We Are Of Here By Nneka Allen
As a lover of justice, Nneka has inspired philanthropy as a Fundraising Executive in the charitable sector for over 25 years. She is the founder of the Black Canadian Fundraisers' Collective, a community that nurtures the well-being of Canadian Black fundraisers and supports the fundraising capacity of B3 organisations. She is a celebrated author and co-editor of a bi-national book that showcases the personal stories of 15 Black leaders in the charitable sector, titled Collecting Courage: Joy, Pain, Freedom, Love. During the 2022/23 academic year, Nneka took on the role of one of the inaugural Scholars-in-Residence for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at the University of British Columbia.
Nneka is a relationship builder, stone-catcher, freedom fighter, storyteller, and leadership coach. At the helm of The Empathy Agency Inc., she passionately guides clients towards finding hope, purpose, and justice in their relationship with themselves, others, and the Earth. Her mission centres on nurturing wholeness and honouring humanity by harnessing the power of empathy.
“Generations of stories bled into the soil of shifting landscapes. Star children planted beneath tobacco stalks and confederate flags - musket smoke chokes the hope out of picnic trees and over seer’s collect brown babies from auction blocks.”
The stinging feeling of displacement is something I have carried with me for as long as I can remember. It's a sensation that lingers and never quite fades away. This unique sense of not fully belonging anywhere, of straddling worlds and identities, resonates deeply within me. “Generations of stories bled into the soil…” Black narratives and expressions that capture my experience offer a kind of solace, a reminder that I am not alone in this journey. They articulate the complexities of Photo taken by Skylar Chauvin navigating through spaces that feel familiar yet foreign, and it's in these stories of memory that I find a reflection of my path. Some of the most insightful words and passages I've encountered come from my hometown brother Teajai Travis, as quoted above, and Cole Arthur Riley's book, This Here Flesh. Her words below resonate deeply because they capture and articulate my sense of dislocation.
“I do not know from where my ancestors were abducted. I cannot tell you what the air smells like there. I don’t know what sound the waves and soil speak. These things were stolen from me as they were from them. I think it is one of the deepest evils to become a thief of place—to make someone a stranger to their home, and then mark their relationship to the land by bondage instead of love.”
To be severed from the land is an evil act.
It is a severing of the connection between people and the soil that has nurtured and sustained us for generations. This separation not only strips us of our homelands but also of our heritage, identity, and sense of belonging. The land is not just a physical space; it is a repository of memories and traditions. To be forcefully removed from it is to endure a profound injustice reverberating through communities and cultures, undermining our cohesion and survival. Such acts of violence often disregard the intrinsic value of the relationship between people and the land, leading to loss and disenfranchisement that echo through time.
The expansionist lust for the New World required massive and ongoing land theft. Without it, “white destiny” could not manifest—steal land first, then people, Indigenous, then African; mixing our racial and social fates in a multitude of ways. Human trafficking and bondage of Black bodies across oceans included genocidal disconnection from homelands to exploit a “new” land for white enrichment and social privilege. Dispossession by any means necessary was white colonists’ implicit, yet evident maxim. Power was and is their primary tool. Author Ian Williams describes power as the ease with which someone or something achieves their desires.
Colonialism is the original mastermind and driving force behind white male dominance, European patriarchal norms, and economic exploitation of people and places. Colonization codified whiteness, reinforced gender inequalities, and created new forms of oppression. Colonialism is not just a political or economic event. It is a gendered practice that also gave birth to racial capitalism, which is the extraction of social and economic value from people of oppressed identities, namely Black people in the Americas. And we must begin by recognizing the historical and ongoing injustices that have been perpetuated against Indigenous and Black peoples, who have been snatched or driven out of their ancestral lands.
Whiteness is anti-Blackness at its core.
No force occupies space quite like whiteness. It consistently oversizes its seat, yet settles wherever it pleases, indifferent to any chaos or destruction it may cause. It insists on being accommodated and anticipates dominance. Accommodation and dominance are the assumptions of whiteness concerning everything, particularly the planet, as without it, there's no physical setting to enact its tyrannical deeds.
