Ways of Being in the World: An Introduction to Indigenous Philosophies of Turtle Island

 I recently went to Bill Reid Gallery for their new exhibit, Vital Signs. Here is a description of the exhibit from Bill Reid Gallery: 

We are currently living through a very critical time of recurring natural disasters caused by climate change. Indigenous people and communities are some of the most impacted by these disasters. Our traditional territories are being affected by flooding, fires, drought, and in many areas a decline of the species that we rely on for hunting and fishing. Indigenous people have been at the forefront of environmental activism for generations and continue to actively fight for our traditional lands. 

Vital Signs is a group exhibition that features artists who are discussing the impact of climate change through personal experiences and effects on their traditional territories in a variety of mediums. The title, Vital Signs, refers to the measurements of the body’s most basic functions, but is also a reference to how the land is essential to our being and is a living entity itself. 

The artists featured in this exhibition are Jade Baxter (Nlaka’pamux), Jasper Berehulke (Syilx/Okanagan), Kali Spitzer (Kaska Dena), Kwiis Hamilton (Hupačasath/Leq’a:mel), Rebecca Baker-Grenier (Kwakiuł, Dzawada’enuwx, and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh), and Sage Nowak (Tahltan). 

Co-curated by Aliya Boubard and Amelia Rea

The entire exhibit is great, and worth checking out. And Bill Reid Gallery is a fabulous space. The work that spoke to me the most was Jade Baxter's film Why Would I Leave? The film featured audio of Jade reading a poem with footage of the devastating 2021 Lytton fire. You can read more about the exhibit in this IndigiNews article.

And here is the fancy dinner that I had after work and on my way to the art gallery. 

I recently read a book on Indigenous philosophies - Ways of Being in the World. It is an edited collection, created to support post-secondary faculty teaching about Indigenous philosophy. The editor, Andrea Sullivan-Clarke, is Muskogee and has three degrees in philosophy. The book contains an introductory essay. Then it is grouped into five parts and each part has its own brief introduction. And then each selection within the parts has its own blurb. There are seventeen selections, and the authors range from a Mexican American person writing about Aztecs to an Inuit person writing about contemporary life. Each selection also has a few discussion questions and also a QR code which readers can scan with their phones in order to go to webpages which contain videos as well as links to art and poetry. I like the way that it is a book, yes, but it is also a virtual space, allowing for a more dynamic reader experience. 

The essays feature a number of voices which were already familiar to me, such as Vine Deloria Jr. Winona LaDuke, Kyle Powys White, and Jo-Ann Archibald. And it also includes works by people that I am less familiar with, such as Peter Irniq and and Viola Cordova. One of the essays which I liked the most was by Joseph Len Miller, on living in harmony. I think that it would be great to use it as a discussion piece for Indigenous scholars in order to discuss how to navigate that ongoing tension between trying to fit into the academy (harmony with out world) and trying to transform the academy (harmony with one's own inner world). I found the book extremely accessible. I planned to sit down and read one essay at a time with my morning coffee. But I often found myself reading two or three essays per sitting. 

If I were to use it as a teaching resource, I would probably develop my own questions, because I have certain ways that I like to approach things. But the questions included in the book are good for those reading the book on their own, without an instructor. 

The word "philosophy" is laden with many colonial connotations, due to a history of what Marie Battiste calls cognitive imperialism. It would be easy for philosophy to eat up Indigenous philosophies, incorporating them into mainstream scholarly practices in such a way that they become consumed and lose the qualities that make them Indigenous. It is also the opposite of holistic and relational to assume that anyone can know anything about Indigenous philosophies without actually engaging with Indigenous people individually and collectively on their own terms (AKA not within the walls of a mainstream state institution). Can Indigenous philosophy be truly known without interacting with Indigenous people? Maybe not entirely, but I guess one could be introduced to ideas from Indigenous philosophies through a book, and the book title definitely says it is an introduction. Then comes the question, "how can one engage with Indigenous philosophical works without recreating colonial patterns of harm?" The editor of this book provides guidelines in the introduction for working respectfully with Indigenous philosophies. She uses the Muskogee saying "Cokv Kerretv Heret Os" (learning is good) as inspiration to create a list of tips for teaching Indigenous philosophy. I won't share them all, but here are my favourites:

• Focus on the philosophical thought instead of attempting to explain or practice the culture.
• Indigenous philosophical thought is not to be used as a tool to understand or support Western philosophy.
• While we refer to Indigenous philosophy in the general sense, the thought of each community remains distinct. Do not overgeneralize. 
• Acknowledge your sources and seek permission to use Indigenous materials and stories.

