CPT Aboriginal Justice Delegation Day 1: Two Lessons Before Breakfast, and a few after

09 Aug 2014

Note: these are my own observations/reactions/musings, not CPT’s official communications. Please also follow the CPT Aboriginal Justice tumblr as well!

Personal ethnographic note: I am white, Jewish descent, and from San Francisco, California, Turtle Island.

##Two Lessons Before Breakfast

This morning I walked out of the church in Kenora where we’re sleeping, took a cup of coffee to a park bench, and sat down to do a little reading and a little silent worship. While I was sitting there, a number of likely houseless Anishinaabe men walked by me (I’m guessing about their economic status based on the potentially misleading fact that they seemed to be coming from a homeless shelter next door). I was sitting with bare feet, because it was a warm morning, and one man came towards me, saying “hey man, are you ok? Where are your shoes?!”

I told him they were in the church next door, where I was staying, and that I was just relaxing here. He said, “Oh, I just wanted to make sure you were ok. I thought you didn’t have any shoes.” I was struck by this considerate and loving statement, especially coming from someone who was materially much less well off than myself (Lesson 1). The event that followed did not make me feel that I had adequately returned his love.

I was sitting with a book and an e-reader on the bench next to me, and the Anishinaabe man came to sit down next to me and have a chat for a minute. As he sat down, I instinctively put my hand on the pile next to me and pulled it closer to myself; it was a reflex action, without any thought. He noticed this immediately (which was very observant, as it was a tiny movement of my hand), and said, “oh no, you don’t have to worry about me.” I was more ashamed than I can tell you: after he had shown me kindness, the last thing I wanted to do was anything to insult his integrity. It was highly embarrassing to me that the possessiveness and fear that I’d internalized in early life, due to my own privileged economic background, had emerged by reflex in this uncharitable way (Lesson 2). We chatted for a minute, and then he moved on. I won’t ever forget him, though: this lesson means I have some work to do.