Whiteness is NOT an ancestor: an embodied dialogue with the internalised coloniser

Truth doesn’t go away. It waits until the time, place, and circumstance is ready for it to be welcomed into visibility, remembering all that is…belongs.

Our shared fate includes simple truths: we are all descendants, each a daughter or son, granddaughter or grandson, each with ancestors. Some are parents, others not, together we are stewards of the web — future ancestors. We are always in relationship, and our human family is nature itself. The western-trained mind teaches otherwise, that we are more separate than what the family and collective soul knows to be true. More than ever, we need each other to remember: there is one human family.

This foundation of shared humanity supports us well in recognizing when blind love excludes those who have carried perpetrator roles. Deeply rooted affiliation with victim or rescuer roles prevents unfreezing of perpetrator/victim trauma bonds. Patterns of exclusion have caught up with us as a collective. It is out of the group conscience that recent political leaders around the world have emerged, reminding us that what gets excluded becomes represented. An example of this movement is the election of Donald Trump, who so palpably and creatively represents colonizer and slaveholder roles on behalf of unhealed American historic trauma.