How to Ask a Self Identified Indigenous Person for More Info & 3 Other Questions Answered

Hello, you absolutely amazing person, you. It's Andy Boucher here once again. As I mentioned in yesterday's video, I'm shooting these these videos ahead of time this week because I have two very important events that I'm involved in working with NAN or Nishna Bay Aski Nation, the first 2s LGBTQ I and the second gender based violence event. And I am honored to be asked to take part and help support that very important work. Yesterday we Talked about the 13 grandmother moons and I'm very interested to hear what you thought of it today. Totally different slant to it. The reality is this is not my main activity. I do a lot of seminars, workshops and keynote speeches during the year and recently myself and my general manager who, yes, if you've spoken to us or emailed us in any way, you know, my general manager is also my older brother and I love working with him. But recently we have put in a process that questions that are asked of me in seminar at workshop after a keynote event. I'm actually going to be sharing with you my YouTube audience as a way for you to learn. Most of my events are closed events, meaning I am hired by an organization to speak to their team or I'm, excuse me, hired by a community to come in and speak to their community members. Rarely am I speaking to the general public, which is a reminder. I am doing a very rare public virtual event in January and I'm thinking about it this weekend. Those two seminars, I've done well. I've done the Path live well. I've done Missing Pieces live a million times. I've definitely done the PATH virtually. I'm not sure if I've. I think I've done Missing Pieces virtually as well, but I've never done them virtually open to the general public. So if you're interested in attending one of my seminars, then you got to go to my website and check out the four day virtual event. It's in the shop. I'll put a link in the video notes. So as I was saying, we are going to be in the habit of every now and then I'm going to do a video answering your questions. So that's what we're going to be doing today. I have four questions from an event I did this year and I thought they were very valid questions. So I wanted to share the questions and my responses with you. So let's talk about it. Bonjour. Hi everyone. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Sane River First Nation in Treaty 3 territory in northern Ontario. And as I mentioned in the opening, I have four questions that were asked of me after an event and I wanted to share those questions and my answers with you because there's a really good chance if they, that audience of non Indigenous people had these questions, then maybe you have these questions as well for your nonprofit or business entity or corporation or department or ministry or whomever you work for. So let's get started here. The first question was, so this is for those people who are inviting indigenous into their organization or into a city space to work together, to meet together. So the question was, how do you shift gathering setup to be more welcoming for indigenous people and presenters? I always laugh when they ask me my opinions because there's the red thunderbolt woman moments. So here's my take and it is always my take. No matter what the question, you be you. Boo. Like I know ages ago someone asked me, how can I help Indigenous people be proud of their culture and traditions? And my very quick response was be proud of yours. What's going on with my hair back here? Be proud of yours. Share with me your culture and traditions and what you do. And ask your new indigenous friend or employee, do you do something like that? And, and be open to hearing what they do. Not with judgment, not you don't have to approve of it. They didn't have to approve of what you do. Just that open sharing. So no indigenous person is walking into your event or building or office space, space, whatever the case may be the venue, expecting an indigenous gathering. And I would go as far as saying that if you were to set it up like in a circle or trying to mimic one our way of being, not only does it come across as totally off, inauthentic, we going to start wondering what else are you pretending to be? So just be you. Boo. Right. Like we are not expecting our culture when we walk in there. Be welcoming, be friendly, don't assume we know where the bathrooms are or if you're going to take a coffee break, be open, transparency. But otherwise just be you. Just be you. Because if they're walking in there for the first time, when we walk in there for the first time, we are trying to figure out how to work with with you. If you're being anything but you for one, that seems very deceptive too, then it just wastes all our effort at this meeting. So help us to get to know you by being you. So the good news is the pressure's off. Whatever you would normally do, do that just Remember that we may not be used to the way you do things, so let us in on how you do things. Does that make sense? I think that makes sense. Although it's amazing how some people. That answer makes them incredible, incredibly nervous. They'd rather hear so many non indigenous people want the 10 steps. Can you just tell me what to do? That's not what it is. Like, get comfy in your skin so we can be comfy in ours. We are comfy in ours, but so we can be comfy in ours. In your space too. So you be you. Boo. Okay, question number one. So now number two. What should Newcomers to Canada know about Indigenous peoples in history? This has been a bone of contention for me for so long because a while ago I got my hands on some of the resource material that is handed to newcomers, and it was insane. It was ridiculous. The. The misinformation, the stereotypes that are continuing to be perpetrated. What an amazing opportunity. When newcomers come to our country, this could be such a beautiful opportunity to not give them the textbook Canadian history that they're just going to have to unpack later on, but just to give them the real history and let them know that we're trying to. We're in the middle of this big learning curve and we're. We're trying to come to terms with this. But it can't be Canadian history taught by the Settlers without, like, there's. There should be two components. A Settler perspective and an Indigenous perspective through Indigenous eyes. I do not hate Canada. I do not hate Canadians. I'm also not delusional, right? I know the history. I know the history because I have to. To