It stops here: Standing up for our lands, our waters, and our people by Rueben George with Michael Simpson

 Rueben George is Chief Dan George's grandson. In this book, which is basically a memoir, he talks about spending time with his grandfather, and how his grandfather nurtured hin when he was a child. 

He mentions the Chief Dan George prayer song (AKA Coast Salish anthem) so I listened to it while writing this post. Beautiful song. 

Overall, I thought this was a great book. Rueben is so present in Vancouver. I think last time that I saw him speak was at Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week. I always love to listen to him. He is wise and shares great teachings, but he is also funny and makes people feel good even when discussing difficult things. One might even say that being funny and making people feel good is a teaching that he embodies and models. 

Because I work in education, I'm always interested to see what people say about education. In his memoir, he talks about how his mom went to residential school. 

"Even after the children left residential schools, they were still shamed and looked down upon by wider society. My grandma tried moving my mom out of residential school and into Burrard Inlet Elementary in Deep Cove. The parents at that school held a community meeting because they were outraged at the idea of a First Nations kid going to school with their children. The parents and communities members all said that there was no way this could happen, and they demanded that the Native kids stay in the residential schools where all these horrible things were happening. My grandma went down to that meeting and heard the other parents say terrible things about how her kids were dirty and ugly. She stook up and said, "My kids are clean and healthy." Only one other parent stood up to defend our family. She said that she knew our family and that my mom and her siblings were clean, good kids, Eventually my mom did get out of residential school and went to high school, but there she was picked on almost daily. The Government of Canada was treating us as if we were lesser than people of European descent, and some of the people of Canada treated us that way too." (George & Simpson, 2024, p. 22). 

In a subsequent section, Rueben talks about his own experience and how his family had difficulty registering him in elementary school. "My mom took me to register at Plymouth Elementary School in North Vancouver, but the principal there said that he didn't want me at his school because there were no other Native kids there. He told my mom to send me to Sherwood Park Elementary because that's where the Natives went. The principal said that straight out and my mom was shocked." (George & Simpson, 2024, p. 29). 

Land acknowledgements are common place in Vancouver. I think that it's important to spend time learning about the perspectives of the people who are Indigenous to the place on which you are doing an acknowledgement. And so I'm glad that Rueben took the time to write this book and share his perspective with the world in an easy to access way. 

Indigenous thought / anarchy venn diagram

In a previous post, I mentioned that I am reading chaotically right now. This means that I am just reading whatever on whatever subject, for no reason. After five years of carefully reading everything through the lens of "does this help my dissertation? If so, how?" - it is incredibly liberating to read and react without having to connect everything to a larger project. I actually feel like I could theoretically go back and read everything I have read over the last five years and see it with fresh eyes, because I am no longer reading with an end in mind. 

Generally speaking, I do try to ready broadly. I try not to limit myself to reading books written by people that I know I will agree with. I do this so that I can broaden my horizons and avoid the dreaded "living in an echo chamber." So, I was keen to read this book on anarchy even though I am most defenitely not an anarchist. 

Once I started reading it, though, I remembered why I don't read a lot of anarchist books. I am not a Marxist, but I do find Marx useful and I am a fan of looking at things through a historical materialism lens, systemic change, and critical theory. I would also place myself in the political left, and I consider myself to be progressive. the book openly frowned on these things in a few places (see pages 14-17 as an example). In spite of the fact that the book took issue with some core elements of my identity, I found it an interesting read. The format was really accessible, with FAQs at the end of each chapter, addressing questions such as: "Do I have to be polyamorous?" The answer is no because a good anarchist would not prescribe anything. Or, "Is it better to have a job I don't care about or a job I do care about?" The answer is that having a job that you don't care about makes it easier to to not identify with your work, but if you must have a good job, just don't identify with your work. 

