Robert Simms
In this spoken letter, above all I wanted to express gratitude to every person who has been and is participating in Indigenous knowledge-sharing, healing and resurgence in order to combat systemic, Indigenous-specific racism. This was a very challenging project for me. After reading the In Plain Sight report on systemic racism in health care, I struggled to translate my anger and frustration into motivation and optimism. I reflected on how Indigenous ways of knowing would understand and communicate this heartbreaking situation in our health care and social services systems. I thought about connecting to land and the importance of oral history. I found the need to ground myself in something I could grasp, so I started in my own neighbourhood at the site of the Nanaimo Indian Hospital. To make such a huge problem local was helpful in reducing the feeling of being overwhelmed and powerless. I wanted to focus on not only the big picture, and calls to action to the British Columbia government, but also the micro level – what each and every one of us can do to facilitate resurgence and empowerment by using our voices and telling our stories. I also wanted to reflect my understanding of the medicine wheel in my storytelling in an abstract way, by starting in the east with sunrise, the colour yellow, and acknowledging the children who lost their lives due to racism in health care. I closed with a sunset to the west, with wisdom and spirituality.
