Christian Terminology in Indigenous Centred Spaces

I'm going to jump right into this so the people that want to freak out don't waste any time. They can just bop off my video and go on their way. I am not a Christian. I have no interest in being a Christian. I do not need to be saved. Okay, now that we got that out of the way, I am Anishinaabe Kwe, an Indigenous female committed to Indigenous Canadian reconciliation and for the people I work with and for myself, training to do this work, it involved a lot of unpacking. What I mean by unpacking is looking. The process of looking at the things you were taught, often as a child, deciding, do they have merit? Now, with my adult brain, does this help me, or was it just a stereotype? And deciding what you're going to keep as well as adding new knowledge. The easiest way to explain it and why we use the term unpacking is to imagine you have a suitcase and that suitcase was handed to you on the day you were born. Well, almost instantly, people started adding things into your suitcase. It's all the things you saw, all the things you heard, all the things you experienced, all the things you were taught. But the same thing happened to the people that were now raising you. And if they didn't take the time to unpack and get rid of the untruths, the stereotypes, the misinformation, then they would have unknowingly passed that on to you or even intentionally in some cases, because they still believed it to be true. As adults, we can look at that suitcase and decide what stays in it. We can choose to add in a killer new sweater, and we can get rid of the Speedo. Nothing requires more unpacking, in my opinion, than Christianity as it relates to Indigenous people. Let's talk about it. Hi, everyone. Mishko Paganung Kwe nadishnikas Mung Dodem. 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. In Northern Ontario. Think Ontario, Manitoba border. And as I mentioned in the opening, I have dedicated my life to helping build respectful relationships between Indigenous and non Indigenous people living within Canadian borders. But to do that, we have to have context. We have to look at what happened so you understand how we got here, so we can plan on how to get to where we want to go. Because remember, reconciliation benefits and everybody. So I want you to imagine for a second, because I'm not into slamming the settlers. They came here with their own suitcase and the knowledge and information they were given. So I want you to imagine for a minute we're going to use this image representing Anishinaabe First Nation, Ojibwe community. And it's got all of its structures, justice system, a governance system, an education system, our spirit, spiritual teachings. They just don't happen to look anything like their European counterparts. Now along comes the settler and he only has his cultural lens, his references to look through, walks around the community. He freaks out because he doesn't see a town hall and assumes we don't govern ourselves. We know now that's inaccurate, but there's no way he could have assumed anything else based on his limited knowledge. He walks around and doesn't see a courthouse or a jail and he assumes we're lawless. He doesn't see a school, so he assumes we don't educate our children. And the one that went on to decimate us the most, he doesn't see a church. So he doesn't believe we have spiritual teachings based on this. The settlers and the people in charge of the settlers decided that everything to do with indigenous cultures had to be thrown out. It was subpar. It must be replaced with European teachings and Christianity. Now that was in the past, but the reality is there are churches that send out missions to other countries to build schools and educate them on Christianity in modern day. Trust me, that one I still don't understand. Because the reality is, remember Back to back teaching? I'm using this so much lately. Back to back teachings means I view things differently than you. It also means I'm going to live my life differently than you. I might have different teachings, but Back to back says we can actually help support each other without demanding that the other become exactly like us. Now, I think in North America, a lot of people are starting to get this, but we also have to acknowledge, and this is something I didn't realize that and still I until I started working with my amazing business coach in the uk, North America, whether we're talking about, I'm not sure about Mexico, but US and Canada for sure, for sure have a strong Christian component. And that becomes obvious in our language, which I again didn't realize until I was speaking to someone who, who doesn't have that kind of environment they live in. So some examples for you. Oh my God. Do you see the tie to a Christian history? Christian teaching, we use the word God. What about Amen? Every single time someone says something online that we agree with, I actually, back when I had a Facebook business page, I actually banned the word Amen. On my page. If people used it, I would either ask them to remove it or I would remove the comment. Can you talk about backlash? But if you understand what Christianity did to indigenous peoples, it shouldn't be a surprise that we don't want that forced on us or having to endure that. Now, there's a lot of indigenous people that are Christian and wouldn't mind at all. But probably not an assumption you should make if you're trying to build bridges. Another one. I've had this happen a few times recently, not for a long time. And now it's back. People telling me how blessed I am. Okay? And let's not even talk about Christmas and Easter. That's a whole different ball game. So I have another challenge for you today. If you're Christian, all the power to you. You do, you boo. I am never going to tell you that's wrong. Even if you're indigenous, I'm not going to be the one that's going to tell you you're wrong twice. Someone in your family history said was told that their traditional teachings were wrong, which is how Christianity entered your family tree. I'm not going to tell you what to practice, but in an indigenous centered space like mine, or in any other indigenous centered space, challenge yourself not to use those phrases that are rooted in Christianity now. Like I said, really good chance no one's going to mind. But why would you endure that? Remember, Christianity was forced on us. So how about just out of respect, you're going to practice not using those terms now? Doesn't that make sense? And why? This came to me the other day. I was I do my morning message and I share it on various social platforms, including in the posts on my YouTube channel. And I had made a comment about just I believe I'm paraphrasing. I tried to find the comment. I couldn't. I didn't remove it. But I did. Unless they did. Maybe they did the I had said something about how absolutely amazing Creator is, which is my teachings, my worldview. And they came back and said something along the lines of just like you, I make a point of thanking God every single day. So all I said in response is there is no God in my world, but I can totally understand that there is in yours. Now. Again, I couldn't find that comment. I wonder if they took offense to that. If we can't speak up and correct when something inaccurate is said, how are we ever going to build this bridge? If it becomes about you and your feelings, you're no longer considering us. So we have to make that effort. I need you to make some effort, and this is something you can do. Seriously. If you say, oh my God, no one's calling you out for that, but just challenge yourself to say something else. Thank Creator is something I say all the time. Where other people say, thank God, that's fine. But when you're on the page or the YouTube channel of someone who is not Christian, maybe, just maybe, that's not the place to express your Christianity. I think you can understand why. And if not, that's something you have to unpack. Until tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye. Bye.