The political is personal, yes, the personal is political, but this approach, this ideology, is of the capitalist mindset: In that book, the experience of colonised people is reduced to the experience of a colonised individual And by that I mean a Liberal with a capital L “Justin Trudeau-type” liberal, and tho that book is critical – how could it not be – of the Canadian government’s contemporary and historical treatment of indigenous peoples, and is critical, too, of particular, named, Canadian politicians (some of whom I recognised from my 2019 summer spent working catering at awful, swanky, Toronto house parties), the book I won’t name falls short of offering conclusions and decisions, and sometimes seems to avoid forceful statements or forceful expressions of opinion. The difference, the problem, with the non-Simpson book I read is that it was written for, marketed to and catering for a presumed white, settler, audience.Ī liberal white audience, sure. It was the same reason why that other book was published by a major international publishing house, and why Simpson’s much more important text was published by the University of Minnesota Press. I realise I’ve kind of done it, but what I haven’t done is name the writer and their book and be mean about it directly, because reading Simpson’s made me understand why it was the other book failed.

My plan was to contrast the two books – this one, a powerful, courageous, blunt, direct, highly intellectualized, highly personalised, highly spiritual piece of researched, coherent, politicised academic prose the second a restrained, contradictory, even hypocritical text.

I was originally going to blog about my thoughts and feelings about/inspired by this incredible book in tandem with my thoughts and feelings about/inspired by a second contemporary non-fiction book about indigenous lived experience, but I’m not going to do that. Order this book now, it’s fucking brilliant

As we have always done simpson