March 2024: Settler Colonialism - Why Should I Care?

Every March, we like to recognize the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on March 21st and Cesar Chavez Day on March 31st. Inspired by these two days, we thought it would be meaningful to focus the second half of this month’s gatherings (and maybe the next few months) on broader reflections of how white supremacy has had, and continues to have, a global impact.

There are so many places we can go with this reflection, so we thought we’d begin with a reflection on settler colonialism and consider what it means to be a citizen of a country that was founded on settler colonialism and continues to be inhabited by settlers.

We assume this is a new conversation for many of us, so we found this video and this video featuring Professor Naoko Shibusawa of Brown University defining settler colonialism and the ways in which people justify settler colonialism. NOTE: Professor Shibusawa talks about settler colonialism through a U.S. lens, but in the spirit of International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, feel free to open up your reflection to other examples of settler colonialism outside of the U.S., especially those of other European countries.

Here are some questions to help focus our thoughts:

What stood out to you in the two video clips?
How does the concept of settler colonialism support or contradict what you were taught about the era of “exploration?”
What feelings come up, if any, when you consider your relationship with the role of “settler?”
What stories have you told yourself, if at all, to rationalize the history of settler colonialism and the taking of Indigenous land that you most likely live on today?
What are ways that you could challenge or are challenging the legacy of settler colonialism in your community?

As we were putting this month’s newsletter together, we couldn’t help but feel grateful to have the CWC community to grapple with these difficult questions together. This topic has deep implications of complicity that can be hard to face. What better place to face that implication than in a gathering space committed to centering loving growth and healing.

If the topic doesn’t inspire you, come to a gathering anyway and talk about that. We love hearing different perspectives; in fact, that’s when the greatest learning (and unlearning) seem to happen.

We look forward to seeing you soon!

“What does it mean to be a citizen of a country that stands upon the wrong side of every liberation struggle on this earth?” - Audre Lorde, Black feminist, poet and civil rights advocate