There are a lot of things I disagree with in this book, like the discussion around looting and stealing. Or the claim that there is no such thing as ethical work. But while I read, I tried to look for things that I did agree with, in order to try to understand the author's perspective and anarchy. I think that one of the things that I did appreciate about the book was the idea that we don't have to just passively accept all social structures in society. There is a lot of room to negotiate, and to try to find ways that celebrate our ability to exercise freedom and choice, and to try to imagine and re-imagine how we might interact with each other. Freedon already exists in many areas of our life, we just have to act upon it by making and re-making our social world every day. 

Meme - horse and lawnchair

Something that I did find disorienting while reading was the claims that anarchy is compatible with Indigenous though and decolonial theory. I found that the way that the author included Indigenous thought was similar to the way that clastic rocks bring in various rocks, they are included but they are not actually incorporated. A bringing together of differences substances, but not actually true integration or transformation. The author references Leanne Betasamosake Simpson a few times, but I found it difficult to see where the connections lie. 

Perhaps, if I were in conversation with the author, they would tell me that my disorientation is because I am reading Simpson, wrong. Perhaps they would tell me that I am so deeply immersed in so many institutions that my ability to see the anarchist threads in Indigenous works may be clouded. And maybe that is a little true, as we all read texts through our own interests any experiences. Nonetheless, in an attempt to orient myself, I made a little Venn diagram with pen and paper in order to try to keep track of my own thoughts. And then I tried to reproduce it in Canva, in order to further my ongoing goal to become more proficient at knowledge mobilitation. But I am not yet a Canva expert, so I had to make two venns - the compare venn and the contrast venn. 

If someone wanted to criticize my venns, it would be easy. First, the stuff in the Indigneous column was done from memory based on books by Indigenous people published in North America, as well as my lived experience as an Indigneous person. One might say that I am making broad generalizations, and that is true, this is a quick and dirty diagram. Another criticism is that Indigenous people are not a monolith, and so it's impossible to capture Indigenous thought in a venn diagram. That's true. This chart glosses over diversity within Indigenous thought, and merely captures themes that come up often and/or stand out to me in books that I have read. So, this chart is by no means an authoritative chart. It's just a form of self-expression in response to a book that I read, and it was fun to make this chart. 

As you can see, while there are a number of similarities, the ares of mutual incompatibility are extremely significant. One of the biggest differences for me is identity. It is very meaningful to me to belong to the Tsilhqot'in Nation. I enjoy learning about our history and learning about/ participating in the ways that we are continuing to exist as a collective now and into the future. I think Branson's claim that identity is just a marker of oppression is extremely incompatible with my experience of Tsilhqot'in identity. Some might even say it is a deficiency take on my Indigneous identity. So, I am not convinced by Branson's book that Indigneous thought can be easily incorporated into anarchy. 

I am definitely not going to become an anarchist after reading the book. I remain deeply committed to family, supporting Indigenous traditions, participation in political life, progressive politics, and also participation in various institutions/organizations that I believe in. I did not find many of the proposed activities in the book very appealing. However, after I read the book, I was discussing this with a family member, and they said that anarchy is not easily theorized because people who are actually doing anarchy are not theorizing it, they are just doing it, and that's what anarchy is. That comment shifted my perspective a little, and maybe having read the book, I will begin to notice little acts of anarchy in the world around me, and gain a better understanding of it by noticing what it looks like in practice. 

In other news, Reservation Dogs is on CBC Gem and I am watching it now. It is so good. One of my favourite scenes so far is when a Dallas Goldtooth's character tries to convince Gary Farmer's character that Crazy Horse had a man moon. Sooooo funny. 

Reservation Dogs is definitely my new favourite beading show. 

