Where DOES Lateral Violence Come From? (And some special words to honour Sen. Murray Sinclair)

Hello, you absolutely amazing person, you. It's been a day. Not gonna lie between, oh, there's blue hanging out on the desk. This is like a no rules kind of day because it's like raining and miserable out. And I had all those video issues and video editing software issue that I've been battling for 48 hours. And it's just been a day. And on top of that, we're in the middle of rearranging things in my new home again. Because there's just reasons just to make things work better. So if you hear any sounds in the background, my son is here helping me make all this amazing stuff happen. Helping me. Okay, he's doing it. He's supporting me. Let's get real. We got to give credit where credit is due. But in spite of all of this insanity, I promised you that this week we were going to talk about lateral violence. So I could really get you to the point where you understand it, you see it, you understand where it came comes from, that you're not blaming the wrong people. We got to get this together. So today we're going to talk about where lateral violence comes from. And you may be surprised. Let's talk about it. Bonjour. Mishko paganon kwei ndishnikas mang do. I think I screwed that up. Mishko paganong kwei ndishnikas mung dodem. That sounded better. Hi, 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 I've been doing this for 15 years. For 15 years, I've been working in First Nation communities, helping them to heal, helping them to realize what they see in their own communities, families and relationships. And then about eight years ago, I decided to start balancing the feather and I started working with non indigenous Canadian entities as well to help them understand, all in hopes of reconciliation. And I do have to take a second here, and I'm going to try to do this without making myself cry. Yesterday we got word that Senator Murray Sinclair passed away. And that man was a guiding light. He was an example. He was everything I would want to be. When I think of the word wisdom, I think of that man, just his calmness in the face of insanity. His like, seriously when he said he has the same. Had the same ability that my brother and my son have. I can babble for an hour to try to explain something and both of them summon up in one sentence. And I'm left Just sitting there going, yeah, that's what I meant. Right. So Senator Sinclair was that way. He was the first indigenous lawyer in the province of Manitoba. He went on to be a senator. He was the head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And leading that, he's the one that presented the volumes upon volumes of information they gathered during the inquest or the commission doing its work. And he left us a legacy to fulfill, which just inspires me to do even more work, which is why I wanted to do these videos. Because not all of you are going to get to be in one of my seminars or at one of my workshops. And maybe, you know, you're not geographically close or money's an issue. Whatever the case may be, you can always go to YouTube and watch my videos and get the information. So thank you for being here. Thank you for watching. And please, please, please share this video with anyone who's being affected by lateral violence. Anyone in a marginalized group is feeling it and they're probably blaming themselves. And that is what we have to change. So where does lateral violence come from? Let's start. I could give you the academic presentation, and you know, that's not me. So I'm going to share with you the way it came to me. I'm going to share the story of how all of this came to pass, my understanding of lateral violence. So, as I mentioned, I've been doing this for 15 years. I have the honor and the privilege of traveling across Canada to do all of these different sessions in different places. And it didn't take me long to realize that whether I was in a First Nation community out west or east coast or. Hang on a second. Sorry about that. Like I said, the insanity continues. Phones are ringing. My son's talking back to lateral violence. As I said, I was traveling across Canada working in First Nation communities. Different treaty areas, different provinces, different First Nations. Like different nations, totally different languages spoken, different cultural practices. Nothing the same. But everywhere I went, suicide to epidemic levels. Violence in all of its forms. Elder abuse, domestic violence, financial abuse, youth hurting each other. It was insane. Their addictions tearing our families and communities apart. And of course, the one that Canada loves to point out most of, unemployment. It didn't take me long to start asking myself, well, how is that even possible? Because first nations out in B.C. didn't traditionally trade with first nations on the East Coast. How can they be facing the same problems when nothing else is the same? They're different cultures, different nations. Except guess what one. They're all first nations. They're all indigenous and two, the oppression and discrimination was felt by all of them. So check out the image. Oppression and discrimination poisoning the tree. And I just, I got to put this in there. We have the most amazing programs. Treasure treating the results. Helping people who have lost a loved one, helping with addictions, helping with curb the violence. But if we don't start talking about what's poisoning the tree, we will always need the programs because they're, they're aiming at the results and not fixing the cause. It's a band aid on a. A wound that just is not healing. So once I realized that, I started doing some investigation and what I came across is the very own. There's Stormy now joining us. Why not? It's a party today. What I came across was the three natural human reactions to oppression. And before we go into this, let's do a quick review. Prejudice, preconceived notions in your head. This is what you think of indigenous people or black people or newcomers or whatever Americans that's ingrained in your head. You haven't even met them or hanging around with them yet. Right? That's