My Culture is White Superiority - (Walking My Talk Episode #2 with Laurie Harding)

Oh, okay.

And it's recording. Okay. Awesome. Hello, everyone. Mishko Paganan, Queen Additiona Kasmandodem. Once again, it's Sandy Boucher here with my brand new podcast, Walking My Talk. And as I promised, for years now I have been preaching that I believe with every cell in my body that Indigenous and non Indigenous living within Canadian borders can live, work and play together. And I've done my fair share to help in First Nation communities or in non Indigenous businesses and nonprofits to help that happen. But recently I realized, wait a minute, why don't I just show them again? So what I decided to do was create this podcast and introduce my following to all the amazing non Indigenous people I get to meet or work with or whatever the case may be. Because truly, if you're not there yet, you need to be because you're missing out on some really great, great relationships. Now, to be fair, our guest for today, I don't know from a hole in the ground, but I'm dying to because I know this is going to be amazing. I know it's going to be so amazing that I told her we can't talk beforehand because then I'm just going to wish we had taped it. So for my Indigenous following, you're about to understand, I have to tell you this. My team reached out to her to see if she'd be interested in connecting. And when she said she was interested, it comes back to me at that point. And the first thing I always do is go check out someone's LinkedIn profile because that's the platform we're using. You gotta, you gotta get this. This still blows me away. I think I've told like 10 people about this, Lori, so we should talk about that. But the first two. So if you know anything about LinkedIn under your picture, that's where you put your little, like, highlight what you do. That's the sentence that's going to get people's attention. I'm not even kidding. The first two words under Lori's picture on LinkedIn are white settler. Just owning her place. No big deal. Not making a big settlement statement. Just white settler. I like, I swear I heard angels. I was like, this is that person I believed existed. Like, oh my God. And then it goes on. It gets better. Like, if that wasn't good enough, answering the call from Indigenous organizations, like, that takes hearing us to a whole new level. She goes on to state she's an Indigenous anti racism coach and facilitator at Insight Indigenous Anti Racism Coaching Services. How many years have I been saying, quit coming into our communities and want to help us. Could you please do something about the attacks coming from your side of the feather? And look at this. Lori was out there doing this good work, and I didn't even know that. So after that big, long introduction. Lori, how are you doing, you amazing person, you?

Oh, I am so happy to be here and take every chance I can to expose those realities and speak to my people. And elder Jerry Olman, he's Stackmik and Solan Nation in bc, So I very carefully name his communities. And he was a teacher to me at the Provincial Health services Authority in B.C. when I worked for Dr. Cheryl Ward. She's Namgis. Her community is also from B.C, and she took me under her wing. And I still say, like, what did you see in me that you could help me to learn about who I am in relation to Indigenous peoples in these lands and doing. In those days, it was cultural competency. Then it was cultural safety. And we can talk about the progression of the acceptance of settlers to hear and learn about our own racism. So everything I have that I know, that I speak about is I recognize as gifts from Indigenous leaders like yourself, Sandy, looking for and following the teachings of Indigenous people and putting myself in Indigenous inequities, because it's not Indigenous inequities, it's Indigenous settler inequities. So we're missing the whole half of our. I speak when I say our. I'm speaking about my people. And Jerry said to me, you know, Laurie, you need to go. Go teach your people. And when I did a master's in social work, they put her hand on my shoulders, say, go teach your people. And you know about elders, you do what you're told. And I was. And I have been fully invested in that for about 15 years. So thank you for the invite. Happy to be here.

I know what they sign you, because every now and then, I meet people that I know I can work with, too. And it's the humility, which is not taught in mainstream. It's one of our seven grandfather teachings, so it's common to us. But every now and then, I run across someone who kind of like, I don't want to paint them as a bad person here, but they'll. They'll dismiss my work, right? And say, like, I've worked with Indigenous people for years. It didn't seem like any big deal. But when I talk to them, it's like, I can tell you why, because they're a humble person. They ask, like, I know nothing about your community. Can you tell me they didn't go in with ego? Like the one thing, the quote that I love, I have finally been around long enough that people are using my own words against me and I love it. And I have now heard many people say humility builds bridges, ego burns them. And that's a quote I've been using for years. So you are out in bc, right? And by the way, I have to say this to the followers. Did you hear what Lord, like, you might want to go repeat and listen again to what Lori just said. Because in my mind, that is the perfect example of what we need from our allies. Learn from us. Don't adopt it. Like, don't say it's your own. Right. There's a line, right? So I love that you share your teachers, but your profile clearly says I'm still a white settler. I've had the chance to read this.