Indigenous Resurgence in an age of Reconciliation

I recently visited the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec. One of this pieces was this work by Michael Patten. The caption hanging beside it says "The bloody-looking end of this baseball bat highlights its potential for being used for violent acts. By covering the bat with seed beads, Patten affirms a strong identity associated with a traditional Indigenous practice: beading. Although he covers the object as if to camouflage it, at the same time he reveals part of Canada's history: the blood stain is not some unshaped blob but a map of the country." I think Quebec City is a good place for this work to hang because the city definitely celebrates violence through its use of cannons as decorative objects. I noticed that a lot of the plaques and other public educational displays talk about early settlement and the use of military might within the context of competing colonial powers. However, I think its always important to keep in mind that even though these technologies of violence were not places there specifically for use against Indigenous people (according to the various displays), surely their mere existence surely impacted relationships with Indigenous people at the time. 

I recently read this book, Indigenous Resurgence in an Era of Reconciliation. 

Overall, I found it a great read. There were a few chapters in particular where I paused and thought to myself "I love the way that this chapter has been intentionally structured." A lot of analytical thinkers here. It is an edited collection of essays. The book was the product of a symposium at University of Victoria in 2017, which I am presuming that some or all of the authors attended. There are some books where they are outward looking, as in, they are speaking directly to a non-Indigenous audience or in a way to educate people who may be unfamiliar with Indigenous issues. What I loved about this book is that it felt like Indigenous people talking to other Indigenous people with the assumption that everyone in the conversation is well versed in the basics, and thus capable of engaging in the nuances of various ongoing debates. In my mind, the book stands out as special and unique in that respect. 

I particularly enjoyed Dian Million's essay,  "Spirit as matter: Resurgence as rising and (re)creation." Effect of urbanization, industrialization, and criminalization of Indigenous lifeways on Indigenous people, with a focus on the Pacific Northwest, and, more specifically, the damage done to the Columbia River. Here are some notes on that chapter:

• "The Colombia River's loss cannot be measured. Their loss was a spiritual blow to the lives of Native peoples in the Pacific Northwest and to all of us who contemplated the silencing of these places." (Million, 2023, p. 46). 
• "I claim that anywhere we are is already an Indigenous place first. An Indigenous ethos rises when we take responsibility for where we are, in the power and depth of our relations and responsibility to the Indigenous people of the places we are - to know and honour their ancient relations in that place. We have a responsibility to know the languages of these places and recognize them in the land, in their names for food and kinship. We need to honour and uphold these relations first, and to know that our Indigenous spirit reconnects any lands we are on, even - and especially when - these lands appear to be encased in concrete." (Million, 2023, p. 49). 
• "I met Jeannette Armstrong when we were much younger, in Portland, and I was still in what I felt was a life lived in strife, but I became impressed by her spirit and movement. As a Sylix person, Jeannette believes strongly in our ability to connect to spirit, the life forces that are always part of us, and part of all our places. She states, 'Indigeneity is a viable tool toward transformation of the people-to-be into being part of the social order as tmixw and to be a life-force place rather than being part of the social order of depletion and destruction.'" (Million, 2023, p. 51). 

I also enjoyed Gina Starblanket's chapter on treaties and resurgence. I like the idea of beginning with aspirations and thinking about what we might dream about if we could proceed on our own terms. "An oppositional treaty politic may distract from the need to build an alternative treaty politic instead, as oppositional approaches can run the risk of limiting movement and self-transformation and can contain our ability to engage in alternative theorizations that might break free from, instead of just being differently configured by, colonial relations. When we Indigenous peoples constitute ourselves through oppositional politics rather than what we aspire to be, we inadvertently allow our own political projects to be shaped by external sources rather than our own philosophical traditions." (Starblanket, 2023, p. 90). 

