Truthing, Defined

With my sincere apologies, this came across my screen and seemed worth sharing. The University of British Columbia created an Anti-Racism and Inclusion Excellence Task Force, which issued its report. It begins with the usual Canadian land acknowledgement, which is obligatory even if they’re not giving the land back.

We acknowledge that UBC’s campuses are situated on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territories of the xwməθkwəyˇəm (Musqueam), Skwxwu7mesh (Squamish), səlˇilwəta? (Tsleil-Waututh) and the Syilx Okanagan Nation.

Included in the report is the definition of the word “truthing.”

Truthing: the act of stating truths on subject matter considered difficult and/or dangerous knowledge in contexts of hyper policing, surveilling, and micro-managing of racialized bodies. Truthing emerges from critically informed, situated, embodied and grounded knowing that unpacks and/or illuminates complex systems and structural patterns of a problem or issue; while simultaneously addressing power relations and injustices which actively interrogates the discomfort, denial, disavowal, erasure, and censure that accompanies truthing the subject-matter. Truthing aims to bring about meaningful listening respect, transformation, and change in aggressive (overt and covert) power dynamics between oppressors and oppressed peoples. Truthing centres the knowledge of persons and/or groups whose histories, world-views, experiences, memories, modes of analysis, and
reflexive insights are systemically excluded, downplayed, diminished, and/or actively resisted by dominant group members whose historical consciousness, reasoning, rationales, and worlding activities actively (conscious/ subconsciously) reproduce systemic power  hierarchies. Often, truthing is situated in multi-dimensional auto-narrative modalities, (including diverse linguistic traditions, arts and performance, healing processes, support circles/collectives, testimonials, Commissions, Listening Sessions and Task Forces) and result in the unsettling and interrogation of hegemonic belief systems and orders.

I hope this helps and wish everyone happy truthing.

H/T Jonathon Kay