Will Brown Lives Ever Matter to White Winnipeg?
We need to chat.
“Who do you mean by we?” I’m writing to a white Winnipeg audience and I’m so glad you asked. Asking that question is so much healthier than centering whiteness by assuming what you’re reading is written for our dominant culture.
OK. “So, who the hell are you?” Also glad you asked. I’m a white middle aged man here whose trying to become an ally. I’m a believer that a supernatural love birthed creation so their love could be expressed, and that this loving heart longs for justice. Not justice as in let’s buy the police another tank, but justice as in the opposite of injustice.
We need to chat about white silence. 🥛🤐
And about white silence over death. 💀
Two years ago I got really upset with Winnipeg, my city, doing SFA to when it comes to MMIWG2S. Processing my strong feelings around this forced me to face a hard truth, that I’d tricked myself into thinking holding governments accountable was an end in itself when it was actually a distraction. A strategic mind game which I used to distance myself from a place of response-ability.
It’s not up to governments, folks. It’s up to us.
When a majority of Winnipegers, by their day to day activities, are showing they care deeply about Indigenous peoples nothing our governments fail to do will be able to prevent things from changing. But when a majority of Winnipegers, by their day to day activities, are showing they don’t give a rip nothing our governments do will be able to change a thing.
And that’s where we're still at, in a don’t give a rip holding pattern of death. Winnipeg, we’ve really shown our ass last weekend. We’ve shown the world our ass in glorious perogy-white splendour.
We show how much Brown lives matter to Winnipeg when Bob McGrath’s passing makes a bigger splash in our social media than the horror and indignity of stolen sisters Brown bodies in our landfills.
We show how much Brown lives matter to Winnipeg when an overwhelming number outraged white folks fail to materialize, shutting down Prairie Green and begin searching on our own.
We show how much Brown lives matter to Winnipeg when we ignore the families of the murdered, forcing one of them to make a trek to Ottawa & beg that their loved ones dignity be honoured.
Not only did we show our ass last weekend, it’s been happening as long as I can remember.
We show how much Brown lives matter to Winnipeg when polling data from our demographic encourages mayoral candidates to throw Indigenous peoples under the bus as a political strategy.
We show how much Brown lives matter to Winnipeg when our taxi drivers subject Indigenous passengers to discrimination, sexual harassment and assault.
We show how much Brown lives matter to Winnipeg when this continues for decades with little consequence, even though taxi drivers are a pillar of our tourist industry.
We show how much Brown lives matter to Winnipeg when we vote in a government with the nerve to stand in our legislature in their orange shirts to vote down Bill 200, the Orange Shirt Day Statutory Act, then burst out in applause afterwards.
We show how much Brown lives matter to Winnipeg when those orange shirts stay in our closets most of the year.
We show how much Brown lives matter to Winnipeg when Indigenous Peoples living here are bearing the brunt of the commodification of the swindled lands of Treaty 1 Territory.
We show how much Brown lives matter to Winnipeg, a city with a climate to which exposure can be fatal, when our collective efforts to build community result in an undeniable overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples among the unhoused.
We show how much Brown lives matter to Winnipeg when our white apathy and white silence does the talking for us.
Our white silence feeds the status quo and the status quo here in Winnipeg is shameful. Let me say that another way. If we care deeply about MMIWG2S but our day to day activities don’t reflect this, our white silence feeds that ‘holding pattern of death’ I referred to earlier.
I chose the words our, not your. I didn’t say ‘your white silence’, I said ‘our white silence’. I didn’t say ‘your day to day activities’, I said ‘our day to day activities’.
I’m including myself because I have plenty of room to grow in this area and would love to have even more folks alongside, helping me move futher & further into a place of response-ability. I enjoy podcasts, books and conversations. I’d be thrilled to exchange recommendations and talk them through.
Books and podcasts are great but the things I’ve learned from people have been much more transformative. Especially when people have called me in so I can learn from my mistakes. Creator’s good road has lead me to some Indigenous communities who’ve welcomed me into their spaces and shared their wisdom so freely.
I’ll share a little bit of that learning here. Every-time I’ve gotten close enough to learn family stories MMIWG2S comes up. Every single time. When you scroll past one of those Bear Clan’s Missing Person notices I’ve shared it’s often because a friend of mine is concerned about a cousin or a buddy.
I know three of those folks who made that trek to Ottawa. Two of them will be getting married soon & I have tickets to their social. I met a fourth today and gave her a lift home from a demonstration.
Sharing that to help you know where I’m coming from. So you know why white silence over Indigenous death makes me sad. It’s not just that our white silence is feeding the status quo, it’s also because these are my friends and when white folks don’t care enough to speak up it hurts.
I’m a little ticked. Thanks for letting me vent. It’s been a hell of a week.
