Discussion about Resiliency ¶
By: jackson.materi on Dec. 1, 2022, 12:04 p.m.
I found a CBC article today titled, "Resilience personified: An Indigenous women's perserverance pays off" which highlights Candace Abdilla a former drug dealer who is now in university looking to get an art's degree. While her story is incredible as she was able to serve time in jail for her offences and change her life around for the betterment of her children, what caught my attention was the idea of her being called resilient. Within this article Abdilla says, "I would like to work with women offenders, to help them get back on their feet, talking about the steps that I've taken and hopefully mentor women." which suggests that she wants to use her past experiences as a way to help other women who are going through similar struggles. While personally I feel Candace's story is an amazing example of resiliency as she has started to make good choices despite past hardships, Orange would disagree with this. As he states in his novel, "don't make the mistake of calling us resilient. To not have been destroyed, to not have given up, to have survived, is no badge of honour (137). While I disagree with his ideas, as I believe that resiliency is built through adversity and strong will, it was interesting to gain another perspective when looking at resiliency. As showcased by this CBC article, most people when asked about resilient people that they know will point to those with the most pain/struggle in their lives, but Orange flips this narrative by instead asking readers to consider the labelling of Indigenous people as resilient, just becuase they have encountered numerous tramatic experiences. Thus, while I do not agree with Orange, I can understand his position in that resilience seems to be a blanket term that is thrown around too often by popular media to describe anyone who has fought through pain in their lives.
Works Cited: https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/resilience-personified-candace-abdilla-1.3933423