I also liked Darcy Lindberg's chapter, Nehiyaw hunting pedagogies and revitalizing Indigenous laws. The chapter beings by introducing nehiyaw hunting practices as illustrative of law, points out comparative deficiencies in Albertan law (including Canadian law), and then goes on to discuss how traditional Indigenous laws can inform court and law schools. As a teacher, the third item was of most interest to me because I'm always interested in conversations around pedagogical strategies. Lindberg notes "the use of origin or creation stories by many Indigenous societies to set out constitutional or legal principles." (2023, p. 116) and then begins a discussion on their interpretation. "The ability to access legal resources from Indigenous social practices remains a challenge in the academic study of Indigenous law. Hadley Friedland identifies three general categories of legal resources according to their accessibility and availability: '(1) resources that require deep knowledge and full cultural immersion; (2) resources that require some community connection; and (3) resources that are publicly available.' Resources that require deep knowledge and full cultural immersion include laws embedded withing a 'language, dreams, dances, art, beadwork, pots, petroglyphs, scrolls, songs, natural landscapes, ceremonies, feasts, formal customs and protocols.' Resources that require some community connection include laws embedded in 'stories, communally owned oral traditions, information from knowledgeable community and family members, as well as personal knowledge and memories.' Resources that are publicly available include 'published resources' such as 'academic work by outsiders... published court cases, [and] trial transcripts.' Thus, 'the most ideal resources' - those intertwined with ceremony, songs, and language - 'are likely the least available at this time, while the least ideal resources,' such as stories and published resources, 'are the most available.'" (Lindberg, 2023, 116-117). 

The article that she is summarizing in this section is freely available online. It looks like a very interesting resource on both a pedagogical and epistemological level.

She goes on to talk about pedagogy in the law school at University of Victoria. "The initial trend within law schools is to rely upon a few methodologies (all three that overlap each other) to teach Indigenous legal principles. An initial avenue has been the modified case brief method that has been developed and utilized by the Indigenous Laws Research Unit at the University of Victoria. This methodology relies on the synthesis of case analyses of stories to identify and restate legal principles within Indigenous social orders. Understanding that multiple analyses are needed, researchers immerse themselves within the stories of the community. This strategy aims to have researchers discover trends within the normative practice of the community, leading them to a thicker frame of legal analysis. this methodology is favored because it requires mostly publicly accessed knowledges (published stories) and is tailor-made for the pedagogical environment of the law school. The largest drawback from the adapted case-brief method is that it decontextualizes legal principles from the lifeworlds they relate to and requires a light relationality with Indigenous communities without a natural onus for researchers to engage with a community or seek feedback on their conclusions. It requires institutions to apply internal accountability mechanisms that require community feedback on the results of their synthesis." (Lindberg, 2023, p. 117).

There was also a chapter by Corey Snelgrove and Matthew Wildcat on education governance/development, "Political action in the time of reconciliation." Out of all of the chapters, I think that this one did the best job of discussing reconciliation, and honouring resurgence while also doing away with what Asch, Borrows, and Tully refer to as "resurgence contra reconciliation." The authors begin by stating: "our interest is in two opposing perspectives on reconciliation - considered as ideal types- expressed by those who seek to further Indigenous self-determination. On the one hand is a perspective that involves an embrace of reconciliation, where the idea of reconciliation is a vehicle for positive change in the Indigenous-non-Indigenous and/or Indigenous-state relationship. While the degree of embrace fluctuates within this perspective, one predominant form takes the argument of contrasting definitions or conceptions of reconciliation. On the other hand is a constellation of critiques that normatively reject reconciliation as a political movement and language. The reductionist version of this critique is captured by the sentiment 'Reconciliation equals assimilation.' Here reconciliation is a political sleight of hand where the Canadian state uses a benevolent front to recognize Indigenous rights, title, and political authorities while quietly carrying out its intended goal of extinguishing Indigenous peoples as legal and political entities through incorporation under provincial and federal legislation. In the following, we offer a different approach that sees reconciliation as a unique moment of colonial reconfiguration." (Snelgrove & Wildcat, 2023, p.157-158). 

Rather than framing reconciliation as something which the state is trying to do to Indigenous people, they state that "reconciliation has not emerged through Canadian self-reflexivity, introspection, socio-historical learning, or progressive enlightenment but by generations of Indigenous peoples' sustained legal, political, and economic action that has forced a reckoning within Canadian society and responses by the state - motivated in part by Canada's self-image as a land of justice." (Snelgrove & Wildcat, 2023, p. 158). 

With respect to resurgence, they use an example of the Maskwacis Education Schools Commission as an example of resurgence. "Coulthard calls for a turning away from seeking state recognition to find an emancipatory praxis grounded in one's own traditions, upholding one's own self-worth as the source of liberation... Here I would like to argue that the history of building education systems in Maskwacis was the result of an internal focus on building the schools rather than an externally focused politics of looking towards the state as a source of change. In other words it is possible to turn away in Indigenous institutional contexts." (Snelgrove & Wildcat, 2023, p. 166). 