Yeah, I should back that up and speak about how I identify myself as a white settler with Scottish and English colonial ancestry occupying Kawatsun, unceded and unsurrendered territory in B.C. on so called Vancouver Island, Canada. I didn't know that. I remember when I first started to learn, even learning about culture, I googled it and looked it up and it was like the arts, you know, and. Which shows how completely immersed I was in the western white view of what culture is. We did, we didn't. There's arguments and we can get into that deeper in another time maybe. Or like my culture is white superiority. I'm steeped generationally in that. So. So identifying my colonial ancestry puts me in the relationship with indigenous people. If I don't, I'm a voyeur. I'm just learning about interesting pieces about indigenous people for extraction. So I. Identifying who we are in the relationship. Imperative, fundamentally imperative.

You like, okay, creators showing off. And that's a phrase I use when things just come together that I didn't realize were going to come together. And honestly, in my work of late, and it happens every now and then, 99.9% of the time, my work is just a pure joy. I get to work with the most amazing people. But I do often work with non indigenous audiences. And every now and then I run right smack into what you just clearly defined as that white superiority. And it's exhausting, it's discouraging. It's like, still, okay, we still gotta do this dance. And. And I just love like, what's that quote that a fish can't see the water that it swims in so the fact that you identify that and you see it, because I know you agree with this, that's the challenge. Getting them to see what they don't see and definitely don't identify as. I'm curious. You said you have a master's in social work. How did that morph into what you're doing now.

Going backwards from that? I have an early childhood education certificate and a BA in child and Youth Care with a child welfare specialization. So I was delegated to teach the Aboriginal Social Work Training program and work in the ministry. When I came out and looking back, I was given the power to investigate and remove Indigenous children where I had no right to be doing that with the lack of knowledge that I had. What I had was child development. Some really important pieces. But I didn't understand white supremacy, the power that I brought into those relationships, and the danger that I could be imposing. So I. I saw that. I felt it in my body, like, this is wrong. This. I lasted nine months at the Ministry for Children Family Development and then was hired by Cowichan tribes to do child safety work. So we went from child protection to child safety, even the language transition to a supportive relational process. And I was hired there. I went for the interview, and I thought, I. We live. My office at the ministry was a block, two blocks away from the couch and tribe's office. And it might have been on the other side of the moon with the way that we practiced the work. You walk into the. The band office and it's beams, you know, wooden beams and the soft pink blush paint. And there's a phone on the counter for anybody to use. Go into the ministry office, and you have to get buzzed in through plexiglass to see a social worker. So I was. I. I felt that difference. I was aware enough to know that this is surveillance, this is control. And I felt like I was a resource broker and making sure everybody went to all the programs that they had. So the practical application of what social work is my. I thought, I'm going back to school. This is wrong. So I went back and did a master's in social work with an Indigenous specialization at the University of Victoria. And all the profs were Indigenous. And it was like, ah, this is what I need to know. Yeah, More about those impacts of colonization on Indigenous people. And also there's a impact on me as a white settler that elevated and that I benefited from the oppression of Indigenous people. So kept learning and. And then I burnt out as a social worker. Like, I can't do this anymore. And went to Caring for First Nations Children's Society that is now Indigenous Perspectives, and was teaching the Aboriginal social work delegation training program for the province. So anybody was going to go as a be a social worker in any of the indigenous 25 delegated Aboriginal communities at that time we were using aboriginal in B.C. had to have that training. And so I'm going in there, okay, I'm going to teach the law piece, blah, blah, blah. And I met Cheryl Ward, Dr. Cheryl Ward. We ended up doing our PhDs together. And I took my notepad, I'm teaching my piece, and then she starts talking. And I took my notepad, went out to the front with the students, went, oh, I need to learn this. Like, she's a brilliant scholar and academic and critical race scholar from years back and the lived experience of it. So she changed my. My worldview. And at that week that I was. We were teaching about colonial narratives and I said, oh, my God, that's horrible. Should I. Should I be doing. I saw the exhaustion. I used to say, sandy, about the weight of trying to speak to that to this group of predominantly white people always. And she said, yeah, you can teach this piece. And I was like, okay, so terrified because I'm going to be speaking treason to my people. So I taught that narratives piece. And I'm not kidding, I was shaking in my boots. I said, could you tell how nervous I was? She said, no, you did fine. I could hardly breathe, I was so anxious. So that was the recognition of my socialization, my embedded whiteness. It was like I knew there was something bigger going on here. So kept learning and working with Dr. Ward for 10 years. She ended up going to the Provincial Health Services Authority and writing their Indigenous cultural safety training program, the Sannyes program. You may have seen that. Recommend having a look at it. Sanyas ca. And that's her brilliant curriculum. So I facilitated that for 10 years. And the stereotype and discussion board is where we settlers bring our examples of harm we've seen in health care and talk about the impact on Indigenous people. And for many people, it's the first time they've ever talked about it. And they say, I've seen that. I was a kid, I had this example when I was in school, but nobody. We've been socialized to deny, deflect, only talk about the nice stuff, elevate our identity. So she changed the discourse in that. And so facilitating that was where I. I learned a lot and went back to school. Because of what I was seeing, I needed to do more investigation in that so did a PhD in education. Actually a doctor of education in transformative change. Cheryl did as well. And both of our theses are available. Mine was what's the harm? Examining the stereotyping of indigenous people in health systems and looking deeply at the data. A huge data set. So that was mind blowing for me.

