Sandi L Boucher (Red Thunderbolt, Loon clan, Seine River First Nation) delivers an audio podcast reflecting on Indigenous engagement. She describes her personal experience as a successful Indigenous entrepreneur, outlines historical and contemporary harms experienced by First Nations (relocations, oppression, community trauma), and gives concrete relational advice to non-Indigenous listeners: approach with humility, avoid presumptuous "bulldozer" approaches, and ask to learn ("back up the bus" and the feather teaching). The piece emphasizes building bridges through humility and protecting Indigenous dignity in engagement and education.
Chapters
Foreign. Hello, you amazing person, you. It is Andy 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 I'm coming to you today with my podcast that didn't get released yesterday because there is no excuse. Excuse. It's just life happens. It's summertime in Northern Ontario and any Northerners listening to me. You know, I don't have to tell you, we take our summers seriously. We savor every flip and second of them. And considering the fire band just got lifted, yeah, not a lot of us sitting near a computer. And that's not a bad thing. It's. In fact, I hope you're listening to this on your phone or on an iPad. I hope you're not listening on your computer. If you are, what are you doing? I hope you finish up whatever you're doing and you get out there and enjoy your life. Because as we spend enough time at our computer. Can you tell I'm in a great mood? I just. I am a happy, successful Indigenous woman in Canada and I'm starting to think that's kind of a unicorn. I am so fortunate. And do not get me wrong, it is not that my work doesn't get hard. When you're working with non Indigenous people, talking about anti Indigenous racism, about decolonizing, about improving our relationships and engagement, when you're talking about Indigenous recruitment and retention, you have some hard conversations. But today, I guess I'm just totally, completely embracing the reality, the amazing reality that at least in my world, we're having those conversations. So I guess I'm not back to you. In your reality, in your world, are you having those conversations? When you look around a boardroom or a committee or a social group table, do you see Indigenous? If not, why not? And I hear from participants all the time. I live in a place where there are no Indigenous people. And you know what? That's a reality that could be absolutely true. I just always remind them to make sure that every time they think that, that they realize that was intentional. That our First Nation communities, as they are now, is where we were moved to so the settlers could develop those areas. We didn't pick all these remote places. But you know what? In retrospect, or I guess in modern day view, those remote places kept us away from a lot of problematic people. And why do you think so many first nations are hesitant about roads getting built into their communities? The remotes. Because it brings in the non Indigenous. And up until this point Our communities have a lot of problem that's called the results of oppression, violence, acquiescence, non violent resistance. All of those are natural human reactions to oppression. And we see them all in our communities on a daily basis. But it's the only place that no one's going to judge us for being indigenous. No one's even going to judge us if we have a pedophile in our family or an abuser in our family, or an addict or an alcoholic. Because chances are the person looking at us can say the exact same thing. Is that something to be proud of? No, that's reality. Again, the reaction, the, the end result of ongoing and historic oppression. But I am so fortunate. I am one of those lucky few. By the way, if you're indigenous, hearing this, start your own business. Start your own business, do your healing. Always got to do your healing. It's an ongoing process. But I love the fact that by building my own business, I created an environment in which I could grow, an environment in which I could follow my teachings, that I could choose who I get to work with. And I don't work with problematic people because as I've said a hundred times, non indigenous education can no longer be at the price of indigenous pain. That price is too high. So I, and I am so lucky, I'm sitting here smiling right now because I work with, with the best of the best. Let's get real here. The problematic, the absolutely racist individual that causes so much pain is not calling me to hire me to do a seminar. They don't show up in their seminars. Well, unless it's mandatory. And I've talked about mandatory training before, but for the most part, I get to work with the most amazing non indigenous people, people that want to lear, people that want to do better, people that want to build bridges. And I really don't put a lot of time or effort into figuring out why they want to do that. I know a lot of people slam non indigenous people for settler guilt, for white fragility, you know what? If they're willing to do better, who cares why, if they're genuinely there to learn? And I see it, I see it in the questions, I see it in the responses. I see it in how enthusiastic they are to learn. So what's not to love? And I wanted to touch on something today for those, I guess, non indigenous people who are out there who want to improve their indigenous engagement, who want to do better. And the part that always scares the daylights out of them is the first contact. We can all build relations, relationships, Once it started, but how do you start it? And I just wanted to put something out there that maybe many non indigenous people don't realize. It's one of the things I look for when considering building a relationship of any kind with someone. And I don't think I'm the only indigenous person that does this. In fact, I know I'm not. And it might surprise you, what we're looking for, we're not. I mean, we're not looking for the apology because we know what empty apologies are like. And I'm not saying your apology would be empty, but we've heard apologies doesn't really change a lot. And we're not looking for promises because again, we've heard so many promises over the years that have changed nothing. That's not high on our list either. You know what I'm looking for, and I appreciate every single time I find it. Humility. Humility, because that shows me someone is actually open to learning. If someone comes at me or comes up to me and says, so, I don't understand why indigenous people do whatever. Why don't they just. Do you hear the judgment in that? It's like every single word in that question was dripping in judgment. I'm not building a bridge with that person. That person's not getting into my home or my office. But when I hear someone say, you know what? I hate to admit it, but I don't understand what's going on. Like, why are these problems? Why do they exist? Like, what? What's been done? What didn't work? Why didn't it work? That's humility. Humility builds bridges. Egos burn them. When someone, and I call them bulldozers. Those people that come barging into First Nation communities because they know what we need, my gut reaction to that is, get back on the other side of that boundary. Get back out of this community. How could you possibly know? You've never been here. You've never talked to us. You don't know the challenges. You don't know what we've tried, and you don't know why it failed. So back up the bus. But when someone comes and says, you know what? We have a product or a service. And from my perspective, and I realize that's not the perspective, but from my perspective, I think it might actually help you guys. I'm not sure, but would you be willing to have a conversation? Because I'd love to understand more and I'd love to tell you about this, because maybe I'm out to lunch. Maybe I'm Totally wrong. But maybe I'm right. So could we have a conversation that's a bridge builder. That's what a bridge builder sounds like. And often I run into participants who have had amazing success with Indigenous engagement. Never took a training course. And then I talk to them and they are the most humble, beautiful people I've ever met. And it's like, you know what? I'm not surprised you had success because you have the key. Humility is the key. And I know that is easy for me to say. I've had 59 years training in humility. It's one of the seven grandfather teachings that Anishinaabe people live by. And I realize that is not the same in mainstream. You were taught that you better answer the phone or show up at the meeting with the answer, or at least an idea of the answer. But can we all agree at some incredibly base level that this is a cross cultural relationship? When you are working with an Indigenous nation or Indigenous communities, you are not working with another Canadian. So our culture is different, how we interact is different, our values are different. And no, we don't want to be like you because assimilation has been forced on us for long enough. Kind of like the way we are. So there you have it, my friend. There is something you can work on whether you're engaging with Indigenous people or not. Practice it. Practice the feather. Teaching that half of the feather is your side, but the other half is their side. You don't know what's going on on their side, but you can humbly ask and actually bring that feather together. So there's your assignment for this week. I'm actually giving out homework this week. Practice your humility so that you're ready when that next person shows up that needs it to build the bridge. I hope you have a super duper double delicious day. I know I'm going to. Because the future looks pretty bright. And for any Indigenous person who thinks, why, how can she say that? All I have to do is compare my life to my mom's and see how much has changed in one generation. My responsibility to make sure that happens again. To make sure my daughter can say the exact same thing. And I hope that you can say the same thing too. Until next week. Take care of you. I love you. Bye Bye.
