Topic: Unreconciled: Family, Truth, and Indigenous Resistance (Allen Lane, Sept. 21 2021)
Livestream Details: On November 2nd, 2021 Rotman Events will email paid registrants the link to the livestream.
Ticket & Book: Your registration fee includes access to the livestream, a hardcopy copy of Unreconciled and shipping fees. The book will be shipped to registrants after the event.
Please note: The stated registration fee for this event only applies to customers residing in Canada and the U.S.A. If you are registering for this livestream from outside of these countries, please contact events@rotman.utoronto.ca regarding your registration as shipping fees vary depending on your location.
Book Synopsis:
A prominent Indigenous voice uncovers the lies and myths that affect relations between white and Indigenous peoples and the power of narrative to emphasize truth over comfort.
Part memoir and part manifesto, Unreconciled is a stirring call to arms to put truth over the flawed concept of reconciliation, and to build a new, respectful relationship between the nation of Canada and Indigenous peoples.
Jesse Wente remembers the exact moment he realized that he was a certain kind of Indian--a stereotypical cartoon Indian. He was playing softball as a child when the opposing team began to war-whoop when he was at bat. It was just one of many incidents that formed Wente's understanding of what it means to be a modern Indigenous person in a society still overwhelmingly colonial in its attitudes and institutions.
As the child of an American father and an Anishinaabe mother, Wente grew up in Toronto with frequent visits to the reserve where his maternal relations lived. By exploring his family's history, including his grandmother's experience in residential school, and citing his own frequent incidents of racial profiling by police who'd stop him on the streets, Wente unpacks the discrepancies between his personal identity and how non-Indigenous people view him.
Wente analyzes and gives voice to the differences between Hollywood portrayals of Indigenous peoples and lived culture. Through the lens of art, pop culture, and personal stories, and with disarming humour, he links his love of baseball and movies to such issues as cultural appropriation, Indigenous representation and identity, and Indigenous narrative sovereignty. Indeed, he argues that storytelling in all its forms is one of Indigenous peoples' best weapons in the fight to reclaim their rightful place.
Wente explores and exposes the lies that Canada tells itself, unravels "the two founding nations" myth, and insists that the notion of "reconciliation" is not a realistic path forward. Peace between First Nations and the state of Canada can't be recovered through reconciliation--because no such relationship ever existed.
About Our Speaker:
Jesse Wente is an Anishinaabe writer, broadcaster, speaker and arts leader. Born and raised in Toronto, his family hails from Chicago and the Serpent River First Nation. Jesse is best known for his 24 years as a columnist for CBC Radio’s Metro Morning, and he spent 11 years with the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF)—the last seven as the director of film programmes at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
An outspoken advocate for Indigenous rights and First Nations, Métis and Inuit art, he has spoken at the International Forum of Indigenous Peoples, Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, the Canadian Arts Summit and numerous universities and colleges. In 2017, Jesse Wente was named the inaugural recipient of the Reelworld Film Festival’s Reel Activist Award. He was named the first Executive Director of the Indigenous Screen Office in February 2018, and received the Association of Ontario Health Centres Media Award for 2018. He has served on the boards of directors of the Toronto Arts Council, the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Festival, the Native Earth Performing Arts, and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Jesse Wente was appointed Chair of the Board of the Canada Council for the Arts for a five-year term effective July 28, 2020, to July 27, 2025.
Questions: events@rotman.utoronto.ca, Megan Murphy