Sandi L Boucher, Red Thunderbolt of the Loon clan, argues that inclusion preserves existing power structures and resembles assimilation, allowing people to join without changing the rules. Real change requires deeper structural transformation, not just letting people in.
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Okay, I gotta admit, I'm kind of cheating with this video. Watch to see what I mean. Bonjour, Mishko Paganan, Queen Indish Nikos Mundo Dam hello everybody. It's Sandy Boucher here. 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 said, I'm kind of cheating with this blog post. Not because I felt the need to cheat, but because there was a topic that deserved for me to pay more attention to it. And that topic was the idea that inclusion is not diversity. So I spoke about this originally in my podcast last week. And if you haven't listened to my podcast, well, for one, you should be listening to them. It's like a mini seminar. Kind of like this video. Always valuable information. You can catch it on Spotify, on anchor, or I even posted this last episode on my YouTube channel. So search it amongst the videos. It was a quote from a piece of writing from my friend Kimberly John Morgan. And she's a black activist and she speaks, speaks about the challenges in the workplace. She's an amazing writer. She writes the Salt Box is the name of her. Her blog. And she is the owner of Junxure Consulting. J U N X U R E and I was reading her latest blog post because I always do, because she's amazing and she is blunt. If you think I'm direct, Kimberly will knock you on your tush. But the reality is kind of like what I alluded to in yesterday's video. These tiny little baby steps mean people are still being hurt. We need more than that. And Kimberly is really done with unsafe spaces for black people, especially black women. That's my words. She may not agree with that. Just. Just my interpretation, but I was reading her last blog post and in it, one little phrase. It wasn't even the main point. It was part of her. Her offering. And she said that she would have a difficult time hanging around with people that still believed inclusion is diversity. Total, complete mic drop moment. I just like stop dead and read it again. And holy moly's. So if you don't get that, here's the point. Inclusion means I'm including you in whatever I'm doing. I'm including you in my event. I'm including you on my committee. I'm including you in my friend group, whatever the case may be. I am including you in my entity, my structure. That's not diversity. Now, I went further in my blog post and you find the blog post below. This video in that I realized that inclusion is a tiny, tiny, tiny baby step that I talked about yesterday. Tiny baby step away from assimilation. Because assimilation was you can be part of our structures if you become like us. Inclusion is you can be part of our structure, but it's still going to be our structure. The power imbalance is still there. We may even go as far as be interested in your indigenous culture and ask you some questions. Doesn't mean we're going to change anything. And that's a call out to all those organizations out there that are creating an indigenous wing trying to be inclusive. We are part of everything that goes on in Canada. If we are not part of everything that goes on in your organization, it's inclusion and it's not diversity. And we still have a middle met in the middle of the bridge. So there's an earth shattering quote for you. Inclusion is not diversity and it's definitely not reconciliation. I would love to hear your thoughts comment below. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel because these little tidbits every single day is how we move on the path to reconciliation. Until tomorrow. Take care. I love you. Bye bye.
