a continual reinsertion of me into this

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson: The liberation of Black people’s bodies and Indigenous People’s bodies is, as Robyn Maynard says, “an interlocking justice project” because of this, although our experiences and perspectives are different. This erasure, disappearing, outright killing is a continual, relentless process and it plays out differently in each community. It is important for me to continually and critically think through visibility in this context. There is a gendered asymmetry to the disappearance of Indigenous bodies, and there are a large number of ways that being Nishnaabeg is not okay, and makes one a target. There are benefits to performing a certain kind of Indigeneity particularly in the shadow of state reconciliation. There are certain kinds of Indigeneity that are acceptable in the context of liberal multiculturalism.

Dionne Brand: Right, having to perform a certain kind of Indigeneity.

Simpson: And so what happens when you write books that I think are perhaps opaque, but then they are getting recognized for book awards? That makes me think that maybe I’ve made a mistake….

Brand: That’s the paradox…

Simpson: …and so for me there is a continual negotiation and a continual refusal and a continual reinsertion of me into this. Whiteness erases it, and we reinsert it. Mohawk scholar Audra Simpson and Dene scholar Glen Coulthard’s work on recognition and refusal was so influential in the formation of As We Have Always Done.

Brand: Yes. There is a certain dexterity, I’ve certainly learned, about living Black. About producing creative work that gets co-opted and that must be reconstituted all the time. I mean, you think about Black music in particular, which is constantly being reconstituted, mainstreamed, and then of course when the living conditions that art evinces haven’t changed, one must always make more imaginaries for one to live in. Art is often reproduced as belonging somehow to the national, to the nation-state, if you will. But artists such as you and I have to constantly undo that. You are living the undoing of it and constantly have to produce against it. So it is a real paradox, what becomes of one’s work.

- Leanne Betasamosake Simpson in conversation with Dionne Brand over at The Literary Review of Canada (June 2018). You can read the whole thing here.