Yeah.

So there, there. So there I am. Can't put it down now because it's, it's. This work is who I am. I appreciate all that you say there relationships in the work are the oxygen mass that keep us going. Right. You have 100 people that you can talk about because you can't talk about with some people because they're fragile. You know, it's a. Yeah. Defensive deflective process. So. Yeah. Thank you for the invitation to share a little bit about where I've been and where I'm going.

You're most welcome. And the reality is, I know for me, and it's probably the exact same thing for you. Like he said, there's so few people you can talk to about it because on one side you're going to run into white fragility and they don't even want to hear it. Right. Like you can't get two words in. And honestly, on the other side, the indigenous side, if they haven't had the chance to heal or they haven't had the supports that they need to get past our very insane paths, then that could be more harmful to them. So you have to like. And you end up in this horrible situation. It's not healthy to keep it in. You have to be able to express it with someone. But those people are few and far between. So I did want to say a couple things. For one, I know everything you just shared, you shared authentically. That was your journey. And I thank you so much for sharing that so openly. But I hope you also realize that there is a whole bunch of indigenous people that just took so much hope from. From what you said, like kind of. I'm attributing it to the way I felt when I heard the official apology. And I know that's definitely lost a lot of steam because it was just words and empty promises. But the day I said I took the afternoon off work, I thought I'm going to be home in my living room because I want to hear this, I want to be able to focus, no distractions. And I honestly expected whitewashing. I thought they're going to minimize it, they're going to dismiss it. And when they actually shared what they did, I was blown away. Like you're actually telling the truth. And I think that's what people who hear your journey and hear your self awareness, they're just going to be like, finally it's possible. Which is why I do this podcast. So thank you for that. But now I have a question for you. And this is just the way my brain works. You'll get used to it. It's okay. It just goes all over the place. But with your self awareness and all that you have learned. My audience is going to laugh at this because they know it's going to be a classic Sandy question, but I'm wondering, do you have any white friends? Like, no, I have.

So, yeah, that, that, that, like, does.

This.

Deflect friends off of my. And if I, you know, I Facebook, I probably lost friends. Fine, go.

Yeah. If you can't 100%.

If you, you're too triggered by this, people have lost me. Yeah. And that's okay. And I have a lot of friends who have, have wanted to learn more. So your goal is to focus on people who. And support and, and, and I've, I have many. I don't know what many. That's a, you know, quality quad.

