Sandi L Boucher (Red Thunderbolt woman, Loon clan, Seine River First Nation) delivers a short, direct YouTube message condemning an "extraction mentality" toward Indigenous cultures. She defines the mindset as taking Indigenous art, symbols, or token people for appearances while refusing genuine inclusion, hiring, or collaboration, and gives examples (buying art for decoration, gifting Indigenous crafts to signal support, using a single Indigenous frontline hire, asking for land acknowledgments without taking further action). Her call to action: if your intent is to extract value, stay away; if you want to work together, listen and meaningfully include Indigenous people.
Chapters
I'm going to finish off the week with a really strong message, Red Thunderbolt woman style. Using us is not inclusion and it's not reconciliation. Let's talk about it. Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan and a proud member of Seine River first nation in Treaty 3 territory in Northern Ontario. And we're going to talk about those entities out there, whether they're nonprofits for profits, corporations, whatever, that are still doing that extraction mentality. And what I mean by that is, when the settlers first arrived, that was the mindset, take what we can get, take the furs, get it back to Europe without any interest or consideration to the land here, to the people here. It was just take, take, take, take, take what we can get. And what we're seeing nowadays is people still doing that with indigenous cultures and people. I'm going to take. I'm going to buy that artwork because it really interests me, so I can put it up in my office space. But I have zero interest in inclusion or hiring indigenous people or for that matter, even working with them. Un find us. We just like the artwork. Or I'm going to buy authentic indigenous artwork or crafts to give as a gift to make it look like we support indigenous people, but we're not going to do anything else. We're going to ask for guidance or land acknowledgment, but we really don't want any other input. None of that is reconciliation. None of that is us actually working together. And I really, really hope that you're genuinely interested in working together, because we have a different perspective, one that could set you apart if you're in for profit or support you. Because guess what, we know how to support marginalized people because we've been marginalized for how long? And if that's your game, then maybe you should be listening to us, not preaching to us, not teaching us, not trying to assimilate us, listening. And by the way, keep your hands off our stuff. If you're going to use it to promote yourself as something you're not, don't use us. Don't hire, as I mentioned before, that one indigenous frontline person to try to make your corporation look good, because they're going to end up leaving and you're going to have shown us your true colors. So, I don't know, my suggestion, paint yourself a better color, not a fake one, as our spidey senses pick up on that. But we got to get away from this extraction mentality. If you want to work with indigenous people just to see what you can get out of us. Please stay the heck away from us. And I don't think I can be more blunt than that. I hope that made sense. Enjoy your weekend. Don't take advantage of anyone you wouldn't. People that follow me are cool. Pass this on to problematic people. Enjoy your weekend. I'll see you next week. I love you. Take care. Bye. Bye.
