Sandi L Boucher explains why she shares educational content freely. Authenticity and the ability to answer follow-up questions make it hard for others to steal her work. She encourages people to share it widely, with or without attribution, as part of reconciliation and cultural memory.
Questions this video answers
Sandi L Boucher (Red Thunderbolt)
Seine River First Nation, Treaty 3 Territory (Anishinaabe, Loon clan)
August 24, 2023
Chapters
Okay, this video is probably long overdue considering how often I'm asked about it or someone comments. It's about how much stuff I give away for free and why. I'm not worried about that. Let's talk about it. Bonjour. Hi, everybody. 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 Northern Ontario. And today, like I mentioned in the intro, I want to talk about how many people out there are concerned about me. They're concerned about how much information I give away daily for free in these blog posts, in these videos, in my email responses to People. There's so many ways I give away free content, and the concern is always, aren't you afraid someone's going to steal it? Aren't you afraid someone's going to use your words and say they're your own? Okay, that is such a colonial way of looking at things. So, one, I am absolutely not concerned about someone stealing my stuff. And here's why. I want you to imagine for a sec that someone is pretending to be me. I wrote a blog post or put out a video with the teaching inside. Totally resonated with them. So they go to whatever following they have and they share it as their own. And that might work once or twice, five times, but eventually that person's followers, someone's going to ask for clarification, someone's going to ask for them to expand on whatever they just shared, and that's when they're going to be exposed because they don't have the core knowledge to back up what I wrote. So I would love it if you would share my stuff. And whether you put my name on it or not, hitting share is like the biggest encouragement. And. And I just love you for it because it helps me create change. So if you want to do something that would be a really awesome thing to do, by the way, subscribe to this channel. Another awesome thing to do, I gotta reach way more people. But if you share something or you share, like verbally share a story with someone and you forget to mention my name, like, don't lose sleep over it. Because if there's one thing I encourage everyone to do, you really got to start listening to what you're listening to. Like, consciously listen, especially like with our politicians and leaders nowadays. Listen. Does it sound like them? Does it resonate? Is it authentic? Can they back it up when you ask them a question? That is your job to make sure that who you're listening to is the author of the words and feel please feel free to ask them where'd you get that? Or or ask them a question about something else that's related and see if they can respond. My job is to make sure to provide content that you would want to share. Because remember, I've said it a hundred times as Anishinaabe, we don't do headstones. We don't need some permanent monument saying we were here. The onus is on us to be memorable so that you'll remember we were here. I hope that made sense. So share away and and I am going to continue to share because my intent is reconciliation, which means I need to help you with your education or your empowerment or both. We can do this together. So share. Don't forget to subscribe until tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye bye.
