relationships with one another to fight white supremacy and settler colonialism. It is important for Black people to show up for Indigenous folks, just as it is important for Indigenous folks to show up for Black folks; and what we each need comes from us. So we follow one another's lead and then we make sure to figure out how the work we do can align in ways that lessens and stops the harm we do to one another.

What are some of the similarities between Nova Scotian Blackness and Indigenousness?
I can't think of any because, even though it shouldn't be like this, it's very divided. There are reservations in Nova Scotia, and the Black people are confined to more specific areas. We don't interact that much. Not in this generation at least.

Can descendants of slaves be considered settlers? Whether they were born here, or they're like my parents who were born in Jamaica then came here?
No, I can't even say that because Nova Scotians have Jamaican ancestry. So you guys were already here. Your ancestors were already here.

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"Sivulirijat aksururnaqtukkuurnikugijangat aktuiniqaqsimaninga kinguvaanginnut" translates as "the trauma experienced by generations past having an effect in their descendants." The legacy of the history of colonialism is starting to take narrative shape as Inuit give voice to the past and its manifestations in the present through public commissions such as the federal Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Inuit-led Qikiqtani Truth Commission. However, an examination of other discursive contexts reveals a collective narrative of the colonial past that is at times silent, incomplete or seemingly inconsistent. Reading the political narrative through the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, and the proceedings of the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut since its formation on April 1, 1999, exposes an almost complete silence about this history. Oral histories, an important form for the preservation and transmission of traditional cultural knowledge, do narrate aspects of this experience of contact, but in accounts that can appear highly individual, fragmented, even contradictory. In contrast, one domain that does seem to register and engage with the impacts of this history of colonialism is Inuit art, specifically visual art and film. In some cases these artistic narratives pre-date the historical trauma narratives of the commissions, which began with the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) in the mid-1990s. This paper examines these narrative alternatives for recounting historic trauma in Nunavut, while also considering the implications of understanding historical trauma as narrative.

The film stands out with a more robust and confident narrative compared to many recent live-action musicals aimed at younger audiences that Disney has presented. It is adorned with many vibrant visuals and features various songs from Broadway to rap. Descendants, a 2015 Disney Channel Original Movie, is directed by Kenny Ortega and stars Sofia Carson, Dove Cameron, Cameron Boyce, and Booboo Stewart.

The film chronicles the adventures of the mischievous teenage children of renowned Disney villains. These youngsters are offered an opportunity for redemption when they are released from the restricted Isle of the Lost and permitted to attend a prep school alongside the descendants of the Fairy Godmother (Melanie Paxson), Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Mulan. The narrative tracks the teens as they navigate their new life beyond their island confinement while clandestinely planning to snatch the Fairy Godmother's wand and liberate their parents from imprisonment.

The Disney Descendants franchise is a beloved film series that has delighted viewers worldwide. Those who are fans of the movies may be interested in learning about the various locations used to produce the 2015 movie, Descendants. Most scenes were shot in Canada, particularly in two prominent locales: Victoria and Vancouver.

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