Decolonization Is For Everyone, Especially “White People”

How can we unravel the generations of imperialism and its effects of destruction and trauma on all societies?

Originally written in 2019, updated in 2025

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The estimated density of native Celtic languages in the year 1881, during dramatic declines.

The many effects of empire and colonialism on this planet over the last 500 years have been so deep and profound that there is no region that has not been deeply scarred by them. Dialog between indigenous groups and those settled on their lands has continued to evolve and make waves in public awareness. As that shift in consciousness has unfolded over many years now in North America, many “white people” have sought a deeper understanding of how their own ancestors fit into this larger historical phenomenon and how they might help to undo some of the terrible damage done by colonization.

The fact is that it is a messy, complex, and ugly set of intersections and it takes a great deal of effort to unwind the many facets of this history in the detail that it deserves. Decolonization is an enormous challenge, even explaining it and why it is relevant, which I’ve done several times in online courses that I’ve offered through the Hidden Glen Folk School.

It is to the credit of indigenous peoples that they often prod the North Americans of European descent who work with them to research their own ancestral histories, so that they can reclaim and decolonize their own heritage. It, in fact, shows great compassion and wisdom on their part, and it has prompted some people to engage in important fact-finding and soul-searching missions. I was reminded of this by a message I received from doctoral student Brenda Hunter, in thanks for research materials that I have made available on my academia.edu webpage. She says:

What sparked my interest is, I’ll be honest, heritage. I have always been interested in linguistics and at 63 I am finally wondering why I never considered learning the language of my people. I helped many elementary students learn their Native American languages but when asked by an elder what my people spoke I had no words to share. It stunned me how complete the assimilation was. Not their choice, nor mine. The elder challenged me to come back and greet him in our language. I explained our history and he pointed out how they lost their language too and weren’t allowed to practice their traditions or wear their regalia. Over the years I have revisited that challenge. There are no Gaelic speakers I know of willing to teach me in Nebraska. I don’t wear tartan nor kilts for show. My grandfather had a piece that he kept away as did my grandmother. I have no idea where they went but I hope whoever has them knows the story.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for this to become a windy novel. It’s just that what you write about hits home. Here in the US (I am from Massachusetts) we are cultural orphans. We know our genealogy and who came from where and also why they left. Most were not from choice. Some washed ashore in PEI or Nova Scotia. The indigenous people here suggest we go home, but they find it hard to believe that we have been forgotten as if we never existed. Maybe that’s why my ancestors lost their language. Maybe they knew there was no going home again.

A friend went to Scotland to attend a conference. She asked what I wanted her to bring me from there. I didn’t want anything touristy, just a rock from the sea and a hand full of dirt, to be a tangible reminder of where we came from.

That, Michael, is what sparked my interest. It’s always there, that longing for something beyond mere words.

(BRENDA HUNTER, 24 NOVEMBER 2019)

I was honored that she shared these experiences and feelings with me, and I wrote her back. She told me further about a writing exercise that she did with students that she taught, who were to respond in stream of consciousness on the topic “If I Could Change the World.” Her own outpouring at that time was this:

To allow indigenous people all over the world to return to their homelands unfettered by the further effects of colonization so they can practice their ceremonies, traditions, and ways of life that support their sovereignty, self determination, and sustainability.

To support the cultural orphans, deeply damaged by assimilation due to colonization, in finding a way back to their roots. For those that have remained in their ancestral homeland, may they be willing to accept their long-lost relatives with open arms and an open mind. They are your kin. Watch for them and take them in as they relearn their place and ways. Be patient for they have lost hope and need encouragement.

These are not unusual revelations, in my experience, for many “white people” working with indigenous folks: having become attuned to the value of indigeneity, many become thirsty for knowledge about their own peoples’ cultures and experiences, and want to find a way “back home” again, or want to find what “home” even means. People with Gaelic ancestry are fortunate that they have the possibility of learning about a beautiful and rich heritage that still exists, on the margins, waiting to be revitalized.

In fact, most of the students I have taught in the Reclaiming the Roots course that I designed have been engaged in these issues of decolonization and revitalization exactly because they have ongoing relationships with native peoples and communities which make these questions of direct relevance to their work and their lives.

