Canada Day

This is a spoken word piece that I wrote today as many of us celebrate the “birthday" of Canada. I think that it’s important to remember the histories that lead of the formation of the Canadian State. And I think it’s especially important for those of us who are settlers to think about the role(s) that we play in the ongoing process of colonialism. I offer no answers, and I know that I fuck-up more often than not.

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They’re building blockades

In New Brunswick, Ontario, and British Colombia

 

They’re building blockades

Against fracking

Against pipelines

Against the tar sands

That drug

Of industrial capitalism

Keeping us hooked, looking for one more cheap fix

 

They’re building blockades

On the land of the Elsipogtog First Nation, on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory,

Names I can’t even pronounce

Because I’m just another white kid

A settler

A colonizer

 

Growing up I was proudly told that my great grandparents

Were one of the last homesteaders

My Great Grandma Alice, whose name I still carry

Gave birth in a house with a sod floor

And I was taught to relish that history

Never thought to question

Their games

Of cowboys and indians

 

Dressed up as Pocahontas for Halloween

Never once a word about

Cultural appropriation

Genocide

Just a love story

John Smith, a hero

Chief Powhatan, villainized, hisrage, unjustified

And shouldn’t they all just marry white men, anyways

Give up Native Status, get a European (residential) education,

Assimilate

 

And at 23 I still know more about Palestine

Than I do about the Mi’kmaq People
Lived on Cornwallis St for a year

Before I ever heard anything

About the 1749 Scalping Proclamation

 

And this is not over

This is ongoing

This is going on

Right now

 

I guess you could say it runs in my family

 

Giving land acknowledgements

Trying not to invisiblize

Instead, to recognize
A friend said

Why would we do that if we’re not willing to

Cut off our deadlocks, get rid of our mohawks

And the truth is that, I’m not

Because yes, I’ve had both

And yes, they’re gone

But not because I gained some new level of “cultural sensitivity”

Just because

It benefited me

Personally

 

So yes, we are on stolen native land

But, I’m not planning on moving

 

And even if I did, where would I go?
Like gentrification in the North End

Would we just move to another neighborhood

To start the cycle over again?

 

Feeling guilty

Feeling guilty about feeling guilty

Knowing that white guilt doesn’t do a single fucking thing

Not knowing what else to do

Knowing that I probably wouldn’t do anything, anyways

Cause that’s privilege, I guess.

The ability to sit back and do nothing

 

Not wanting to take responsibility

It’s so much easier to just reject

Reject capitalism, reject the state, reject white supremacy,

Reject colonialism

But I know that no matter how much I hide behind

Anti-oppressive language

DIY ethics

And anarchist politics

I am still complicit

And far from absolved

It’s almost worse

Because my “radical analysis” can blind me to the ways I also

Perpetuate

This culture

 

My culture

This is my family, my history, my legacy

This is my government, my economic system, the structures that my ancestors put in place

This is my settler, colonialist, state

 

And so, they’re building blockades

As we come

To steal the land

Poison the water

Kill the Earth

And suck out the final drops of oil

In one last ditch effort

To expand our suicidal empire

 

And all I can say is

Happy Canada Day

 

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An article about the continued struggle against seismic testing by members of the Mi’kmaq First Nation:

“SWN rebuffed in New Brunswick back woods,” by Miles Howe,June 24 2013

http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/4902
 

Information about an upcoming action camp:

“The Unist’ot’en Camp is a resistance community whose purpose is to protect sovereign Wet’suwet’en territory from several proposed pipelines from the Tar Sands Gigaproject and shale gas from Hydraulic Fracturing Projects in the Peace River Region.”

http://unistotencamp.com/

Information about the occupation of Enbridge’s North Westover Pump Station in the Beverly Swamp, on the traditional territory of the Chonnonton people as well as of the Mississagi Anishinabec and the Onondawaga Haudenosaunee:
http://swampline9.tumblr.com/

A response by Swamp Line 9 protestors to the anger of people from the Six Nations of the Grand River over lack of consultation and the use of language:

http://swampline9.tumblr.com/post/54261884881/replicating-colonialism-in-the-struggle

A website with information about indigenous resistance:
“Warrior Publications is published in occupied Coast Salish Territory on the Northwest Coast of ‘british columbia.’  Its purpose is to promote warrior culture, fighting spirit, and resistance movements.”
http://warriorpublications.wordpress.com/

Information about Gov. Edward Cornwallis from the website of Mi’kmaq Elder Dr.Daniel N. Paul:

http://www.danielnpaul.com/BritishScalpProclamation-1749.html