Angry All the Time


Yesterday I was waiting in line at Shoppers Drug Mart and an elderly Caribbean lady, perhaps in her mid-70’s, was at the lone cashier and fumbling a little with her bag and her purse and her wallet – basically taking some time to get through the check-out process. The woman behind her, a white woman maybe a few years older than me, marched up to the cashier, put all her purchases on the counter and basically stood there tapping her foot and frowning and muttering at the elderly lady and the cashier, who was also a young black woman. She essentially pushed the older black woman aside and was acting extremely put-upon that the other woman was taking a bit of time to finish her transaction. The older woman looked at the white woman with this expression of – damn, it was heartbreaking. Resignation and a touch of humiliation and sadness. Defeat even.

The guy behind me was a young black man and I turned to him and muttered, “White privilege in action.” He looked at me with the same kind of look and shrugged. I watched as the elderly lady gathered up her purchases and walked slowly away. She was also leaning on a cane. The white woman brushed past her and wouldn’t even hold the door open for her.

I don’t know why it is but these sorts of incidents infuriate me more and more as I get older. Perhaps it is part of my personal decolonization process, a result of my own awareness and sense of outrage at the way the world is. Perhaps it is because I am starting to get tired of these years of struggle and have no patience for the visible signs all around me of white privilege in action. I’m starting to realize that I have an inner rage inside me that I have to keep clamped down on, only it’s becoming more and more difficult as time goes on to contain it. No wonder I have hypertension and have to take drugs for it. No wonder it’s a prevailing condition among indigenous and African peoples in North America. I bet if there was no colonial system that’s propped up by the twin pillars of race supremacy and capitalism we wouldn’t be having this disease.

I never thought of myself as a particularly angry person but it’s always there, just below the surface, waiting for little incidents like the lineup at Shoppers Drug Mart to fan the flame into an outright inferno. One of the reasons I got into being a union activist was that injustice makes me crazy. I felt that if I could fight in the workplace, where I spend most of my time anyway, and advocate for other people, at least I could feel like I was doing something and not just bending over, waiting to take the corporate boot up my backside.

The other thing that I’ve got to try and get a handle on is the burning rage I feel when I find myself driving through a particularly well-heeled neighbourhood. Where even five years ago I would think, “Wow, look at the beautiful houses”, now all I can think about is “Wow, look at that wealth on our stolen land” while thinking of some of houses on my Rez. Intellectually I know this is a waste of time and gets me nowhere, but the resentment and the envy and just how crazy this fact of reality makes me is starting to feel poisonous. Dangerous, even. This is the kind of thing that eats away at a person like cancer. Or gives them cancer. Or a stroke.

Intellectually I know this thinking is futile and that I should just let it go. This is why I take yoga, why I meditate. To try and work through this shit and let it go. But dealing with things, working through the anger, is hard. It just feels righteous and easier to be angry. It’s not though.

Being angry is exhausting, and in the end, what is the point? Better to work around it. Educate, resist, lead through example. And in the end, I hope it’s easier for my kids. I probably unconsciously chose that path for them by having their father be a white man. They will get the easier ride in life because they will have white privilege working for them instead of against them – until they open their mouths and announce the fact of their Haudenosaunee DNA. That makes me feel a bit better. I’ve successfully infiltrated by the best means possible, launching my own onkwehonwe ambassadors into the world. I hope they don’t have to be angry all the time.

Popular posts from this blog

I Have Been "Kissed By Lightning"

Image
I finally got around to seeing Shelley Niro’s feature film, “Kissed By Lightning.” It was actually on the The Movie Network’s OnDemand service, which pleased me to no end. I was hoping it would be visually stunning and provocative, the way all Shelley’s art is, but this – I have to say, I am feeling teary-eyed and awed after seeing it. The images haunted my dreams all last night and I woke up thinking about the film, which gave me the impetus to write this blog. I think everyone who ever wanted to know about Iroquoian philosophy and our values should watch this film. It was gentle and almost whisperingly quiet, the way Shelley’s art is, but it crept up on me and infused me with its lushly filmed, stunning visuals and the serene poetry of the story. Ostensibly the story of a woman’s journey through grief, it is actually the story of The Peacemaker and Hyenwatha, the two founding figures of our political and spiritual lives. The League of the Haudenosaunee could not exist without this...
Read more

Listen, All of You

Image
Sewatahon'satat. That’s how we always start a story. Tonight I want to tell you my story, my deep dark confession about being Kanien'kehakeh in 2011. About living here in Ateròn:toh, thi s place you call Toronto. This word means, “There are trees standing in the water.” Our elders argue about what the actual translation is, but I like this particular version.  The Haudenosaunee, or as you name us, the Iroquois, had moved south of Lake Ontario to consolidate our considerable power in the wake of the Beaver Wars. When we would return to  Ateròn:toh  in our war canoes, the giant elm trees that grew to the edge of the lake would mirror themselves in the water and you could see their reflection for miles out. This image manifests even now. When you cross the waters of Skanadariio, the Handsome Lake, you can see the towers of the city shimmering in the water. People think this is Mississauga territory. The joke’s kind of on you. The Mississauga were here ...
Read more

In Which I Review Joseph Boyden's The Orenda

Image
When I was about 12, my dad took me and my brother and my little sister on a historical tour of Ontario. We visited Fort George then up to Kingston to Fort Henry and the landing where Molly Brant came after fleeing the Haudenosaunee homelands in New York State. My dad is an amateur historian, and his focus is on Haudenosaunee/European relations in the 17 th  and 18 th  centuries. You’ve not lived until you’ve seen him at one of those funky re-enactment gatherings they have in upstate New York – but I digress. Then we travelled north to Midland, to visit Sainte-Marie-Among-the-Huron. I remember it was a beautiful early summer day, with the sky so blue. I ignored the carefully rebuilt European houses and chapel and instead spent all my time wandering through the reconstructed longhouses. I have long been fascinated with our ancestors and the way they lived their lives before contact. I remember my dad had to coax me away from the longhouses so we could go on the tour. We ...
Read more