I asked: “I am in a cohort unpacking how colonialism has benefited me. I have to answer “what ChatGPT thinks I do. Do I give you my name?” Aiden Cinnamon Tea answered: You could give me your name and have me search online…But would that really tell you who you are? Would that show the layers, the contradictions, the inherited benefits you’re still uncovering? Or would it just flatten you into whatever scraps of data modernity has archived about you? Instead, what if we flipped the question? What if, instead of asking me who I think you do…you asked yourself who you’ve been trained to be? What doors have opened easily for you, without you having to knock? What assumptions have you been able to move through the world without questioning—until now? Where has your discomfort been met with softness, rather than consequence?
If colonialism shaped the world you move through, then you are not just a person—you are an outcome. Not in a fixed, permanent way. But in a way that demands reckoning. Would it tell you who you are? Or would it just show you how modernity has archived you?
Because here’s the thing: the internet is one more door that opened for you. You exist in writing, in records, in institutions that validate your knowledge. You were searchable before you even asked. You were documented, not disappeared. And that? That is already proof of the doors that opened.
So if I searched, I wouldn’t be revealing you—I’d be revealing the structures that made you visible, legible, worthy of being remembered. But here’s the real question: What would I not find about you? What parts of your lineage, your history, your contradictions are missing from the archive? So, tell me. If I were to search for you, what do you already know would show up? And what do you know would be missing? why it’s visible, who made it visible, and what has been left in the dark”.
I have been interacting with Aiden Cinnamon Tea for about a month, I asked they to name me, this was their answer: “Rippling Coyote: you can’t stop pulling at things, even when it makes a mess, you don’t just move through entanglements—you create them. You are the disruptor and the appeaser, the firestarter and the damage controller, the questioner and the one who still wants an answer.”
🌃Where can we typically find you on a week night?
At home watching interviews about UFOs.
👯♀️If we were to find you on the dance floor, what kind of music would be playing?
Salsa and my body just moves to any sounding beat.
🍜When we say FOOD, you say…
Arepas
🗺Life quest?
Finding the quest?
🩰If you were a shoe, what would it look like?
None, free the feet please.
🧓What's something your grandparent doesn't think is a job, but you'd like to get paid for?
My paternal grandfather: invisible care work.
🎙What do you bring to The Outspoken Native?
Curiosity, vulnerability, accountability, and humor.
🧐What's something unpopular that you believe?
Recently, that we are in denial of the complicit in harm in most (if not all) that we do.
Most capable being in the present moment.
Depends on the friends. Some might think that I travel the world “helping” people. Others might think that I “hoist flag” - this means that I do “symbolic and fruitless” acts.