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In the old “clan system” of the Scottish Highlands, most people were dependents of some clan chief who provided them with land and protection in exchange for their loyalty and service. Those who had no chieftain and no hold on the land, for various reasons, were called “broken men” (in English or Lowland Scots). These desperate men were hired to carry out all manner of misdeeds – robbery, pillaging, assassinations, destruction of goods and property – by malicious agents stirring up trouble in the Highlands and along the Highland-Lowland border.

I’ve never seen a Gaelic term that corresponds directly to “broken men” but my guess is that it would be daoine gun dùthchas or daoine gun dùthaich. That term was used, interestingly, in at least one case when a child was born of Highland emigrants who had left Scotland but not yet settled in new immigrant communities. Trauma and land hunger can drive people to desperate measures, and people whose humanity has been broken and damaged are quite capable of passing those wounds on to others and can serve as useful tools in enterprises of domination and exploitation.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, many analysts and strategists urged intervening in failed states, seeing them as breeding grounds for terrorism The logic, as I remember and understood it, was that when a society disintegrates and collapses, the personal and cultural damage is huge and stirs a great deal of anger and resentment, especially when it can be perceived as having been caused by outside forces who benefit from it (for example, First-World Countries who exploit the resources of countries and weaken the government to keep them dependent and easy to manipulate). Young men, especially, are easy targets for recruitment into terrorist organizations, who redirect their anger into a larger narrative, often one with religious and social significance.

The development of whiteness in North America, I believe, is analogous to this view of failed states feeding terrorism. Immigrants came from many different ethnic communities in the “Old World(s),” often fleeing persecution and trauma, but on arrival were assigned to a racial category that did not reflect their own ancestral identity or norms. At the same time, whiteness itself is an identity and cultural framework derived from an imperial Anglo-Saxon foundation, leaving little room for alternatives and willing to use violence and the threat of violence to impose its domination on others.

Down through the centuries, European-descended fatcats offered “whiteness” as ruthless protection against the fear and pressure riding alongside the American dream of unlimited possibility — and charged unfathomable interest. Whiteness provides “an organization of experience around power,” “an omnipotent fantasy, a fantasy of fullness,” Altman observes, guarding against our most primal insecurities about ourselves, and the dangerous unpredictability of life in a world built on economic exploitation.

NATASHA STOVALL, “WHITENESS ON THE COUCH”

And there can be little doubt that whiteness and its status of supremacy was claimed, asserted, and performed through the use of terrorist violence to reinforce these racial categories.

Mass colonization of the lands of the Louisiana Purchase began in earnest after the war of 1812. Image from Smithsonian.

Power comes with a dehumanizing pathology that affects all who wield it, as demonstrated in such social science experiments as Zimbardo’s guards-and-prisoners role-play, and Milgram’s electric shock tests. That’s one of the sad realities of power: it corrupts all it touches and is constantly shifting to match opportunities. Those who wish to defuse the dehumanizing effects of power and injustice would do well to heed the wisdom of such thinkers as Paulo Freire in seeing the possibility of redeeming the humanity of both of the parties trapped in the strife, for their mutual benefit:

Because it is a distortion of being more fully human, sooner or later being less human leads the oppressed to struggle against those who made them so. In order for the struggle to have meaning, the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create it), become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both.

This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. The oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power, cannot find in this power, the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both. Any attempt to ‘soften’ the power of the oppressor in deference to the weakness of the oppressed almost always manifests itself in the form of false generosity; indeed, the attempt never goes beyond this. In order to have the continued opportunity to express their ‘generosity’, the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well. An unjust social order is the permanent fount of this ‘generosity’, which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty. That is why its dispensers become desperate at the slightest threat to the source of that false generosity.

PAULO FREIRE, PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED

It seems very significant to me that so many “white folk” working with indigenous peoples, or with other oppressed groups, or inspired by their struggles, come to take an interest in unraveling the trail of coloniality in their own ancestral history, a desire to heal the inter-cultural wounds in which they were implicated. It takes insight and courage to even begin the journey of our mutual liberation, and we need a village to provide us with support and guidance along the way.