I thought it was interesting that they cited (167, 169, 170) Marshall Gantz's book Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Organization, and Strategy in the California Farm Worker Movement . It's been in my audiobook library for awhile now and I'm almost finished. Certainly an inspiring book about unions. Listening to the audiobook also inspired me to see if Marshall Gantz has podcasts, and yes, he does. I listened to the episode in which his guest was a leader of a large digital racial justice organization, Arisha Hatch. Highly recommend. 

Goeman, M. (2023). Beyond the grammar of settler apologies.  In H.K. Stark, A. Craft & H.K. Aikau (Eds.),  Indigenous Resurgence in an age of reconciliation (pp.23-41). Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press. 

Hunt, S.K. & Simpson, L.B. (2023). Thinking through resurgence together: A conversation between Sarah Hunt/Tlalilila and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.   In H.K. Stark, A. Craft & H.K. Aikau (Eds.),  Indigenous Resurgence in an age of reconciliation (pp.129-141). Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press. 

Lindberg, D. (2023). Nehiyaw hunting pedagogies and revitalizing Indigenous laws.  In H.K. Stark, A. Craft & H.K. Aikau (Eds.),  Indigenous Resurgence in an age of reconciliation (pp.112-126). Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press. 

Million, D. (2023). Spirit as matter: Resurgence as rising and (re)creation.  In H.K. Stark, A. Craft & H.K. Aikau (Eds.),  Indigenous Resurgence in an age of reconciliation (pp.43-52). Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press. 

Snelgrove, C. & Wildcat, M. (2023). Political action in the time of reconciliation. In H.K. Stark, A. Craft & H.K. Aikau (Eds.),  Indigenous Resurgence in an age of reconciliation (pp.157-175). Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press. 

Stark, H. K. (2023). Generating a critical resurgence together. In H.K. Stark, A. Craft & H.K. Aikau (Eds.),  Indigenous Resurgence in an age of reconciliation (pp.3-20). Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press. 

Equity, Diversity, and Canadian Labour

I recently went to the Indigenous Graduate Student Symposium at UBC Okanagan. I had a great experience there. I particularly appreciated how the conference highlighted the voices of scholars who are Indigenous to the place where the conference was taking place. I have so much appreciation for the contribution of Syilx scholars to academia. 

I also went to Quebec City for a little bit. Among other things, I visited Musée huron-wendat. Highly recommend. 

My UPass stopped working this week. Yet another small reminder that I am transitioning out of a very intense period of my life, and transitioning back into my normal life, whatever that means. 

Now that my PhD is over, I am just reading whatever I want with no real direction. It's total chaos. I have several books on the go right now including Rueben George's book and a book on resurgence and reconciliation. I also read a book on anarchy which tries to say that certain Indigenous scholars are anarchists... and I have a little Venn diagram in my head which I might try to put on "paper" at some point. I'm also reading the Ontario Human Rights Commission's Dreams Delayed: Addressing Systemic Anti-Black Racism and Discrimination in Ontario’s Public Education System, although, it is taking a long time because it's online and I have a hard time reading online. I prefer books. I've skimmed most of it and I think that it's relevance extends beyond Ontario. 

Anyhow, today's book, Equity, Diversity, and Canadian Labour, is an older book. It was published in 2007 by University of Toronto Press. It is a collection of essays with an introduction by the editors followed by eight chapters written by a number of scholars and an afterword. 

There are not a lot of books out there which focus on equity and diversity specifically in the Canadian labour movement. I think probably in part because the people who are most committed to this topic are union members doing the work of equity and diversity within their union and through their union. And also because compared to say, Socrates, this topic is relatively new in the academy. 

I found this book interesting on a number of levels. It definitely highlights the complex dynamics between legislation, society, and unions. I found the discussion on federal pay equity legislation interesting (Haiven, 2007, p.79).  I liked the way that the book looked at collective bargaining gains, and also highlighted that not all gains are in the collective agreement (Hunt, 2007, p.22), as in some cases unions are directly involved in shaping legislation to promote workers' rights, such as when unions in Ontario helped with the drafting of their employment equity legislation (Das Gupta, 2007, p.192). 

