Reconciliation? Remember Inclusion is NOT Diversity! (A Sampling of my The PATH Podcast)

Foreign. Hello, everybody. It's Sandy Boucher here once again. 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 I'm thrilled and honored and excited to be here to bring you yet another episode of the PATH podcast. And for those of you who haven't listened before or are unaware, we're talking about the Path to Reconciliation. And the word path is an acronym. Patience, Awareness, Tenacity, humility. These are the things we need to bring sides together, to bring indigenous and non indigenous together. We have so much work to do. Reconciliation is not happening next Tuesday, but one step at a time, we move down the path. Now, before I say anything else, I do want to acknowledge. Today is June 18th. I'm releasing this on a Sunday, and today happens to be Father's Day. And I would like to give a shout out to the fathers out there, to the dads out there watching, whether you have been present, whether you have been absent. I think, well, there's a lot of dads out there struggling. And definitely for indigenous people, we have a lot of cases of absent dads or dads that are now gone. I want to take a second, however, to acknowledge one very important fact. Whether your father was able to be there for you or not. And remember, parents aren't perfect. They inherited their own baggage and shame and guilt and had their own struggles. And a lot can't be the parent that we wish they could. I am not excusing it. I am acknowledging it. But your dad gave you the one thing you. You absolutely need to succeed. You are here. If it wasn't for your father, you would not exist. And of course, your mother was part of that, too. I gave her kudos on Mother's Day. But today, let us acknowledge that. Let us forgive them their shortcomings. I'm not saying let them back into your life if they cause you pain. You have to have your healthy boundaries. But the one. And maybe you're not old enough to do this. I'm 59 years old, so I've had a lot of opportunities to heal and grow. And there is nothing more freeing than the day that you're old enough and healed enough and wise enough and strong enough to give your parents the right to be human, to love them in spite of their shortcomings, the same way that we want people to love us in spite of ours. So today, let us take a second and thank the guys that helped us exist. What we do with that is up to us. We can't be blaming them. That's not adulting. Yes, we inherited baggage. Maybe they inflicted pain. We can heal from that. We have the power to do that. I am living proof. I was lucky. I had amazing flipping parents. Were they perfect? No. Did they pass pain on to me? Absolutely. Did they hurt me? Definitely. But I can forgive them that. So shout out to all the dads out there, happy Father's Day. Which brings me to my second point. I have three points to make today. The second point is that it's Sunday and I usually release this podcast on Fridays. And I was laughing this morning as I thought of recording this episode. And I was thinking, you know what? I should have called this podcast the Decolonized Podcast. Because I don't release a podcast. I don't force myself to have to do it on Friday. And anyone who's been following my podcast knows that half the time it's on Saturday. I was out of town last week. I was actually doing a seminar on Thursday and Friday, so I knew that I wouldn't do it on Friday. I assumed in the back of my mind I'd be able to record it on Saturday, which would be kind of par for the course. And yesterday I was exhausted, and I'll explain why in a minute. But what I needed yesterday was self care. And this is one of the things that so many people get wrong about Indigenous people that we don't feel the commitment or the dedication to the clock or the calendar that other people do. Indian time. And I'm using air quotes here, Indian time is something we get accused of all the time. And no, that is not an excuse to be disrespectful. And many, many people get frustrated. Indigenous people being late for appointments. But we are not going to traumatize our children or kick our blood pressure through the roof running down a road to get to appointment just because the big hand is touching the 12th. Now, anyone who practices their teachings also practices respect. So we are definitely getting up early enough to get there on time. Using your indigeneity as an excuse to be late is insulting to our indigeneity. But if something happens, and if it takes a little bit longer to coax the kids into the car or it takes a little bit longer to get out the door and we're a few minutes late. We believe that everything happens when it should, when it's meant to, and we are on our way, even if that means we may not get there. And by the way, we put a relationship before anything else. So if we see A good friend or an auntie we haven't seen in forever. Just outside the door, we are stopping and saying hello and acknowledging them and making sure they're okay. We understand that sometimes that's going to be our last chance to speak with that person. And again, that is more important than the big hand touching 12. Does that mean we're saying the person in the parking lot is more valuable than you and your time? If you're the person we have an appointment with, absolutely not. And when we get in there, we will 100% focus on you. But we don't kick our blood pressure up and stress ourselves out to run a life by a clock. A clock was supposed to help us organize our lives, not rule it. So I am releasing this on a Sunday because this is when I had the spoons and the emotional energy to do this yesterday. I needed to take care of myself so I can continue guiding you on this journey. And I know that may seem frustrating to a lot of non indigenous people. Reconciliation, innocent, convenient. We have. You will be required to work with people who do not behave or believe in things the way you do, believe in the same things you do. And that requires compromise. So putting that out there. And you know what? I just thought of a fourth thing I want to share with you. Something a girlfriend said that holy moly's rocked me to my world, rock me to my core. And it's so on point. So I am releasing this on a Sunday. That was my second point, my third point, why I'm releasing it on the Sunday I mentioned, I was out of town. I was actually in a First Nation community and I was doing a session on lateral violence. Now I'm not sure if you know what lateral violence is is, but it is a documented and proven direct result of oppression. There's three natural human reactions. Violence, acquiescence, which is the complete and total giving up and non violent resistance. So violence. Lateral violence is violence. Yet another form like bullying and gossiping and elder abuse and all of the forms of violence. Lateral violence is when people in the same situation turn an attack on each other, especially if one is attempting to advance. So this is the young teenager getting their driver's license