I had often wondered how to best decolonize my people... It must be done one human being at a time. Without that kind of help, Western society does not allow people to come to terms with their feelings. With honesty and therapy, my people can be made whole again.
Interpretation
Decolonization requires individual healing and honest reflection to address emotional and societal issues.
This quote by Russell Means conveys the importance of personal healing and introspection in the process of decolonization. He suggests that to truly restore and empower marginalized communities, it is necessary to engage with each individual’s emotions honestly, providing therapeutic support that enables them to confront their historical and personal traumas.
In practice
During a workshop on community healing, this quote can serve as a starting point for discussion.
You see the one thing I've always maintained is that I'm an American Indian. I'm not a Native American. I'm not politically correct. Everyone who's born in the Western Hemisphere is a Native American. We are all Native Americans. And if you notice, I put American before my ethnicity. I'm not a hyphenated African-American or Irish-American or Jewish-American or Mexican-American.
Being is a spiritual proposition. Gaining is a material act. Traditionally, American Indians have always attempted to be the best people they could. Part of that spiritual process was and is to give away wealth, to discard wealth in order not to gain.
Being an Indian means living with the land. And the only way we'll be able to do that is to gain our freedom.
Do you want your life to truly take off? Then change your idea about it. About you. Think, speak and act as the God You Are.
We women are going to bring change. We are speaking up for girls' rights, but we must not behave like men, like they have done in the past.
You remake yourself as you grow and as the world changes. Your identity doesn’t get found. It emerges.
We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. It needs subordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling.
On climate change, we often don't fully appreciate that it is a problem. We think it is a problem waiting to happen.
You are the world. When you transform yourself, the world you live in will also be transformed.
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