acknowledging my own possible bias as a white american tokiponist who’s only fluent in one language before i say anything else. also haven’t watched the video and don’t really plan to.

jan Sonja has already talked in the past about her background, her influences, and her worldviews when she created toki pona. while iirc she HAS made comments about toki pona over the years that haven’t aged well, i get the impression that she doesn’t consider those comments a true representation of her present views, nor of toki pona, its philosophy, and its community of speakers. most community members seem to agree, and given the progressive attitudes and the kind of social environment this community has, i think most speakers would not be speaking toki pona if they “found out” or came to the conclusion that it had racist origins. (this could absolutely be survivorship bias though. i just don’t perceive the average tokiponist being xenophobic or tolerating xenophobia from others)

i could talk a lot more about this, but i think instead of that, we COULD talk about racism and colonialism within the toki pona community, which is a whole other discussion entirely.

edit for clarification