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The midpoint between truth and reconciliation is reparations.
Dr. David Ragland, Co-Founder and Co-ED, The Truth Telling Project; Director, Grassroots Reparations Campaign; Lecturer on Reparations as Spiritual Practice, Harvard University
In settler-colonial nations like Australia, Canada, and the United States, the historical and ongoing ramifications of land theft, slavery, white supremacy, wealth inequity, and harmful government policies mean that reparations are needed. However, national dialogues about reparations can often be fraught with denial and resistance. Too often, reparations are associated with shame and punishment rather than mutual healing and liberation. Frequently, institutional and governmental reparations stall out before they even begin.
Elyshia Holliday and Hilary Giovale have been cultivating a solution to this complex problem over the last six years, by supporting settlers of European descent in designing personal reparations plans and bringing them to life within their families and communities. Their methodology leans into truth-telling about our families’ and nations’ histories, honest self-reflection, and ritualized apology and forgiveness. Elyshia and Hilary have guided hundreds of people through this process. As a result, many have developed a newfound sense of right relations, purpose, and joy.
In this interactive session, Elyshia and Hilary compassionately guide participants to courageously draw on their strengths, interests, and histories to begin developing personal reparations plans that are sustainable for the long-term. Participants are invited to consider personal reparations as a source of purpose, joy, and mutual liberation rather than guilt, shame, and punishment. Everyone who has the capacity to attend webinars also has the capacity to begin this process, one step at a time. Those of European descent may find this session most relevant.
In advance of viewing this recording, we encourage you to orient yourself by viewing the recording of Becoming a Good Relative: Calling White Ancestors to Truth, Healing and Repair.
Resources (also see resources here)
Reclaiming our Indigenous European Roots, Lyla June
Grounding Practice with Hilary Giovale: Connecting With Ancestral Wisdom
Spell Bowl Prayer (Ahlay Blakely makes ceramic bowls with this spell (and others) inside)
Guide to Making a Personal Reparations Plan
Some US and Canada land tax programs:
American Indian Community House (New York)
Ancestral Homelands Reciprocity Program (Nevada City, California)
Appalachian Rekindling Project (Central Appalachia)
Hō’ahu Kaua’i Land Tax (Kaua’i, Hawai’i)
Honor Native Land Tax (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
Kuuy Nahwá’a (Los Angeles)
Lahaina Community Land Trust (Maui, Hawai’i)
Lenapehoking Land Acknowledgment Honorarium (New Jersey/Delaware/Pennsylvania/New York)
Miami Nation of Indiana Honor Fund (Indiana)
Mni Sota Makoce Honor Tax (Minnesota)
Nii’kinaaganaa Foundation (Canada)
O’ga P’ogeh Land Tax (Santa Fe, New Mexico)
Real Rent Duwamish (Seattle)
Shuumi Land Tax (Bay Area, California)
Wiyot Honor Tax (Northern California)
Wolankeyutomone kisi apaciyewik Fund (Maine)
Yunakin Land Tax (San Francisco)
About the Presenters
Hilary Giovale is a writer, community organizer, facilitator, and white American settler who lives on Indigenous land in Flagstaff, Arizona. As an active reparationist, she seeks to follow Indigenous and Black leadership in support of human rights, environmental justice, and equitable futures. She is the author of the award-winning book Becoming a Good Relative: Calling White Settlers toward Truth, Healing, and Repair, now in its second edition. Learn more about Hilary’s work here: https://www.goodrelative.com/
Elyshia Holliday is the Executive Director of the Organization of Nature Evolutionaries, a Naturopath, community facilitator, and mother committed to restoring the human–Earth relationship. For more than two decades, she co-led work rooted in ecological restoration and ceremonial practice. For the past six years, she has co-facilitated the Rekindling Ancestral Memory Circle, supporting European-descended settlers in recovering Earth-honoring ancestral ways, acknowledging historic harm, and practicing reparations. She lives on the ancestral lands of the Yakama people in Washington state .Learn more about Elyshia’s work here: https://www.natureevolutionaries.com/vision-mission