Supporting Native leadership is clearly important in the coming period, both inside and outside of Co-Counseling. Native people are taking leadership in response to climate change and other important issues. It is crucial that we get RC tools into the hands of Natives Raised Native people.
More and more non-Natives want to be allies to Native people. In the fall of 2016, Marcie brought together a small group of us not-raised-Native Co-Counselors to discharge and think about developing the allies’ work. This would free Marcie to focus on developing RC among Natives Raised Native. We met a total of four times. Marcie has made it clear that she wants to hear what we think—no matter how we feel about our thoughts and even if they don’t seem to make sense.
We came to the conclusion that there are no “not-raised-Native-people” that are ready to be allies. Potential allies need to do some pre-work. We need to have done more counseling on our early distresses. We also need to have developed real relationships with Native people. Otherwise, romanticism patterns or liberal “do-gooder” patterns can take over.
We can discharge on the following:
- “Native people exist.”
- “Give back the land.”
- “Go home.”
- “You are not welcome here; no one invited you.”
- “Cut your consumption in half.”
- “How have you benefited from Native genocide?”
- “Remember Point 0—the goodness of the client and the ways they have stayed human.”
As we discharge and free our minds, we will be able to look at and discharge on the reality of genocide and genocide recordings. We will notice the ways we feel entitled. We will notice and discharge our feelings of powerlessness in the face of capitalism.
We decided to call this “pre-work, “Prioritizing Native Liberation,” since “Allies” is inaccurate right now. [As of this writing] we have led topic groups and 7:00 a.m. groups at workshops, a day-long workshop, and taught a class on Prioritizing Native Liberation for Non-Natives. We plan to have weekend workshops on Prioritizing Native Liberation.
Richmond, California, USA