probably baggage toilet training. Discrimination is when you take those preconceived notions and put them into action. So you're not hiring someone because of what they're doing, or you don't want to be friends with someone because of who they are or the group they belong with. That's discrimination. Oppression is discrimination that is either sanctioned by the government, accepted by society as a whole, or both. The fact that First Nation communities still exist under a boil water advisory is a perfect example. No municipality in Canada would put up with that. But if you bring it up in conversation, you're going to hear, well, you know, it's complicated and, and it's not a simple thing to do. Its excuses. So oppression is what we're talking about. And there's three natural human reactions to oppression. To. You're going to see it in any marginalized group. So think of some marginalized group. By the way, women are a marginalized group, but you could think of whatever marginalized group and you're going to see these. The first natural human reaction to oppression is violence. Remember that in the tree, when you keep telling someone or if society is implying to someone that they're somehow less than, at some point they're going to lash out. And it's really, really hard to hit the oppressor in the nose if the oppressor happens to be the federal government. So they're frustrated and they're angry and they lash out. Against the people that are closest to them. Their children, their family members, their partner, their other community members, or the people in the municipality nearby. It is a natural human reaction to the environment. And remember I've said it a hundred times. Indigenous people living within Canadian borders are flowers trying to grow in soil doused in gasoline. So second natural human reaction. So many people don't like the violent reaction. And I get it. I totally get it. But Ezekiel as Nish it's the second one that scares the daylights out of me. And that's because the second one is acquiescence, the complete and total giving up. And you recognize this in people because they say things like, why bother? Why bother going to school? It's not going to change anything. Why bother applying for that job? They're never going to hire me. Why bother sending my kids to school? It didn't help me, it's not going to help them. Why bother speaking up or attending the meeting? No one's going to listen. Why bother even trying? Canadians are never going to respect us. Acquiescence is where the stage where we're at risk of losing our loved ones. And it is scary and it is a reaction to the environment. The third one is the one I push people towards every single day. It's non violent resistance. Breaking away from the stereotype, Daring to make a good living, daring to be highly educated, daring to go for that job, breaking free of the oppression and daring not to be the stereotype. Getting a degree, getting a driver's license, going for that job, going for that promotion at your job. Any single time you're going against that stereotype, you're breaking chains and you're making it easier for the rest of your family. There's another thing we need to talk about, and that's internalized oppression. And you've heard me talk about this before. When you belong to a group that's been oppressed for a long period of time, you internalize it and you start to believe the stereotypes about yourself and the other members of your group. You start to believe that you can't succeed because your group is incapable of that. You start to believe that they would never hire people like you. You start to build walls before other people can. An internalized oppression gets to you in one of two or in two different ways. It can happen both at the same time. The first is the voice in your head. The voice telling you they're never going to hire me. Why am I even trying? Why did I show up and apply for college? I'm just going to Flunk out. Why am I even doing this? I saw a quote on the weekend that I thought was absolutely amazing, and it said something along the lines, I'll put it here in the video. But something along the lines of, if that voice in your head isn't building you up, if it's negative, then get rid of it, because it's not yours. That's not your voice talking. That's the voice of the oppressor talking. And if you make it past the voice in your head, the second way that it gets to you is the voice of others. This is your friend telling you, well, why do you want to go away to college? You think you're better than us? This is the student getting abandoned by his friends because the student started getting straight A's. There's so many ways. Now, me personally, I didn't even realize the extent of my internalized oppression until a moment of success. And if any of you followed my 52 steps to reconciliation videos, you would have seen this. But I'm going to clip it onto this video today so you can hear my story and how I unpack some of my internalized oppression. I believe the unpacking is an ongoing thing. It's going to last my entire life. But remember, that voice in your hand, if it's negative, it's not yours. We need to do this. And so the things you're seeing in our communities, the violence, the giving up, the. The trying to speak up, this is not because we're less than. This is a reaction to the environment. And by the way, before I show you the clip, here's my favorite quote. When a flower doesn't bloom, you fix. You fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower. There's nothing wrong with indigenous people. It's the soil we're trying to grow in. And if you're indigenous watching this, do everything you can to get to good soil. I hope that made sense. I'm going to let you go here because I can hear some banging around in the background. Tomorrow we're going to talk about the two biggest lies that indigenous people tell themselves about lateral violence and why this keeps happening. Okay? So I'll see you tomorrow. I hope that made sense. I hope I'm gonna be able to edit this and get it out to you. Who knows? It's that kind of day, but we're gonna try. I love you. Take care. Bye. