Beyond the Absolute

After last week’s Teachings Tuesday, I received a response from a reader who saw the situation with Quw’utsun through a very different lens. And I want to be clear: these conversations matter. They are how racism is dismantled: not through shame or debate, but by staying in relationship long enough to listen, learn, and widen the view together.

But I have been reflecting on the nuances of the exchange.

There is a big difference between saying, “The problem here is not racism,” and asking, “Can you help me understand why you think it is racism?”

One is a conclusion. The other is an invitation.

One closes the conversation. The other opens a door to the kind of learning that expands understanding.

I don’t believe most people are trying to cause harm when they make absolute statements like “It’s not racism”. I think it’s a reflection of how deeply we’ve been taught to look for the simplest, least disruptive explanation; the one that doesn’t require us to rethink our worldview or sit with discomfort.

But absolute statements can flatten moments that are incredibly layered: with history, law, trauma, power, and lived experience. They can unintentionally silence truths that don’t fit neatly into the frameworks we’ve inherited. And in a country where Indigenous people have had to fight, for generations, just to have their realities believed, the words we choose matter.

That’s been especially clear this week, watching a political leader attempt to repeal the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. I ended up writing my MLA for the first time in my life, because there are moments when silence feels like its own kind of harm. Her reply affirmed what many of us felt: that these efforts aren’t just political moves; they’re acts of denial that echo a long history of erasing Indigenous truths.

And then came the articles people sent: bold headlines insisting that “Canada wasn’t stolen” or that colonization was simply a series of tidy agreements everyone understood and mutually accepted. These narratives carry a kind of confidence that only comes with distance: distance from community, from trauma, from lived experience, and from the complexity of Indigenous legal orders that were never treated as equal.

This is why curiosity matters so much.

Imagine if, instead of certainty, we started from: What might I be missing? Who experiences this differently than I do? What history sits underneath this moment?

When we lead with questions, something shifts. The conversation becomes relational instead of positional. The goal becomes understanding, not defending. And that’s where I believe reconciliation really lives: not in perfect statements, but in the willingness to be changed by what we learn.

The messages I received from other readers (thank you, Melissa), reminded me of that. Her words were a gentle invitation back to what matters: holding space for nuance, for discomfort, for the parts of reconciliation that are messy and deeply human.

So if there’s one teaching I’m holding onto this week, it’s this:

Certainty can close a door. Curiosity can open one. And in the doorway...in that space between what we thought we knew and what we’re still learning... is where understanding begins.

Thank you for being in these conversations with me — even the hard ones, especially the hard ones. They’re where the real work lives.

🧡 Kim