Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance

by Edgar Villanueva

My central argument is that what ails philanthropy at its core is colonialism. Almost without exception, funders reinforce the colonial division of Us vs. Them, Haves vs. Have Nots, and mostly white saviors and white experts vs. poor, needy, urban, disadvantaged, marginalized, at-risk people (take your pick of euphemisms for people of color). The statistics speak for themselves: 92 percent of foundation CEOs are white,3 89 percent of foundation boards are white,4 while only 7 to 8 percent of foundation funding goes specifically to people of color.5 Philanthropy is the savior mentality in institutional form, which instead of helping—its ostentatiously proclaimed intent—actually further divides and destabilizes society.

Now, adding insult to injury, those who were stolen from or exploited to make that wealth—Indigenous people, people of African descent, and many other people of color—must apply for access to that wealth in the form of loans or grants; we must prove ourselves worthy. We are demeaned for our lack of resources, scrutinized, and often denied access after all.

Being Native American inherently involves an identity crisis. We’re the only race or ethnicity that is only acknowledged if the government says we are. Here we are, we exist, but we still have to prove it. Anyone else can say they are what they are. No one has to prove that they’re Black or prove that they’re Latino. There are deep implications to this. The rates of alcoholism, substance abuse, and suicide are linked to this fundamental questioning of our identity. We exist in the Other box. To try and feel safe inside that box, and then be told you’ve got to prove your right to be in that box, that the box itself is under threat, is deeply demoralizing.

As the philosopher Derek Rasmussen put it: “What makes a people indigenous? Indigenous people believe they belong to the land, and non-indigenous people believe the land belongs to them.”4 It’s not that Indigenous people were or are without strife or violence, but their fundamental worldview emphasizes connection, reciprocity, a circular dynamic.

Separation correlates with fear, scarcity, and blame, all of which arise when we think we’re not together in this thing called life. In the separation worldview, humans are divided from and set above nature, mind is separated from and elevated above body, and some humans are considered distinct from and valued above others—us vs. them—as opposed to seeing ourselves as part of a greater whole. This fundamentally divisive mindset led to an endless number of categories by which to further divide up the world and then rank them, assigning to one side the lower rank, the lesser power. So the rational took its place and lorded over the emotional, male over female, expert over amateur, and so on. In every sector, the very structure and approach of organizations also reflected a divisive, pigeonholing, and ranking mindset.

Separation-based political systems create arbitrary nation-states with imaginary boundaries. Their laws and institutions oppress some groups and privilege others. Leaders and experts are considered a special breed, set apart from the common person; all the important choices are up to them. The separation-based political conversation revolves around the questions: Whom should we fear? and Whom should we blame? Most damaging of all, a long line of mostly white male bullies and sociopaths took the concept of separation and used it to justify oppression, slavery, and colonization by “scientifically” claiming the inferiority of Africans and Indigenous people, among other Others. And so we got to white supremacy.

I use the term “white supremacy” instead of “racism” because it explicitly names who in the system benefits and—implicitly—who bears the burden. One of the tactics of domination is to control the language around the perpetrator’s bad behavior. To call the phenomenon “racism” makes it abstract and erases explicit mention of the one who profits from the dynamic. So when I say “white supremacy” it doesn’t just mean the KKK and Identity Evropa and other hate groups.

That there is widespread ambivalence today among the citizens of colonizing powers about whether or not colonization was a good thing is deeply offensive. Make no mistake: colonization is an atrocity, a close relative of genocide.

And to be clear: settlers cannot be considered immigrants because immigrants are expected to obey the laws of the land when they arrive, while settlers make their own new laws of the land.

What makes it even more complicated in the United States is that, over time, the white settlers brought slaves and later attracted low-wage workers—many of them people of color—who all were hurt and exploited, yet who were technically also settlers from the Indigenous perspective.