Yeah. But it's not just one. That's the good thing, right? Oh, oh. Are you still there? Lori? Lori? Lori. Lori, are you still. I know it was breaking up a little bit. Lori's all the way out in bc, so we might have lost the connection. Hopefully, hopefully she'll come back and then I'll just cut out all this empty space in between the magic of video editing. Hopefully. Oh, oh. See what's happening? And she's back.

Oh, I'm back.

Yes, you're back.

I can see me now. Sandy, are you there?

Yep, we're back. So yay, the Joy technology screen.

Talking about.

Yes.

The numbers of people that are doing this work is increasing because of Dr. Cheryl Ward's work.

Nice.

So the Sanyas program has, I think, I don't, I'm not quite sure, but at the height of that program, maybe 40 facilitators and she trained. I was one of the trainers, three month training before they were able to do that. And we did a cross race facilitation model. She believes in that, in having a white settler facilitator and an indigenous facilitator and building our relationship in that facilitation model. So I'm not there to speak over, you know, but we watch people I know myself like tracking white person lock and load because I've been trained all my life to Listen to white people. And the indigenous person is facilitating beside me, may have said something and somebody will ask me and I will say oh ouch. Yeah, yeah, that the, the indigenous person, this is the, is the brilliant person here is the person I am learning from. And so I watch for that. And I, you know, people don't even know that. I went to a white privilege conference in Memphis in 2009 and Tim Wise was there. All the heavy hitters and anti racism and white settler mind blown wasn't settler because they were talking about whiteness, but not white colonial settlerism. So, so we went in white caucuses and I never heard what's a caucus in white. You mean you're separating us out? Where's the brown people? They're the people who know all this and then realized that we have work to do on our own and realized that I had been programmed all of my life to learn from white people. School Dr. Any person in a position of power. White, white, white, white, white, mostly white males. So the patriarchy. So where I was going with that was the cross race facilitation model where you have white facilitators who know about critical race and who know about settler colonialism because it's not just putting us together and elevating indigenous voices because we still leave the weight, can leave the weight on the indigenous facilitator as well. So it's, it's a training model that, that she created at, at Sannyas and so keeping and also racialized people of color who are may not identify or recognize that they have settler benefits as well. Coming here with completely different, you know, maybe from war torn countries facing racism as well, but not the same as looking at indigenous specific racism. And that's the goal and to keep our focus on that. Where we see people wanting to conflate anti racism without separating out the specific uniqueness of indigenous specific racism and denying and deflecting from sovereign rights and that we are all on indigenous land and all of us settlers, regardless of our ancestry are benefiting from that. So there's nuances in that teaching that that are pretty, were have been and still are and always will be important for me to consider and learn more about.

Yeah, there is so much of what you just said I agree with and, and I definitely don't come at it from the academic lens. I come at it from my traditional teachings. But it does my heart good because we're saying the same thing. So as Anishna big way, so Ojibwe, I reference the eagle feather often Obviously the most sacred item to me. And I always get people. I invite my audiences to consider that half of the feather represents indigenous peoples and the other half represents Canadians. And when we come together, we're repairing this feather, which means Canada can fly to heights it's never even seen before. But we're ripping that apart when we choose not to. To learn what we need to learn to come together. And I love to me that co facilitation model. Is that right? It's bringing the feather to life to have the two voices. Because you're gonna love this. Every now and then you hear a comment that even makes my head spin. Don't project your stuff onto me. But it came to my attention that some people were saying, non indigenous people were saying that our conversations about reconciliation, their response was, it's not reconciliation, it's retribution. And I was like, I have zero desire to put your families through what our families have been through. Like none. I don't hate Canadians. I hate what happened. I hate what the government has done and continues to do. I want to educate the people that think that's a good idea. Right? But no, that's not my culture. Punishment, control, all of those things that you talked about and identified, like not even part of our culture. So don't project your stuff onto me. Right? So. But one thing you pointed out and I was just like, like, you're saying truths. I know, but it's like you're saying them out loud. This is amazing. The fact the two facilitators. Indigenous facilitator, says something amazing. And their comfort level is to ask you the follow up question. We have seen that play out in so many different arenas a million times. Right. Like you said that train to lock and load. I love that. Right. So, yeah. How long. So what do you do now? Like, are you doing facilitation? What. What are you doing in the present?

