Sandi L Boucher argues that non-Indigenous people engaging with Indigenous communities need one core trait: the ability to handle conflict. She emphasizes being prepared for correction, staying calm when called out, and approaching with humility rather than assuming education or past friendships will smooth the way.
Chapters
Hello, you absolutely amazing person, you. It's Sandy Boucher here once again. And as I promised yesterday, we're starting this year out strong. I want to give you some information, some, some principles or guiding rules that you can follow that are really going to help you up your Indigenous engagement game. So over the last, I don't know, four months, five months since I've really been focused on YouTube and engaging with my YouTube community, I I'm always analyzing, I'm always reflecting, I'm always asking creator, what is the lesson here? And when I saw the comments, the feedback I was getting from different people, I realized there is one thing that as a non Indigenous person, you really need to have to successfully engage with Indigenous people. There's one personality trait or one ability, one skill set that you really need. I'm wondering if you can guess what it is. If you've seen my other videos, you might think you're able to. You might also be surprised. So let's talk about it. Foreign. 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 as I mentioned in the opening, there is one thing based on my observation and interactions with the people here on YouTube, there is one thing I believe non Indigenous people really need to possess to be able to work successfully with non Indigenous people. So I invited you in the opening to take a guess, see if you could figure out what it is. And I'd be willing to bet that you're going to be surprised at the answer. So, handy dandy index card again, of course. One I'd be willing to bet quite a few of you mentioned or answered with humility. How many times have you heard me say humility is the bridge builder. Humility builds bridges, ego burns them. I am not saying you're wrong. Humility means you won't be a bulldozer, bulldozer coming into our communities and just pushing your way on us. We've had enough of that, thank you very much. Don't need any more of that. And I believe humility is super important. But I've seen people with humility that were either incredibly challenged or failed to successfully engage with Indigenous people. So the answer is not humility. Even though I believe you definitely need to have humility. Now I'd be willing to bet some other people answered with, well, you need an education. You need to go study Indigenous peoples and our ways and means. You need to understand our ceremonies and how we look at the world. You need to understand an Indigenous worldview. Almost choked saying that because I believe if you think that's what you need to successfully engage with Indigenous people, you are standing on incredibly shaky ground. Because I don't care how many courses you take and how many events you go to. And please, with the I have Indigenous friends, let's not go there. You are never going to know what it's like for the Indigenous people you haven't worked with yet or the community you haven't worked with yet. And this is where humility comes in. Being, please take that pressure off yourself. Like, I know so many non Indigenous people that put so much stress on themselves. I need to know this and this and this. And then they go in and act like, well, I know what you need. I know what's important to you. Pure ego, shaky grounds. It is so much. But you know nothing about our worldview or our community if you've never been there. But you can build the most amazing bridge by asking us, why do you do that? Don't ask us like, do you use tobacco ties? Unless you see us using a tobacco tie. Don't go to what you know. Get out of your head and observe what we are doing and ask us questions about that. If and always. Do you mind if I ask? Humility. Okay, so humility is needed, but it's not the one thing I'm focusing on today. And education that's such a mainstream way of looking at this relationship. Believing that you're going to learn how to engage with Indigenous people without engaging with Indigenous people is problematic at its core. So what is the one thing that I have seen burn so many bridges? What is the one trait or skill that non Indigenous people need to have? Because without it, bridges burn. That would be the ability to handle conflict. If you start engaging with Indigenous people, there is a really good chance at some point you're going to say something or do something that either makes your Indigenous counterparts uncomfortable or it comes across as downright disrespectful. One, if we take the time to point out to you that that made us uncomfortable or was disrespectful, that is a huge kudos to you. That is what we are saying when we do that, is that this relationship is important enough for us to point this out to you because the alternative is just ghosting you. Not interested. I'm out of here. So if we're taking the time to explain that to you, that is huge. If you get upset when we do that, then you just rent in a Billboard that says, I. I am not ready to work with you. Because the reality is, have you ever heard of the two grow womb? I'm going to put the picture up here. So this was a physical beaded representation of a treaty. This one happens to be between the Haudenosaunee, the Iroquois, and the Dutch, in, like, 1742, something like that. So one of the navy blue strips was to represent the European ships. The other one was the Haudenosaunee canoes. And what they Haudenosaunee thought they were agreeing to, which is why they created these wambum belts, was that the Europeans would be here, but they would stay in their lane, and the Haudenosaunee would stay in their lane. And that we wouldn't interfere with each other, that we would work side by side. But you run your communities your way, we'll run our communities our way. We will share Mother Earth. We know that didn't happen. But when it comes to reconciliation, why I'm mentioning the Two World Wampum is reconciliation is all about learning how to swim in the water between the lanes. It is not about us getting used to doing it your way anymore. And it is not about you totally learning how to do everything our way, but it's meeting in the middle. When you're in an Indigenous community, learn how we do things and why we do things. There's always a why. And learn to meet in the middle. And if we work with you and we're not allowed to say, this doesn't work for me, then this isn't a act of reconciliation. This is more assimilation. This is more you saying we don't have the right to tell you you did something wrong. White supremacy much? Does that make sense? So get okay with not knowing humility, get okay with the fact that you're gonna make mistakes, and get okay with the fact that when we point out something's not working, that that's a compliment. That means we want to work on this relationship together. Because if you're gonna get all bento to shape, feel free to go Google white fragility, then this wasn't a relationship that was gonna work anyways. And you can blame us. But think about it. If we didn't tell you that what you said made us uncomfortable or was disrespectful, what's the alternative? That we just endure it? How is that different? How is that reconciliation? Because that sounds like Canadian history to me. So humility definitely helps. Education, as long as you take it as with a grain of salt, can help but work on your conflict resolution skills. Work on being okay with uncomfortable conversations in safe spaces. Be okay with being corrected when you say something that's disrespectful or makes us feel uncomfortable, especially in our own communities. If you can do that, then you're ready to join us in the water between the lanes. I hope that made sense. I told you we're starting this year off strong with some base teachings. Until tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye. Bye.
