Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance

by Edgar Villanueva

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.