Yeah. Not sure if we're frozen. Can you hear me? I can hear frozen, but yeah.

And on my end.

So, yeah, I'll just keep going. Okay. It froze for a minute there. All right, so now. Okay.

I. I can hear you. Okay.

The wheels are turning, but I'll just keep going until you tell me you can't hear me. So now as a white settler facilitating indigenous specific anti racism. Okay, great. I work for I only you'll see on my website. Okay, great. I only.

Oh, no, gone again. Laurie. She'll be back. She'll be back. There she is.

Brilliant woman.

I can hear you.

We're doing for the last four Years we've been doing webinar series in Indigenous Pacific anti racism and providing webinars and workshops for the faculty of medicine there.

Nice.

And also for physicians in the north in Manitoba. And now we have a series coming up for physicians in the north of Ontario at the request of an indigenous physician and also a fall at the University of Victoria in the School of Public Health and.

Oh nice. Okay. Oh no. Lori, where are you? Lori?

Lori, do the work here.

Oh, are you back?

So I was invited. Oh, I'm here. Okay. Do you think you caught that last bit?

I don't think so.

So that's two places where I'm doing.

Oh, you had mentioned that you're at the university and then it kind of cut out after that.

Okay. I'm at the University of Victoria teaching one course. It's a September to December in the School of Public Health and Social Policy and it's Indigenous Global Health. So I will be learning a lot because my focus in Indigenous health is in indigenous specific anti racism and in a Canadian context and in all the literature that I've been reading along the way. Any colonial country will have those racist impacts. In Australia us the global effort to the global genocide and assimilation efforts. They're not related. They're so similar. It's really I think about the video rabbit proof fence in Australia and seeing that context like it's same same same the. The powers that that be or that. And they're still there. So those assimilation policies are still there. They're masked, they're changing. Let's. It's. I think of Abraham Kendi who had this saying that racism is like well he said Cadillac. There's a new model every year. Maybe we could say it's like a Prius or I don't know but it morphs to fit the need to maintain and control resource extraction and the control over indigenous people on any lands. So it's not going. It's. It's in the government's agenda and they feel that they're help helping. So watch out for the saviorism there. So. So working at UVic in that course and then also I do coaching. I coach some people at different universities and I've been surprised that I created my website insight antiracism.com with and the tagline is settler to settler to teach my people. And I've been contacted by several indigenous people wanting to unpack the stuff they're dealing with and we, we, we identify what's going on and plan a response to what's backed up by literature by, you know, we do an assessment, deconstruct and reconstruct what they've experienced, the racist reality. And they've expressed a lot of relief that there's a place to go, because they have said when they go to their people. Again, Indigenous people are burdened overwhelmingly with this work. And then if you're going to tell someone else your problem, it's not your problem. It's actually the violence you're experiencing. It's the settlers problem. But they. We aren't doing much about it. And it's. It's coming. We see so many apologies, man, this year. Hey, nursing doctors, everybody's apologizing. And then there's new standards coming about. So those little progressions are happening. And then the. The big piece around recognizing Indigenous sovereignty and indigenous leadership. So. So I am very careful to. If I'm asked to do something as like, who's. Who's the indigenous organization that's doing this, who has the rights on this land, who should be doing this work? And how can I be. I say I'm a backup singer. I'm happy to jump in and help and do what I can because of that weight and to speak the difficult things with my people. Like, people learn from my identification. It's like you. There's no ex. You slam some of those exit doors when a white person is saying, yeah, that this is my reality. What you're talking about is not uncommon. It's actually normal. And this is our work to do. So people kind of go, there's. They can't say, oh, well, you're indigenous. That's your reality. And you know, you're biased because white people. This idea that white people aren't biased.

Yeah.

Fish bowl.

Yeah, exact. Oh, my. You have no idea how much I needed this conversation. Like, just the timing was absolutely perfect. So, ah, I just love now. So we have to stay in touch. I hope you realize that.

Happy to do. Happy to do that. I learned from this as well. And these relationships are oxygen masks for me as well. So I always say that in teaching that when you're in a engagement, you're engaging together in this work that will keep us going and we can't let the white supremacy win. So.

