Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance

by Edgar Villanueva

we’re not just talking about making up for the crimes of the past, for the near genocide of Native Americans 500 to 200 years ago when the settlers first arrived and spread over the land, or for the slave trade and slavery. We’re talking about layers and layers of trauma caused by white supremacist exploitation. We’re talking about Jim Crow. We’re talking about the exclusions built into the New Deal that disadvantaged people of color by not counting certain professions worthy of benefits (such as farmworkers and domestic workers). We’re talking about white boarding schools that ripped Native American families apart and stamped out the surviving culture less than a hundred years ago under the motto “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.” We’re talking about how the benefits of the G.I. Bill were racialized. We’re talking about redlining practices. We’re talking about the elite universities of this country being built with profits from slavery and how students and faculty of color still feel excluded today. We’re talking about the criminal justice system’s hugely disproportionate impact on communities of color. We’re talking about Native Americans’ unemployment rates being 10 times the national average. We’re talking about immigration policies dividing parents from their children right now. We’re talking about the violence and exploitation that have impacted four out of five Native women. We’re talking about the images in the media that constantly criminalize people of color. We’re...