be able to resolve it. I'm not learning all this stuff and sharing all this stuff because I want to judge people. I'm doing it so we can move past it honestly, authentically. So we got to get way in the same way. It's not just newcomers, but what do we want our kids to learn in. In public school, right? Like, I remember my daughter clearly saying when she was in university, why did I have to wait this long to learn about what happened to us? Like, I mean, why wasn't it taught in younger grades? So we're going to do way better. I would bet that the resources that are. Are out there are not only so outdated, but detrimental to the reconciliation journey. So we got to get on top of that. If anyone out there has the ability, if your entity is working, working with Newcomers, we. There's a bridge we got to build because we don't need Any more people taught the bs we really don't like. It's. We're going, we got a big enough, long enough journey to help the people that were taught the BS to unpack and learn the truth. Let's not keep adding more people taught the bs. Can we do that please, please, please. Went off and rant on that one, didn't I? Oh, holy mollies, I just saw the third question. Okay, Red thunderbolt woman zone in question number three, how to ask people that are self identifying as Indigenous more information about who they are and where they come from. Especially as a self settler needing to meet funding criteria. Boom. Okay, so a couple like I think bottom line rule as a settler, you never want to be in a position where you're deciding who's Indigenous. Do not put yourself there. That is a bomb just waiting to go off and it's going to take you out. Okay, so if like self identification, it's one of those things that the idea was good and then it just got warped. So the whole idea was Canada can't tell us who's Indigenous, we know our own. And that's why self identification became a thing because there were a lot of legit indigenous people who through some very warped out Canadian legislation ended up non status. So in the eyes of the government, they weren't indigenous. We knew they were Indigenous. So that's why self identification became a thing. But it's not just self identifying. You can't just say and then we even have people using Canadian history. Well, yes, I'm Indigenous because my great great grandmother was Indigenous, but I never learned anything about my culture. So then why are you saying you're Indigenous, you have some indigenous ancestry. There's a whole bunch of other puzzle pieces there. And the reason why they're saying they are because it's tied to funding or employment. That would make you a descendian or if it's. Yeah, it just would. So I. Why do you think I identify at the beginning of every one of my videos? Because you have the right to ask for me to sit here and share with you as an Indigenous representing indigenous people. Better be able to prove I'm Indigenous. And in a past video I actually showed my status card and my family just about crucified me because identity theft and all that stuff. But yeah, I am a member of Seine River First Nation. My community knows who I am. Never mind the indigenous community in the city I live in that I have worked in for 40 flipping years. So I. But I don't have a problem when someone Says, what community are you from? Look at me. I'm pretty fair compared to most of my family members. You have every right to ask and I'm not going to get upset. And as indigenous, we got to get better at not getting upset because to me, I congratulate people that ask me what community I'm from or if I'm status or whatever the question is because that means they're on guard for pretending. So thank you so much for helping me to protect this, this very limited funding or educational opportunities or employment opportunities that have been set aside for indigenous people. Thank you for making sure that I'm indigenous before I claim any single part of that. So what I would suggest, because you're going to get pushed back. I'm sorry, if you're the one tasked with asking, you're going to get pushback. But transparency can save you. Make sure they know. Okay, you know what? Our funders insist that the people that get access to this have to be status. They have to be able to show their status card. We have to be able to record the number. So I hate asking, but our funding is dependent on this. It's very limited and they want to make sure that it's going to X group of people. So sorry to have to ask. I was make the government the bad guy. They've been the bad guy for so long, they're used to it. But it's true if your funder is insisting you ask or your board of directors is insisting you ask, share that. Right. Just, just prepare yourself for the backlash because it's definitely going to happen. And the HO number four is how to craft a meaningful land acknowledgment. So if you look back in my videos, there's. I think it was September 2023 that I did a series of three videos on what should be in a land acknowledge or why you should do a land acknowledgement, what should be in it and what shouldn't be in it. So I'm not going to reiterate that. I encourage you to. Maybe I'll try to find them and put the links in the show notes. I could be really nice and do that for you. I am definitely going to be doing a lunch and learn on that. So if that's something you'd be interested in, your team learning that, then get hold of me and we can definitely schedule a virtual event with your team. That's an important one. If you're going to be doing a land acknowledgement and you should know why you're doing a land acknowledgement, I touch on that in the videos. If you're going to do one please put in the effort to do it right because I can honestly say there are many insulting land acknowledgments out there. They just they are not building any bridges. They are not moving us closer to reconciliation. In some cases they could be considered downright insulting. You don't want to do that. You don't want to be called out for that. So check out the videos. I'll put the links in the show notes. Yeah so there are the four questions. What kind of setup should you have in your space if you're welcoming indigenous peoples? What kind of education should we set up for newcomers? How to ask someone who's self identified as indigenous for more information and how to craft a good land acknowledgement. I hope you found this useful. Let me know comments comments I love the comments and I will see you tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye bye. It.