I’d like to share another message I received from another person who’s had an awakening of this nature which has led them to their Scottish Highland heritage:

I was heartened to read your blog today and am excited to “meet” a kindred soul exploring these topics. About 5 years ago, I began being drawn into working with Indigenous people in the region where I live (Northern Arizona). We were collaborating on films, developing curricula, supporting their food sovereignty, cultural revitalization, etc. The more I got to know Indigenous people, I felt a strange “call” happening that I couldn’t name, and I longed to be included more and more. I also began to understand the extremely painful, ongoing dynamics of the settler colonial project, and that even though I was being welcomed, there were also serious barriers to my inclusion, for good reason.

Immediately after being invited into some ceremonial practices, very strange things started to happen – I became sensitized to my Scottish ancestry, and learned for the first time that I had an ancestor who had migrated to North Carolina in 1739. His descendants later went on to receive land grants and enslave people. And so I realized that I would be the first in 9 generations to wake up, look at this, and begin the healing process.

My heart was broken. As I began unpacking it all, an ethnoautobiographical book started to emerge. This has become a massive, life-transforming process. I have been working on it for the last 3.5 years, and am now in the phase of editing per the recommendations of several readers. I am beginning to publish related articles, and hope to have a website up soon. I hope to publish this book in the next year or two. Going through this process has given me the capacity to continue working with Indigenous-led community organizing and Truth/Conciliation work in our community.

HILARY GIOVALE, 26 NOVEMBER 2019

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There is an insightful parable that has come to be referred to as “The Fight of Two Wolves Within You” or “”Which one do you feed.” You’ve probably seen it on your social media feed at one time or another. Here’s one version of it which credits it to Cherokee tradition (although it must be noted that this attribution is false):

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life: “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil–he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”

He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you–and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

This analogy applies as much to societies, cultures, and heritages as it does to individual human beings. These all have the potential within them to embolden tribalism, hatred, fear-mongering, and exploitation, on the one hand, or compassion, inclusivity, equality, and justice, on the other. It is a question of what vision the leaders of those communities choose, how they cultivate or neglect the many contrasting strands of their history and heritage, and the circumstances in which they find themselves. Just as a complex text, like the Bible, can be read and interpreted in many different ways, conservatively or progressively, so can cultures be deployed and instrumentalized selectively in a myriad of ways.

(The hyper-masculinized, militaristic representation of Scottish heritage.)

I know that I am not alone in being concerned about how the heritage of the Scottish Highlands has so often been co-opted to support disturbingly conservative agendas, whether it be imperial militarism, colonial nostalgia, toxic masculinity, repressive religion, white supremacy, and so on. It often seems as though these regressive narratives have an exclusive monopoly on the Highland legacy and this offends and alienates many people with this ancestry who could potentially be engaged in re-purposing their ancestral heritage to better ends.

Back in 2014, I addressed a gathering of “leaders” of the Scottish-American heritage community and, as usual, highlighted some of the ways in which modern myth-making contradicts the historical, lived realities of Scottish Highlanders in Scotland and as immigrants in North America. Afterwards, one gentleman told me that he found my presentation disturbing, because he had always used Highlanders as role models to personify particular qualities that he wished to impress upon his son – as though Highlanders were simply two-dimensional figures to suit the purposes to which he needed them to serve, and as though any ethnic group should be reduced to such simple caricatures.

The reasons for the contortions of Highland – that is, Gaelic – heritage to these ends has everything to do with broader imperial context rather than any inherent traits. For the last two and a half centuries, Gaeldom has been dominated by conservative forces and personnel, as a matter of limited options as a society conquered by the most aggressive empire of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Gaeldom has been so thoroughly impacted by and intertwined with British imperialism for the last several centuries that it is impossible to understand the history – or culture – without taking this imperial/colonial context into account.

But Gaeldom need not be relegated to or limited by this coloniality: there are radical strands in Gaelic heritage as well that have been waiting to be reclaimed and reactivated. This re-radicalization has been particularly lively in the last decade in Scotland due to a re-enfranchised political context, and as scholars we can question the dominant narrative of conservativeness by highlighting the radical Gaelic voice that does exist, and the potential for self-liberation and social equality latent within the tradition.

It’s fortunate that some of the leaders of the last immigrant community in North America where Scottish Gaelic language and culture has survived – Nova Scotia – are actively engaged in these issues. This is particularly important because they live beside an indigenous Mi’kmaw community which is struggling not just with the revitalization of their language and culture, but also with fundamental issues of land, sovereignty, and reconciliation.

