Walking Within Wisdom #37 Edgar Villanueva — Decolonizing Wealth — A Vision Towards a Hopeful Future

September 25, 2019

“Even institutions that exist to do good must examine how they relate to money and how their actions impact vulnerable and historically marginalized communities” ~Edgar Villanueva

On my walk today I listened to some AMAZING wisdom from Edgar Villanueva. I have been hearing so much about Villanueva, his work and his book for a while in the DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) community and I was so excited to get a chance to hear his talk.

The introduction to this interview describes, “In this conversation with Dr. Tiffany Jana of TMI Consulting, Edgar shares stories and examples of how we can make the moves we need to achieve healing, reciprocity, and solidarity, to create a beautiful future.

A bit about Edgar Villanueva… Edgar Villanueva is a globally recognized author and expert on philanthropy. His newest book Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance offers compelling alternatives to the dynamics of colonization in the philanthropic and social finance sectors. He currently serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of Native Americans in Philanthropy and is a Board Member of the Andrus Family Fund and NDN Collective. Edgar currently serves as the Vice President of Programs and Advocacy at the Schott Foundation for Public Education. There he oversees grant investment and capacity-building supports for education-focused justice campaigns across the United States.

There were SO many takeaways from this conversation I would LOVE to just post a transcript however I will need to remember some key learnings so I will do my best to do Mr. Villanueva justice.

Dr. Tiffany Jana opens with the why should the world be focused on a people first economy today? Why now?

Villanueva begins with THIS… “If not now when? First of all there is a major sense of urgency that I feel around shifting our focus on what we are prioritizing in the economy… Because of our history in this country of colonization, slavery and other mechanisms that are really connected to how this economy was built, we find ourselves in this separation based economy. An economy where we are disconnected from each other as human beings and disconnected from the planet. That false separation that we now exist in is really harming us, the planet and our communities and we need to find a way to push through this separation and reconnect to each other and this planet as a way to sustain ourselves.” {AMEN!!!}

Dr. Jana then asks, tell us about a hopeful future that heals those divides and restores balance… There is this sense of despair, there is an overwhelming number of people feeling depressed and down about the state of the world. So what is it that you see as a possible healing future.

Villanueva was back home talking to Elders of the Lumbee tribe in North Carolina. He explained he was feeling exhausted from how polarized we are in community right now. Daily reports of hate crimes and racism feels like a terrible time both here and globally. His Elder reminded him of an indiginous value that they hold in the community of “All My Relations” (which is also of course about a people first economy). For generations tribes have held this concept of being ALL RELATED. He said, I don’t feel related to everyone right now and he may not agree with everyone politically, but if I can get to a place where I truly embody the belief that we are all inescapably connected and success is completely dependant on the success of those around me, it begins to shift beyond some of the rhetoric, feelings of hopelessness and division to imagine a world where we are all connected. {YES!!!!}

Jana asks, what is the biggest obstacle to turning the corner? What is standing in the way of our organizations, economy becoming more inclusive?

We are paralized by fear, fear of losing power, separation, biases… No concept of having enough, it doesn’t matter how much we amass or how much wealth we have there is never enough we are afraid that D-Day is coming and we are going to lose everything.

Decolonizing our thinking and bringing in an indiginous worldview, is understanding we’ve got each other. We believe in reciprocity, I am going to take care of you because I know you are going to have my back and take care of me in my time of need… If we can get to a point where we “have got each other” we can move out of fear and out of the narratives that have been fed to us. This is a call in this time to be bold and unafraid.

Villanueva finished his remarks explaining, we have to think about all of our power and resources and mobilize them for good. We can’t do good with our right hand while we do bad with our left hand. Are you investing your retirement into fossil fuels and private prisons? We need to do some deep personal exploration of coming to terms with our history.

Thank you Dr. Tiffany Jana and Edgar Villanueva for bringing me such wisdom today! This discussion made me a bit more optimistic and I am going to begin to look at the world with a lense of “All My Relations” now, I am deeply grateful.

Please RUN don’t walk and read https://www.decolonizingwealth.com/

Until soon when we walk again…