Claiming and Connecting
Week 6

“What is real?  How do you define real?  If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.  This is the world that you know.  The world as it was at the end of the twentieth century.  It exists now only as part of a neural-interactive simulation that we call the Matrix.  You’ve been living in a dream world, Neo.  This is the world as it exists today . . .  Welcome to the Desert of the Real.  We have only bits and pieces of information but what we know for certain is that at some point in the early twenty-first century all of mankind was united in celebration.  We marveled at our own magnificence as we gave birth to AI” (The Matrix).
                     -Morpheus 

“The reach of imperialism into ‘our heads’ challenges those who belong to colonized communities to understand how this occurred, partly because we perceived a need to decolonize our minds, to recover ourselves, to claim a space in which to develop a sense of authentic humanity” (23).
                    -Linda Tuhiwai Smith 

“In Navajo, a warrior is one who can use words so everyone knows they are part of the same family.  In Navajo, a warrior says what is in the people’s hearts.  Talks about what the land means to them.  Brings them together to fight for it” (xxiv).
                    -Tiana Bighorse 

“I am as hard-working and broken and human as the next person, despite my complex identity.  I don’t claim to know everything, but I know some things and I know them well enough to explore them and honor them through poetry” (13).
                    -Michelle Tea 

“Connectedness positions individuals in sets of relationships with other people and with the environment. . . To be connected is to be whole. . . Connecting is related to issues of identity and place, to spiritual relationships and community wellbeing” (148).
                    -Linda Tuhiwai Smith 

“Separate knowers try to subtract the personality of an individual from his or her ideas because they see personality as biasing those ideas.  In contrast, connected knowers see personality as adding to an individual’s ideas and feel that the personality of each group member enriches a group’s understanding” (163).
                    -Patricia Hill Collins