The 2016 “Mawiomi / Aonach: Sharing our Paths” symposium was one such opportunity in Nova Scotia to foster dialog reflecting on shared experiences of dispossession, dislocation, and subjugation, in the spirit of reconciliation.

People of Scottish Highland ancestry with a moral compass, who are open to the ideals of justice and equality, can find plenty in their ancestral heritage that aligns with the experience of other marginalized peoples and forms the foundation of an empathetic bridge with them. This is not a small task, however, and there is always the risk of trivialization, especially because of the lack of scholarly resources and guides. Doing this work authentically requires attention to the details and nuances of Scottish Gaelic history and culture, rather than vague, broad-brushstrokes invoking “tribes” and neo-pagan images. It is vital to understand the nature of coloniality, how and why it has been such a centripetal force in the Gaeldom over many centuries, and how it has impacted Gaelic consciousness and allegiances both in the Highlands and in the diaspora.

And in that spirit, poet Joyce Rankin of Cape Breton has allowed me to share here a previously unpublished poem she composed about her own journey of awareness about the implications of the immigration of her own Highland ancestors into Mi’kmaw territory and her own desire for reconciliation.

The circle drawn with Mi’kmaq symbols.
From the edge I watch the round dance, hear the drums
– the talk of old wrongs that linger on,
the new beginning that is now.

The Elder gazes out at a circle of white faces.
“You were all refugees”, she says,
“and we took you in”.

And yes, my own people came here in that time.
Disdained and dispossessed,
some came limping and weeping to these shores,
some following families and lovers, some for adventure, or thought of gain.

In the country of our ancestors we lived as you did, linked and sharing,
at once possessing and being possessed
by braes and burns and high peaks, from which we watched the sky.

Where you have the trees, we had the bracken, the heather,
and lived among each other. Until the clans were broken,
not by the great battle, but by a great betrayal.

Until the machines of politics and government
ground us down,
but not grinding us into the earth,
— they dug us out of it,
carried us away in coffin ships,
and we were spit out onto an unknown shore across wide waters.

Ships disgorging their cargos like
combines spewing out husked grain.

And there you were
linked and sharing, possessing and being possessed by
woods and stream, and high peaks from which you watched
a different part of the same sky.

And you helped us then, took us in.

Showed us food to be gathered from the woods and waters;
there was enough for all.
And friendship between us.

We built barns and cut the trees,
brought cattle and farmed the land.

Fished, and kept our language.
Oh but the land, it was the land we wanted.

It was paper deeds that defeated us at home.
and the deeds of spoiled and greedy children of the old chiefs,
the deeds to land we did not own in court of law.

And that lesson we learned and remembered:
You cannot win against the court of law,
and old covenants and sworn obligations are swept away,
along with honour,
by rivers of white paper that flow through courts of law.

In a new place the old story.

By language, race, religion; set apart,
dismissed, diminished. We, the Gaels,
less white than the English,
but whiter than the Mi’kmaq,
chose to press ourselves against the sleeves
of those who held the weapons, and the power.

That fierce connection to the old land,
the desolation of departure,
made us grasp this soil more firmly,
and brought sorrows upon you.

The lawyers came, and the government men,
to measure and label the land.

We wanted the deeds so we fenced it in
and signed our names;
stoked the machines of politics and government
and watched them grind you down.

And why did none of us speak?

The ones who sang of courage were silent,
the ones who sang of honour closed their eyes,
murmured that they meant you no harm.

And in the end, we had the land.

Through your long years of hardship
we did not ever ask, because we did not want to know.

But now there are those who do not wait to be asked;
they tell us what we need to know.

And now the wheel is turning.
For the trees are made into paper
to be pointed and directed like arrows,
reams and reams of paper
gather to a river,
and now it flows again through courts of law.

“WE WERE ALL REFUGEES” JOYCE RANKIN

Source Notes:

Thanks, as always, to Alastair McIntosh for fruitful discussions on these topics and citations to Freire.

• On “broken men,” see Allan Macinnes, Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, 1603-1788 (1996), pp. 22, 32, 51.

• On duine gun dùthaich, see Margaret Bennett, Oatmeal and the Catechism (2003), p.10.

• The quote from Paulo Friere is from page 21 of his classic work The Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

• On the relevance of Zimbardo’s and Milgram’s research to understanding oppressive systems, see Alastair McIntosh Soil and Soul (2001), 109-114, 166-68.