Room for a Truthful Story:
Critiquing Toronto 's Reconciliation Methodology as Appropriation
Canada 's existence as a colonized nation in a post-colonial environment requires its citizens and its institutions to have an understanding of decolonization and reconciliation methods. As a majour city within the established nation, Toronto has employed a simple method of acknowledging Canada 's history by naming streets after people that the nation believes to be worth honouring. Yet these surface patches of honour may be understood as continued acts of oppression, colonial power and of the insincere desire for reconciliation. In this paper, I will argue that Toronto 's attempts to honour Tom Longboat by naming a street after him, the space known …show more content…
This is a subtle tactic of colonialism, disguised as an act of reconcilliation, and dependent upon wilful ignorance. In their essay called “A Structure, Not an Event”, Kēhaulani Kauanui argues that “Understanding settler colonialism as a structure exposes the fact that colonialism cannot be relegated to the past, even though the past-present should be historicized. The notion that colonialism is something that ends with the dissolving of the British colonies when the original thirteen became the early US states has its counterpart narrative in the myth that indigenous peoples ended when colonialism ended” (Kauanui, 2016). To perpetuate the image, or as I argue, the myth, of Canada as a peacekeeping nation, they must simplify the reality of Turtle Island 's first inhabitants. This is why even in discussions of reconcilliation, Canada employs words of the settlers; rather than specify each nation in discussion, they create groups which fall under phrases such as “First Nations”, delegating an entire continent of peoples to a single, homogenous group. …show more content…
Focusing on the location of Longboat Ave and the weight that it carries, I believe that there is room for an interpretation of queer affect. Defined by Georgis, “queer affect exceeds language, it haunts and disquiets and refuses endings. Queer effect unsettles meaning, creating the conditions for change within the story” (12). In that way, the placement of Longboat Ave as a place of honour and reconcilliation also inherently speaks to his death; I argue that his death was not the end of his story. For one thing, his family legacy continues; Canada is only interested in Longboat as a runner as as the figure of a garbage man, a “failure”; not as a father, husband, steel worker, proud member of his community and of his nation. Furthermore, there is the question of claiming; Canada proudly claims Longboat as a “Canadian Indian”; but my question for consideration would be, did Longboat consider himself a Canadian citizen? Many Indigenouse peoples don 't. I would seek to find the voice of Longboat and his family, of the place he truly considered home, contested and complex as that place is as well: the Six Nations Reservation, where he built a house for his family, where he returned when he retired from Toronto life and “came
Critiquing Toronto 's Reconciliation Methodology as Appropriation
Canada 's existence as a colonized nation in a post-colonial environment requires its citizens and its institutions to have an understanding of decolonization and reconciliation methods. As a majour city within the established nation, Toronto has employed a simple method of acknowledging Canada 's history by naming streets after people that the nation believes to be worth honouring. Yet these surface patches of honour may be understood as continued acts of oppression, colonial power and of the insincere desire for reconciliation. In this paper, I will argue that Toronto 's attempts to honour Tom Longboat by naming a street after him, the space known …show more content…
This is a subtle tactic of colonialism, disguised as an act of reconcilliation, and dependent upon wilful ignorance. In their essay called “A Structure, Not an Event”, Kēhaulani Kauanui argues that “Understanding settler colonialism as a structure exposes the fact that colonialism cannot be relegated to the past, even though the past-present should be historicized. The notion that colonialism is something that ends with the dissolving of the British colonies when the original thirteen became the early US states has its counterpart narrative in the myth that indigenous peoples ended when colonialism ended” (Kauanui, 2016). To perpetuate the image, or as I argue, the myth, of Canada as a peacekeeping nation, they must simplify the reality of Turtle Island 's first inhabitants. This is why even in discussions of reconcilliation, Canada employs words of the settlers; rather than specify each nation in discussion, they create groups which fall under phrases such as “First Nations”, delegating an entire continent of peoples to a single, homogenous group. …show more content…
Focusing on the location of Longboat Ave and the weight that it carries, I believe that there is room for an interpretation of queer affect. Defined by Georgis, “queer affect exceeds language, it haunts and disquiets and refuses endings. Queer effect unsettles meaning, creating the conditions for change within the story” (12). In that way, the placement of Longboat Ave as a place of honour and reconcilliation also inherently speaks to his death; I argue that his death was not the end of his story. For one thing, his family legacy continues; Canada is only interested in Longboat as a runner as as the figure of a garbage man, a “failure”; not as a father, husband, steel worker, proud member of his community and of his nation. Furthermore, there is the question of claiming; Canada proudly claims Longboat as a “Canadian Indian”; but my question for consideration would be, did Longboat consider himself a Canadian citizen? Many Indigenouse peoples don 't. I would seek to find the voice of Longboat and his family, of the place he truly considered home, contested and complex as that place is as well: the Six Nations Reservation, where he built a house for his family, where he returned when he retired from Toronto life and “came