Statement of Solidarity with Indigenous Communities

Our work at Race and Disability Canada requires us to recognize the disproportionate levels of disability and disablement that ongoing settler colonialism inflicts on Indigenous peoples, on this land and across the world. Without naming these connections and realities, our work would be incomplete.

This recognition includes accountability to Indigenous peoples living with what, in English, we call disability. In many Indigenous languages and worldviews there is no separate word for disability: a person's mind, body and spirit are understood as part of the whole community. Our work must meet people as they are, not only as our systems name them.

We also recognize our own complicated position. As racialized settlers living and working on the stolen lands of Turtle Island and Inuit Nunangat, our communities carry different histories of migration, displacement, enslavement and racialization. We have experienced oppression through colonial and imperial systems, even as we live within, and reproduce, structures that continue to dispossess Indigenous peoples. These histories do not absolve us of responsibility. They demand that our solidarity confront racism and settler colonialism together.

We believe land acknowledgements are a small part of dismantling these colonial systems and worldviews, and mean nothing without concrete action and accountability. Being in solidarity with the self-determination of Indigenous peoples requires us to follow their direction in setting the terms of these concrete actions and accountabilities.

We will not claim relationships we have not yet earned. We are at the beginning of this work, and we recognize that it moves at the speed of trust. We are committed to putting in the time to engage with Indigenous communities and organizations, to act with humility, to listen before we plan, and to be held accountable. We look forward to sharing our progress as this work continues.

Solidarity is not performative. It is a verb.