What does a true reconciliation look like in Canada? When all reserves have access to clean water. When indigenous communities living on reserves does not have to pay twice the price for their grocery items. When police officers stop targeting indigenous people and stop dealing with them with violence. When indigenous women are not targets of sex trafficking or image for sex exploitation and amusements. When settlers like white supremacy and other races stop claiming this land as “their” land and keep the indigenous communities in the backgrounds not as the “true owners” of this land. When indigenous children and youth are accepted for their cultural and spiritual beliefs and given and necessary support for their mental health supports in their communities. That is when the true reconciliation will start, and true acceptance will start to take place.

Flowers emphasized that settlers need to accept hearing “no” from Indigenous people. They need to give up the advantages they hold in society, and speak out against their own government’s harmful actions, even when they don’t get praise or approval from Indigenous communities. Settlers should do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, not because they want to be thanked or seen as “good allies.”

Thesis Flowers argues that forgiveness, as often demanded in reconciliation politics that asks the oppressed to surrender resentment. Our state (Canada) apologies for residential schools, are one-time events, not structural transformation. Forgiveness presumes a single, past event, whereas colonialism is a continuing structure and it is still happening. It is not a past event only. Refusing to forgive Is both rejection of colonial violence and affirmation of Indigenous law, teachings, and love. It is especially justified given ongoing violence against Indigenous women and children. Flowers closes with stories of her grandmother and great-grandmother, who both enacted refusal in everyday encounters with racism and dispossession, showing how refusal can be a small but powerful reclaiming of dignity and agency.

Anger and resentment are not opposite to love here; they arise because of deep love and responsibility. Love is often directed inward toward community, culture, land, and ancestors, not toward the colonial state. Indigenous women’s resistance is powered by both love and rage.

Thesis: Flowers critiques how discourse around Indigenous women’s resistance to forgive centers around “love” for ancestors who endured violence, love for herself, and love for indigenous communities that continued to face colonial harms. When Canada asks for forgiveness for their harmful actions towards indigenous people, it is hard for an indigenous woman to forgive Canada as the colonialism and racism is continuing in Canada through discreet actions of government like not giving access to clean water to indigenous communities, not allowing their cultural practices in community areas, unfair treatments by police officer towards indigenous communities, and targeting indigenous women in trafficking and rape incidents. The anger in many indigenous women towards settlers is legitimate. Sometimes this happens in ways that take away the political importance of emotions like anger, resentment, and refusal. This relates to feminist ideas about how feelings and power are connected.

Forgiveness is impossible when harm is ongoing on indigenous communities. Indigenous women refusing to forgive also connects to critiques of Feminist Killjoy (Ahmed., 2020) by Sara Ahmad where a Killjoy feminist refuses to tolerate patriarchal or dominating behaviours from others.

Flowers critiques discourse of 'coexistence' that ignores colonial structure. I’ve seen many activist spaces that prioritize harmony over addressing power. It takes a strong soul to address structural problems like colonial violence and patriarchal behaviours the way Flower presented in this article.

The story of Flowers’ great‑grandmother’s refusal in a grocery store illustrates refusal as sovereignty and intergenerational strength. When it comes to the violence against Indigenous women, Flowers notes that activists often emphasize victims’ “lovability” to counter stereotypes, but this can sideline women who don’t fit idealized images of “loveable” frame of mind. She insists that naming ongoing colonial and white supremacy violence is necessary. Indigenous women refuse to forgive because the harm is still continuing in Canada towards many indegenous people on daily basis.

It refers to continues power and colonialism over marginalized people by settlers or by white supremacy. Settler society benefits from Indigenous forgiveness because it allows the colonial state to avoid responsibility and maintain a sense of innocence.

Narratives emphasizing that victims were 'loved' can reinforce respect towards the lost souls and the suffering families. How does framing missing and murdered Indigenous women primarily as “loved” individuals weaken our ability to confront the real source of the violence like ongoing colonialism and white male violence? Flowers also shows that narratives emphasizing that victims were 'loved' or 'innocent' can unintentionally reinforce creates a harmful idea that only “good,” “pure,” or “respectable” Indigenous women deserve to be protected, mourned, or taken seriously. This limits justice and compassion to those who fit a narrow, socially approved image of the “deserving victim.” It also sidelines women who don’t fit those stereotypes like such as sex workers, women struggling with addiction, homeless women, or women who have been criminalized.

Hul’qumi’num’ concepts show resentment is not pathological but relational. It connects to Indigenous feminist epistemologies. Indigenous feminist epistemologies connect us to what counts as knowledge, who can be a knower, and how we know. Indigenous feminist epistemology asks how gendered, racialized, and colonial power shape what is seen as “truth.” As of now “anger” in indigenous feminist is seen or “framed” as a rage or as a “bad woman” attitude in the eyes of settlers or heteropatriarchal mindsets. However, only a true indigenous woman would understand that anger is a form of love for their communities, for their own selves, and for all the women, men, and children who lost their lives on the name of “civilization” on Canadian souls. And it is showing the respect towards whose lost souls to end the continues violence and unfair treatments towards indigenous communities. I think not only indigenous women, but all the feminists who have been seeing the continues form of colonialism and inequities should be angry and should refuse to forgive until the transformation of change comes in its true form on Canadian grounds.

In this texts I read rage as ethical. Indigenous women’s rage is described as life‑affirming because colonial harm is ongoing. Canada is keep asking for reconciliation from indigenous community yet violence and injustice against indigenous communities continues. This connects to Audre Lorde’s framing of anger as a tool of knowledge.