And you know what? Here we go again. It happened again. Stop that. Totally showing off. But I have said to so many audiences, non indigenous audiences, that, like, I start off by saying, you are my fuel. The fact that you're here and you want to learn and you're trying to understand, like, that's the hope I need. That's the fuel I need to keep going. Even if you don't have it yet. The fact that you're trying, the fact that you're open to hearing and learning is not anything my mom knew in her lifetime Time. Right. And I always, I rest on that in one generation has changed so much. Yes. We've got a lot to do and there's a lot of work, but it is. We have to acknowledge the steps that are. Have been taken and are being taken because that's the fuel. Right?

Absolutely. Yeah.

So inside antiracism.com right?

Yeah.

Yes. Amazing. Can you.

I created the website just to say because this is a long conversation and people ask me what I do. And I was going, oh, do you have an hour? Can you give us the three minute Coles note? And what you do? I go, well, that's a little bit difficult. So I. The website was a place to answer those questions because people, rightfully so, asked me who I am, why I do what I do, and influencers, my background. Where's your credibility? And rightfully so. I take no offense when people say you're a white woman. Why should I listen to you? Or whether they're indigenous or not. I think it's valid to ask those questions. So my website answers all that. And then the opportunities for services, which they're all. It's all about engagement in the work and supporting people. I'm an advisor for grad students at UVic and I excited with, as you say, those people who are invested deeply. I only take requests from somebody who's doing this work, indigenous specific, anti racism work from whatever field, from mental health, from child welfare. It fits everywhere. It's, you know, we're undoing or exposing. I don't know how much we can undo hate to say it. We can expose and do something about those realities and relationships. So. So I'm advising students one at a time because it's a lot of work and that I want to be able to watch what they're reading their papers so we can unpack our own internalized white supremacy together. Mine and. And theirs. Yeah.

And you know what else I know my indigenous followers needed to hear and I know I needed to hear was your point that it's not like other people don't experience discrimination and racism in the whole nine yards, but anti indigenous racism is like a whole different animal. It's in grain. And I know, I don't know if you know this, but I live in the city of Thunder Bay, which is okay. And everyone reacts that Way when I say I don't need to say anything else. Right. Except I do say the reputation is well earned. Right. Having lived here most of my life and had to actually leave to be able to unpack what this place had taught me and come back with a different vision. But at one point in time, because I do wish the city could change, I got involved with, for long story short, an anti racism type committee. And one of the first things that was shared with me was they wanted to make sure that the makeup of the committee, that every group that experienced racism was represented. I. You see where I'm going here. And it's like, can we look at the incidents that happen? Like, have you noticed that. I'm not saying I'm not trying to minimize the other experiences, but have we noticed that a percentage, a large percentage is anti indigenous and those roots go way deep. Right. But I, I was talking to the wall. It's not anything they were even open to hearing. So I realized I'm sitting in the wrong room.

They're thinking you're biased. Like, you're biased because you're indigenous. And what I say to those people is that we need to focus on indigenous specific racism because we are all sitting here on indigenous land and benefiting from indigenous people. And it is unique. It has specificities that are not the same, that must be examined, and the ratios of inequities are unparalleled.

So thank you.

Back off. Yes.

I'm not part of this video. And sending it to them, it's like, this is what I should have said, right? That's awesome. Awesome. Lori, you're amazing. I so needed to hear your story and I know my followers did too. If ever you need any support or encouragement or just someone to vent to, reach out, I would be happy to be there. And I know, yeah, there, you could count on it, hon. There will be times even just to touch base, you know, every now and then to hear how are you doing? Because this can get heavy and it can get challenging. Right. So thank you so much for agreeing to come on the show.

Oh, thank you for the invitation. I'm so appreciative to have these conversations and like I said, thinking about Jerry and go teach my people. I appreciate every opportunity to expose and share the lessons I've learned from indigenous people. So I have a responsibility to do that. So thank you for helping me with that. Much appreciated.

Thank you so, so much. And thank you to the viewers for checking this out. I am so thrilled I've been able to introduce you to Lori. And of course, I have many more amazing people for you to meet. Until next time. I love you. Take care. Bye. Bye.

Bye, bye.