This interview is a part of a research work I’m undertaking to see how non indigenous people understand and engage in decolonizing work. View the blog, and all interviews at http://imasettler.blogspot.ca/.

Topics include:

Impacts of racism on children, growing up in The Pas, seeing racism up north and towards people from the north who move to Winnipeg. Caring about how other white people care about issues of inequality and in justice too. Advantages, and status being a barrier to get to know people, and to have that connection with people from our community. The guilt, and therefore inability to connect with people. Life of Pi, and our society being carnivorous. Learning from/living with social justice parents.

Helen Betty Osborne. The segregated movie theatre.

Finding the places where people can get to know eachother in a safe way. And also in a more political way. to try and for alliances with like minded people.

Home schooling vs public school; working on making public school education better. Conversations with her son. Her son’s identification with being black, despite being Ojibway and Irish.

Taking a role of speaking out and organising. What this looks like and how it has changed over time.

Thinking about how we all have similar values in our history, when you dig back into the past; and this being the primary identity to rely on. Looking for the common links between people. What makes us all human. What makes us all connected. There are always people who speak out, and we need to speak about those people too. The liberation that comes when we see how much we can learn from eachother, and share with one another.