A short talk (video/transcript) by Sandi L Boucher (Red Thunderbolt, Loon clan, Seine River First Nation) urging Indigenous people to create and inhabit Indigenous-centered spaces and to consider Indigenous entrepreneurship as a path to empowerment and reconciliation. The speaker emphasizes non-confrontational 'rally' rather than 'battle' language, cautions against lateral violence, and encourages businesses aligned with Anishinaabe values.
Chapters
Considering today we're starting a new week and ending a previous month, I thought it was the perfect time for a good old Indigenous rally cry. Not a battle cry, a rally cry. Why? Let's talk about it. Hi, everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine River First Nation in Treaty 3 territory in Northern Ontario. And like I mentioned today, July 31, the entry for today is called an Indigenous rally cry. Now, before I talk about the rally cry, let's talk about why it's not a battle cry. I'm all about reconciliation. I'm all about building the bridge. I'm all about indigenous and non indigenous actually working together. Going to war with each other is our history, not our future. So I call things out. I definitely point things out when they're not appropriate or something needs to change. But I don't attack. I don't think we need a battle cry. What we need is a rally cry. So this video and blog post is definitely going out to my indigenous brothers and sisters. You've heard me talk about how empowering it is to sit, stand, work, love, play in an Indigenous centered space. And I know that to be true because that's my life. This is my home office where I run my business. I pay for all my own bills, I make all my own products. I decide who I'm going to work with. My life is Indigenous centered. But it wasn't always that way. And if you haven't experienced that yet, you may have, maybe you just didn't realize it. If you have ever spent any time on a lakeshore or by a river that has been untouched by human hands, no development, that's Indigenous centered space. That's the kind of space our ancestors existed in. Feel that, breathe that in, enjoy that, do that as often as possible. But this rally cry, I'm encouraging you to create your own indigenous centered space. Whether, yes, start with your bedroom, then your whole home, then your circle of friends. And especially I want you to consider starting your own business. I've seen it time and time again. Indigenous people I know well, they all want to take social work and I get it. Their hearts in the right place. They want to help their community heal. Get it? I think we have enough social workers. Just my opinion. Or they go to work for our nonprofit agencies. Why? Indigenous space run by us in our way, encouraging our traditions, our ceremonies and our language. Of course you're attracted to that. It's also covered by funding rules and government purse strings and all that other fun stuff, you still don't have a free voice, even if it feels like you do sometimes. But let me tell you, when you start your own business, you have a voice. I do not want you starting your own business if you're going to use it to attack our own. No more lateral violence. If you're going to do that just so you can criticize other people, please don't. But if you're going to do it to strengthen your own voice, to share what you know our people need to heal, then let me be the first one to encourage you. If you need more encouragement, send me an email. I'd be happy to provide that. We need way more strong indigenous voices, and strong indigenous voices need indigenous centered spaces. So get out there, start your own business. There's nothing I love more than the fact that I make a very healthy income in line with my teachings that all the ways I do business are in line with my Anishinaabe values. I didn't have to give up who I was to be successful. Truth, I had to remember who I was. Now, word of warning, it's going to be the biggest growth curve you've ever been on. Running your own business teaches you to you gotta face those ghosts, you gotta confront that. That all the lessons poverty taught you, all the disempowerment, you have to unpack that. But let me be the first to say, the journey is worth it. So there you have it, a good old fashioned indigenous rally cry. We gotta rally together. We gotta support each other and we need to honor and create way more indigenous centered spaces. Until tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye bye.
