Sandi L Boucher, Red Thunderbolt Woman of Seine River First Nation, speaks about the exhaustion of existing as a thin sliver in white spaces. She describes feeling unable to breathe in her own home when a non-Indigenous ex-partner visited with unexamined privilege, and calls on non-Indigenous people to give Indigenous people actual room to exist.
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Okay, today's video episode, blog, whatever you want to call it, all of the above refers to the emotional labor, the emotional price tag that Indigenous people pay to engage with non Indigenous people. You might be surprised. You're definitely going to want to check this out. If you're involved in Indigenous engagement, recruitment or retention, you, you definitely need to watch this video. 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 mentioned today, we get to talk about the emotional labor, the emotional price tag tag, the racial battle fatigue experienced by Indigenous people trying to engage with non Indigenous people. So to give you a little bit of back context before we get into today's blog post, and yes, today's blog post is called Too white to enter question mark. Yeah, before you send the nasty email, hear me out. Just had coffee with a friend and I was explaining to her how as an Indigenous person, when I sit on a committee or work with a group of non Indigenous people and I am an empowered, confident, self assured individual, let's put that out there. What I explained to her is like if you draw this circle and then cut out the thin little pie piece, not a quarter, like a thin little piece, that's how it feels like how much space and air we have in that environment. We're invited in, we're given that little sliver. But don't say too much, don't talk too much, don't expect too much, don't ask for too much change. Because so often these groups really don't want to. They want the check mark for having an Indigenous person there. But the white fragility comes out pretty fast. When you start saying that things make you uncomfortable, they'll explain to you why they don't mean to make you uncomfortable and you'll all get used to it. And no hard pass. No. But the version of me that is no longer okay with trying to breathe in those spaces is new. Maybe the last two, three years. Loving it, by the way, it fits very nicely. That situation of working with a group or sitting on a committee, being in a room where you're the only Indigenous person in that sliver of air. Like I'm certain we must sigh when we leave the building just to be able to inhale again, that's bad enough. But when it comes to when it happens in your own home, that's a whole different ball game. And that's what this blog post is about today because I have a friend who I used to date and who we've stayed in touch and he happened to come to town and he came to visit and in retrospect it was scary. Not because he's a bad person, not because he was antagonistic or anything like that, because that's not him at all. But he had so many white male privileged views, things that he insisted were fact for everyone that I swear I could feel the air releasing from my own home and it took me a while to understand why I was so exhausted after he left and we talked about it after we left and he explained explain how things have changed. I have changed. And in several conversations later I explained to him like to do the work I do, I had to change. I couldn't be okay in those spaces barely breathing anymore and I couldn't be okay in a relationship that did that to me either. So long story short, make sure you're giving your indigenous counterparts air. And two if you have indigenous counterparts that are walking with you comfy and choose to and have for a while and freely share their opinions on things, not just the subservient type, that's a huge kudos to you if you're non indigenous because that's actually a bridge being built. If we can honestly say things don't work for us and things change as a result because you actually do want us there and care that we're comfortable, as comfortable as you, that's moving us towards reconciliation. So was he too white to come in at this point? Yes. That's okay. That journey is up to him whether he wants to enlighten himself or not. I just know I'm doing a whole lot more checks and balances before someone walks in the door of my home in the future. And I hope you understand why. In a nutshell, I like breathing. Until tomorrow. Take care. I love you. Bye bye.