The chapter that I really focused on was the chapter on racism. The chapter starts by looking at the ways that there was significant racism in the union movement in early Canadian history, specifically from the 1880s-1920s (Das Gupta, 2007, p. 183-185). In spite of this, Asian and Black workers organized their own unions (Das Gupta, 2007, p.184). During this period, some radical leftists unions rejected racism and exclusion and supported diverse workers who wanted to organize, and in these radical left unions, white workers acted in solidarity with non-white workers (Das Gupta, 2007, p. 185). Then the focus of the chapter shifts to the 1930s. According to the author "racism in the labour movement began to be less overt in the 1920s" and in the 1930s unions started to organize more broadly and the labour movement generally became more progressive. However, some groups, such as Jewish women in the clothing industry, continued to be excluded. The author describes the 1950s and 1960s a the human rights decades, in which "the labour movement can be characterized as non-racist." (Das Gupta, 2007, p. 187). The authors note that workers inside of the labour movement were activists within the labour movement, and as an example, points out the Jewish Labour Committee who were active inside of the Canadian Labour Congress, and that "a new awareness of human rights arose because of the racism, anti-Semitism, and genocide of Hitler's regime, as well as the suspension of civil rights within Canada, particularly in the case of Japanese Canadians who were interned in labour camps as 'enemy aliens.'" (Das Gupta, 2007, p. 187). The author describes the 1970s as "The Feminism Challenge" in which feminism was challenged to address the needs of women of colour and immigrant women (Das Gupta, 2007, p. 188). The author doesn't use the term intersectional, but people familiar with the term would likely understand the author's approach as consistent with an intersectional analysis. The author notes that there were a variety of ways that the labour movement responded to this challenge, including the development of "Combating Racism in the Workplace: A Course for Workers" which was regularly offered through the Humber College Labour Studies Centre (Das Gupta, 2007, p. 189). 

Sidebar - I looked up the Humber College Labour Studies Centre. If it's still a thing, its online presence is buried. I found this poster on their archive page: 

According to the poster, there was a three credit university course that students could take, which was taught by trade unionists at various union halls. Is that a thing that still exists? If so, sign me up. I also noticed that one of their course outlines is at library archives Canada, but sadly not available electronically. The chapter also mentioned and organization called Cross Cultural Communication Centre as integral to worker education. Similarly, it's difficult to find information on them now, but small pieces of their work endure, such as publications available through this archive site (login required, account is free). Having completed that side quest, let's return to the text. 

The author describes 1981 to today (today being 2007) as "Towards Anti-racism" (Das Gupta, 2007, p. 190). And within this section the author touches on specific work occurring during this period of time, including the participation of unions in the drafting of Ontario's Employment Equity Act (Das Gupta, 2007, p. 192). 

Having done a significant review of Canadian history, the author then goes on to identify work that still needs to be done, and various themes including self-organizing (p. 194), policy development and education of members (p. 196), representation in leadership (p. 198), barriers to leadership positions (p. 201), tokenism and lack of support (p. 202), harassment of women of colour (p. 203), employment equity (p. 203), and issues particular to organizing Aboriginal workers (p. 205). Overall, I found the chapter an interesting overview. I might see if I can find more work by Tania Das Gupta. 

As a whole, I think it would be interesting to read an updated version of this book. However, if I were to re-imagine a revised version, I think it would be interesting to see something done using participatory action research or to see some pieces written by or in collaboration with workers' collectives.  

Das Gupta, T. (2007). Racism and the Canadian labour movement. G. Hunt & D. Rayside (Eds.), Equity, Diversity, and Canadian Labour (pp.181-207). Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press. 

Haiven, J. (2007). Union response to pay equity: A cautionary tale. In G. Hunt & D. Rayside (Eds.), Equity, Diversity, and Canadian Labour (pp. 75-100). Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press. 

Hunt, G. (2007). Introduction. In G. Hunt & D. Rayside (Eds.), Equity, Diversity, and Canadian Labour (pp.3-24). Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press.