My references to whiteness are about the cultural trappings that shape and inform the behaviour of those who find belonging in its canon. Tema Okun wrote:
“White supremacy culture [or whiteness] is the widespread ideology baked into the beliefs, values, norms, and standards of our groups (many if not most of them), our communities, our towns, our states, our nation—teaching us both overtly and covertly that whiteness holds value, whiteness is value. It teaches us that Blackness is not only valueless but also dangerous and threatening.”
The ideology of white supremacy, driven through dominant beliefs tied to acquisition, resource entitlements, and religious rule, defines our interactions with the natural reciprocity of our planetary ecosystem. However, hinged on colonialism, whiteness is not a solitary actor in its domination, exploitation, and control of people or land. A true and loving relationship with the land means we must address the pervasive impact of white supremacy and its collaborators– patriarchy, and capitalism.
Explorations of whiteness often focus on interpersonal dynamics, and perhaps in some more conscious settings, they examine the systems that facilitate inequity and discrimination. Too frequently, these conversations centre solely on people. But the examination of the consequential relationship between whiteness and the land is a necessary pursuit if a deeper understanding of these original crimes is to be revealed, confronted, and dismantled.
Alarmingly, a confronting analysis and expressions of white supremacy’s unnatural influence and control of the land are too often missing in organisations whose mandate is to pursue environmental justice. Likewise, while many social justice organisations may reveal the dominating realities of whiteness, they too often fail to include the original and ongoing crimes against Earth in their struggle for justice. As a result, faulty stories of erasure emerge that segregate activists from beneficiaries, whipping up the perversion of white saviourism. The pattern of viewing white people as the ultimate liberators of everyone and everything “wild”, namely all racially oppressed people, non-human living things, and the land. Incomplete narratives can also perpetuate the hierarchies of whiteness by placing people above land and enforcing racial and social hierarchies. Racial and social stratification inspire inequity and competition, which prevent holistic perspectives or the necessary collaboration that movements of change require.
White history tells narrow and self-aggrandizing stories about the “newly explored” land — which it strategically calls wilderness, suggesting there was no one or nothing previously occupying the land before “white” arrival. Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie expresses power as the ability to alter or redefine a story and make the story you tell about others their definitive story. In contrast, the oral histories of truth-tellers challenge white narratives because they hold the intimate features that reveal Indigenous and Black pain, the consequences of being severed from the land and the resulting loss of identity. The truths of racially oppressed people always indict whiteness.
Indigenous author and activist Patty Krawec, in her book Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining the Future, wrote:
“In order to gain access to the land of my ancestors, the colonists needed to separate us from it, to make it not-ours. Settlers needed to make us Indians instead of Anishinaabeg, which is why these broad terms can be so fraught. In order to enslave Africans, enslavers needed to separate them from their land, and in that way the ancestors of my friends stopped being Igbo or Yoruba and became Black”
Whiteness made descendants of chattel slavery perpetual orphans, severing kin and making them foreigners. Land dispossession of original peoples should be regarded as a crime against humanity because when you don’t know where you are from, a part of your identity remains undecipherable. I know this firsthand.
Stolen People on Stolen Land
“...when I say that I am Anishinaabe, I am not only making a claim to who I am; I am making a claim to a place. I am claiming land that claims me back.”
When I say I am a Black Afro-Metis woman, a Momma, and a daughter of the Underground Railroad, I too am claiming who I am, but conversely identifying a place I have no claim to. Here rests the transgression. As a descendant of African survivors who endured the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, my forebears, over many generations, built North America through their unpaid and forced labour on territory stolen from its original inhabitants. Despite facing centuries of oppression, a significant connection formed between the Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island, notably the Cherokee and the Lumbee, and the descendants of chattel slavery. They are my relations.
My ancestral legacy reveals the collusion of settler colonialism, European human trafficking, North American genocide, and chattel slavery. This relationship weighs heavily on my conscience as I revisit the profound cruelty inflicted upon Indigenous communities. Living on this “Canadian” land, which holds such deep cultural and spiritual significance for its original inhabitants, I must grapple with the implications of my presence here, with no other place to call home. I strive to honour First Nations peoples' rich birthright and enduring spirit, seeking ways to support their ongoing fight for justice and sovereignty, while balancing my thirst for freedom. My willingness to explore and reveal this tension consistently is where Earth and land justice begins for me.
