These slides are for an Introduction to Philosophy course at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, Canada. We read parts of Chapter 4 and parts of the Conclusion of Glen Coulthard's book Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. We discussed these texts in the context of a unit on civil disobedience in this course.

1. Glen Coulthard,
Red Skin, White
Masks (selections)
PHIL 102, UBC
Christina Hendricks
Spring 2017
Except for images licensed otherwise, this presentation is licensed CC BY-SA
Idle No More, Flickr photo shared by OFL Communications Department, licensed CC BY 2.0

2. Overall question
What changes when we look at civil disobedience
from the perspective of people who are fighting
for their right to self-government?
o So they may not accept the “agreement” with the
laws Socrates talks about…
State
Disobed-
ients
Indigenous
Nation
State
Indigenous
Community

3. Learning Catalytics
• Coulthard notes that many think of anger and
resentment as negative emotions that could
harm efforts at reconciliation, but he argues
that they can serve a specific purpose for
Indigenous peoples.
• What do you recall from the reading of what
that purpose is?

4. Red Skin, White Masks Chpt. 4
Need to move away from usual way of
thinking of relations between
Indigenous nations & Canadian state:
• Canadian state has ultimate
sovereignty and grants rights to
Indigenous peoples
Anger, resentment, protest & struggle
as legitimate ways to do this

5. Reconciliation
• “restoring estranged or damaged social or
political relationships” (107)
• Creating “agreement, concord, or harmony”;
making things “consistent or compatible” (107)
Image from pixabay.com, licensed CC0
How to make
consistent
Indigenous
nationhood with
Canadian state
claims to
sovereignty?

6. Fanon & internalized colonialism
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1952)
• “internalization”: “the social relations of
colonialism … come to be seen as ‘true’ or
‘natural’ to the colonized themselves” (110-111).
State
Indigenous
Community

7. Fanon & internalized colonialism
Poverty
Violence
Health
problems
Due to “own
cultural
deficiencies”
(114)
Effects of colonialism

8. Resentment
“the externalization of what was previously
internalized” by forming an “enemy” (114)
Poverty
Violence
Health
problems
Due to
colonial
system!

9. Resentment
The process of
externalization can
support rejection of
colonial values and
efforts to “revalue and
affirm Indigenous
cultural traditions and
social practices” (114)
First Nations Woman Demonstrates Drum, Flickr
photo shared by Mark Klotz, licensed CC BY 2.0

10. Resentment & struggle
leading to change
Standoff at Kanesatake (near Oka, Quebec), 1990
Crise d’Oka, by Samuel Freli, Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA
3.0

11. Resentment & struggle
leading to change
Standoff at Kanesatake (near Oka, Quebec), 1990
Crise d’Oka, by Samuel Freli, Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA
3.0
1676 Catholic mission
1716-1717: King of France provides land for Indigenous
peoples, then gives it to Catholic priests
1780: Catholic community starts selling land to colonists
1787: Mohawk chiefs claim land; title not
recognized despite multiple efforts over 200 years
1961-1989: building of golf course; plans for condos

12. Resentment & struggle
leading to change
Standoff at Kanesatake (near Oka, Quebec), 1990
Crise d’Oka, by Samuel Freli, Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA
3.0
March 1990: protestors occupy “The Pines”
April: barricaded road into the area
June 30: court injunction to remove barricade
July 11: Quebec provincial police arrive; tear gas &
gunfire; one police officer killed
Sept. 1: Canadian armed forces move in; Sept 26: standoff
ends

13. Royal Commission on
Aboriginal Peoples Report (1996)
• Revisit, possibly renegotiate all historical treaties
• Reallocate more land to Aboriginal nations
• Aboriginal nations should have right of self-
government in “core” areas
o Take precedence over federal & provincial laws
• Create Aboriginal parliament
See here for
more

14. 20 years later...
From optional reading in chpt. 4
• Focus has been on healing psychologically, not
changing conditions (121)
o Treat problems as belonging to past; just need to
“get over it”
• Reaffirms ultimate sovereignty of Canadian state
o Indigenous sovereignty limited to what is “integral to
their unique cultures, identities, traditions,
languages, institutions” (123).

15. More recent Supreme Court Case
Tsilhqot’in Nation granted Aboriginal title to
over 1700 square kilometres in BC, June
2014
Title granted to “all
the territory a First
Nation regularly and
exclusively used
when the Crown
asserted
sovereignty”
Supreme Court of Canada, public domain on Wikimedia Commons

16. Territory acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge that we are on
the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory
of the Musqueam First Nation.
Today your host is Musqueam, Flickr photo by Guilhem Vellut, licensed CC BY 2.0

17. “CONCLUSION” CHAPTER TO
RED SKINS, WHITE MASKS

18. Idle No More
Idle No More, Flickr photo shared by OFL Communications Department, licensed CC BY 2.0

19. Idle No More
Idle No More, Flickr photo shared by OFL Communications Department, licensed CC BY 2.0
Omnibus Bill C-45 passed Dec. 2012: changes to rules
for leasing indigenous land, environmental protections
Flash mobs (dancing, drumming), teach-ins,
conferences
Multiple blockades of roads, railways
Chief Theresa Spence, Attawapiskat Cree Nation,
hunger strike and “Declaration of Commitment” that
ended it

20. “On the necessity of direct action” (165)
• Negotiations: between
“official Aboriginal
leadership” and the state
(166)
• non-violent protests that
adhere to law
• “disruptive and
confrontational” (166)
• E.g., blocking roads,
railways; also blocking
access to Indigenous
lands
Morally legitimate Morally illegitimate
Some distinguish btwn. 2 forms of Indigenous protest

21. Arguments against “disruptive” direct action &
Coulthard’s replies
Grassy Narrows, Ontario, Flickr photo shared by Howl Arts Collective, licensed CC BY 2.0
Negotiations
more effective
Self-defeating,
alienating
Only negative,
reactive

22. C.D. in Indigenous protests
Back to the question at the beginning:
• What changes when we look at civil
disobedience from the perspective of people
who are fighting for their right to self-
government?
Do you think of civil disobedience and
whether/when it’s legitimate differently in this
context vs. the ones we’ve discussed so far
(e.g., civil rights in the U.S., Edward
Snowden)?