and their friends or maybe even their parents minimizing it is no big deal. That's lateral violence because you just reduce the value of that accomplishment. This is someone saying they want to go off to college. And the reaction being, why in the world would you want to do that? Do you think you're better than us? Lateral violence, It's A passive or aggressive term meant to keep you from advancing a term or action or whatever the case may be and why it is so devastating. Dating. It's not delivered by a stranger. It's delivered by someone close to you, someone you know, trust or even love. It's your partner, it's your parent, it's the elder in your community. Now, because indigenous people have been oppressed and continue to be oppressed for so long, lateral violence is huge in our communities and in our agencies, and that's not changing anytime soon. It is changing. We are advancing, but it's going to take us a while to get past this. And what I so loved about this session, and I don't know if you've ever attended a seminar on lateral violence, but in the past I have delivered and I have attended sessions on lateral violence where it is really easy to identify what it is like, all the different forms it takes and how it feels, but no one was owning that they do it. And that's part of the oppression, is recognizing we're as much the perpetrators as we are the victims. So the session I did out of town, it was split two half days, delivered, you know, back to back over two days. And the first half we analyzed the situation in the community we were in. And then the second half we focused on solutions. And that meant using an old cliche, walking in each other's shoes. I gave them a scenario for them to consider, and I divided them into three groups. The first group was the victim, the person who had experienced whatever form of lateral violence the scenario I gave them, and what could they do as a victim to make this better? So reminding them that they are not helpless. The second group looked at it as the perpetrator. You're doing something that is hurting your team. And by the way, this session was called Team Building is Nation Building, realizing if you get the team right, then it helps the nation get stronger, which is a goal for so many indigenous people and a key part of reconciliation, I should say. So the perpetrators had to own that they did this, and what could they do differently to help the team next time? And then the third group was the supervisor watching this happen. What should the supervisor be doing in this case? And I had an entire team with me. And the three groups, they took turns. For the first scenario, they were the victim. For the second scenario, they were the perpetrator. For the third, they were. Were the supervisor. The result was amazing. I saw humility, I saw vulnerability. I saw honesty. At the end, I always do the round, the go around the circle and ask them what they thought of the session. And every single one of them identified that it was such a value to look at it from somebody else's perspective. And I just want to put this out to you. If you're intending or planning on intending a session on lateral violence, make sure that part of that session is dedicated to helping you understand that as an oppressed person, you do it too. If we cannot own our own negativity, like, I mean, for years we were doing lateral violence sessions, always talking about the damage caused, but never talking about who was doing it and wondering why it didn't change. We're going to own that we picked up these horrible habits along with the pain and trauma and unpacking that we did it in a safe environment. And it was powerful. It was amazing. I am so. I thank them so much for, for trusting me with their vulnerability and their stories. But I gotta say, you can well imagine after that. And then I drove home after that four hour drive. So it was exhausting. And yesterday, Saturday, I honored how much I had given out by taking time to take some in and rejuvenate. So if you were wondering where this session was or why it's being released late, that would be why. That would be absolutely why. Now, the last thing I wanted to share with you, I'm just giving a shout out to my friend. We've never met in real life, but we've definitely been in the session together. Her name is Kimberly John Morgan and she's. She's self described as a black or self described. Yeah, as a black workforce advocate and equity writer. She's a powerhouse. And she, she calls out all the inequity and ridiculousness and lack of safe spaces that she endures as a black woman. But. And she releases. You can follow her. What is her. She does like blog posts and it's just absolutely flipping amazing. Just trying to remember what is the name of it. I want to give. Oh, the Soft Box, which I just absolutely love that. And you can follow her. She's on Kofi. It's just absolutely amazing. Anyways, she did a blog post last week and I love engaging and working with other people in the DEI space. Diversity, equity, inclusion, because you know, they expand your mind and we're speaking the same language where we're. Oh, it's Junxure Consulting is her company, by the way. J U N X U R E In her blog post was one very short phrase that blew my mind with its authenticity, its truth, its power. And the phrase was inclusion is not diversity. Mic Drop. Inclusion is not diversity. And I knew exactly what she meant as soon as I read it. That if you are including someone in your non indigenous, non bipoc structure, it's still your structure. The power imbalance is still there. It's like all of these non indigenous entities trying to decolonize or trying to bring in some indigenous department inside their structures. I'm wondering why it doesn't work. Because the structure is still not diverse. Inclusion implies I'm including you in what I got going on and that's not diversity. Just food for thought. I'm not pointing fingers, I'm not judging. But I think some things have gone to change and Kimberly definitely knows they have to change. So I love her and I had to share that with you because she's absolutely amazing. Check it out. Juncture consulting. J U N X U R E consulting. I found her on LinkedIn. You can always do same. Although she's going to stand on her softbox. So make sure you got your stuff together because you know what? It's another case of allyship. Be humble, be silent, listen and learn. Because holy moly's, you can learn a lot from her. So there. For such a powerful number for indigenous people, I gave you four things that I wanted to share with you. The happy Father's Day, the fact that I don't follow clocks and calendars, that it should be called the Decolonized podcast. We talked about lateral violence and how owning you do it is just as important as owning that you experience it. And a reminder that inclusion is not diversity. This is a powerhouse episode and I hope you enjoyed it. Even though if you follow that calendar, it's a couple days late until next week. I love you. Take care. Bye. Bye.