My connection to the land is inseparable from my identity, and the same is true for all of us. How did you and your ancestors come to the land you live on? How has that shaped you, and what is your role and responsibility in response to these truths? These are the necessary questions that whiteness means to distract us from, because the answers will illuminate and reveal white supremacy culture's depraved and oppressive ways. Too many people and organizations are preoccupied with the manufactured codes of conduct and busyness of this white capitalist world to be curious; however, these are the questions we must all ask, especially for social and environmental justice organizations. We must understand that the land is a tapestry woven with our histories, cultures, and memories. The land reminds us of our rightful place. In its embrace, we can find solace and strength, a reminder of our location in the world and the communities we cherish. Without a relationship with the land, there can be no justice.
Common Ground
Black is what I’ve only ever been; well, Indigenous too, but I’ve never been sure where one begins and the other ends. My identity is forged by the intertwined histories of all my relations–Afro-Indigenous, Afro-Metis, and Black and Indigenous. They all express a relationship born of a perpetual struggle with colonial subjugation and racial capitalism. In her chapter of The 1619 Project titled Dispossession, author Tiya Miles writes:
“…there are gaps in our stories, gaps in Black studies where Native people should be and gaps in Native studies where Black people should be. We are not discrete categories of people upon which colonialism acts in different ways; we are a Venn diagram with areas of huge overlap.”
Afro-Indigenous descendants of chattel slavery are stolen people on stolen land, shackling my ancestors and me to this land through bondage. But that’s not where it ends.
My story is a reflection of the many histories that live in Black bodies and communities that descend from enslaved Africans. The lasting impact of this generational racial oppression makes my bond to Turtle Island (North America) constantly speculative and deeply political. The paradox of my land legacy is marked by disconnection and destruction, juxtaposed with a duty to nurture and care for Earth, the land, and its resources.
Despite the history of white people’s land dominion, African survivors of slavery and their descendants filled the void created by white violence and persecution with new vibrant identities and cultural traditions of love, tending to the land, communal uplift, and Black power. However distant and severed we are from our homeland origins, we have each other, and in our relationships, we find freedom. We must not continue to evade this historical truth.
We must confront it, metabolize it, and allow it first to shape ourselves, and then ultimately design our social and environmental movements. Only then will history meet sustainability and thus birth a holistic relationship revolution rooted in nurture, honour, and care.
Sustaining Love
In Collecting Courage: Joy, Pain, Freedom, Love, I wrote:
“What is the essence of freedom? At its heart, freedom is love. Not the kind of love that is warm and fuzzy and gives you goosebumps and makes you feel good—although it can be that. What I’m talking about is love that intrinsically informs your self-worth, that reminds you of your purpose and tells you the truth of who you are. Love reminds us of our strength as a people because of what we have survived. A love that proclaims that we are talented and that we harbour many solutions.”
These solutions extend beyond just improving our interactions with one another; they also tether us to the environment, the soil—Earth. Love is pivotal in this process, just as it is to generosity, the philanthropic fuel of the charitable sector. By fostering a sense of care and responsibility, love encourages us to nurture relationships with people and the land on which we live, even if it isn’t our homeland. This interconnectedness reminds us that healthy relationships with each other and with the Earth are essential for a sustainable future. Sustainability is the only future charitable organisations have, which means intergenerational equity must become a priority and focus in all charitable work.
“Sustainability means that we should not reduce the ability of people in the future to have the same quality of life, or better, than what we’ve had. It’s a commitment to intergenerational equity. ”
Love is the guiding principle that manifests intergenerational equity and will lead us to more harmonious living and a deeper appreciation for the natural world, ultimately inspiring actions that benefit both people and planet. Our loving pursuit does not erase the original crimes perpetrated by colonialism and its manifested whiteness, nor its lasting effect — separation from our homelands and our kin. But belonging to caring communities births another narrative that binds us together, tethers us to this land, and shouts “you belong here because you are here!” And here is where Earth Justice begins.
“Our ancestral blueprint reveals itself in expressions of mountain ranges that stretch the distance of our wandering sky. It reflects our cosmic portrait upon the face of the ocean to sit us in the company of grandfather moon - we are this place. ”
Nneka Allen identifies as a Black woman and Momma, descended from those who traversed the Underground Railroad. Her African ancestors endured the Transatlantic Slave Trade, building North America through free and forced labour. This legacy connects her to the Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island, specifically the Cherokee and Lumbee tribes.