“Funders have traditionally preferred the narrative of a rock star leader, and have invested in individuals more than in missions,” comments adrienne maree brown in her book Emergent Strategy. “The shiny stars are rarely the ones actually getting the work done, or even doing the most exciting thinking in the organization. If you are in the funding world and your primary relationship with those you fund is with the executive director, if you have not had a meaningful conversation with other staff members or community members, you may be stricken with charismitis—relational laziness induced by charismatic brilliance.”3

The basis of traditional philanthropy is to preserve wealth and, all too often, that wealth is fundamentally money that’s been twice stolen, once through the colonial-style exploitation of natural resources and cheap labor, and the second time through tax evasion. Mostly white saviors and experts use this hoarded wealth to dominate and control—obviously or subtly—the seekers and recipients of those funds.

One of the darkest, most insidious results of the trauma of racism and colonization is internalized oppression. Here we all are, Natives and people of color and white people, living together inside a complex global system that has normalized treating certain kinds of people as less than worthy, even questioning their right to exist—from immigrants to Indigenous, from people with disabilities to people of color, from women and girls to queer folk to people holding low-status jobs. When you live inside a system like this, breathing the air, drinking the water, watching the television, it is beyond easy—in fact, it’s almost a given—that you’ll absorb the cultural attitudes, myths, and stereotypes; you’ll be affected by it and infected by it. Internalized oppression involves consciously or unconsciously adopting the mindset of the exploiter, the oppressor, the hater.

With yourself, internalized oppression may manifest as inferiority, inadequacy, self-hatred, self-invalidation, self-doubt, isolation, fear, feelings of powerlessness, and despair. You might drive yourself into the ground in a quest for perfection and acceptance, or the opposite, you might throw in the towel and stop showing up for school or for work. You might develop compulsive behaviors, eating disorders, addictions. You might walk around loudly protesting that exploitation and oppression of people like yourself is a total myth. You might get stuck in one abusive relationship after another. You might suffer from depression, or have intense, disruptive outbursts of bitterness or anger. All of these behaviors map onto internalized oppression.

When birds fly together, they cut the wind for each other—all except for the one at the front. That one has to bear the full force of the wind. That one has to stick his nose out. That one has to lead the way forward despite the discomfort. At the same time, one of the great lessons of migrating birds is that they take turns occupying that tough position at the front, which allows for greater resilience for the whole group.

I am frequently asked, What does decolonized leadership look like? Compassionate, empathetic, vulnerable leaders? Servant leaders? Leaders who listen? Yes, and it’s not about the individual. We have to shift from our obsession with individual leaders to a focus on organizational design, which tends to be taken for granted and invisible in most of our institutions.

White supremacy is just a story humans created. Race is just a story humans created. Resources as scarce, greed as an inescapable aspect of human nature, and money as the root of evil—all these are stories. Over time, these stories have become so solidified and familiar and “true” that they began limiting our view of the world and our choices. They became beliefs, articles of faith. Yet our beliefs are just one perspective, and the more rigid our perspective, the more alternative perspectives we miss.

What if the question became “How can everyone be powerful?” rather than “How can everyone have equal power?” In his book on organizational design that adopts a framework of organization-as-organism rather than organization-as-machine, the Belgian scholar of human behavior and management Frederic Laloux writes: “[P]eople can hold different levels of power, and yet everyone can be powerful . . . [as] in an ecosystem, interconnected organisms thrive without one holding power over another . . . the point is not to make everyone equal; it is to allow all employees to grow into the strongest, healthiest version of themselves.”

The institutions of philanthropy as a whole could take 10 percent of their assets—10 percent tithed from each foundation in existence—and establish a trust fund to which Native Americans and African Americans could apply for grants for various asset-building projects, such as home ownership, further education, or startup funds for businesses. This reparations tithing among foundations could happen right now, without legislation, as a demonstration of commitment from the philanthropic community. No specifications around how that money is spent, no reporting. No strings attached. Right now.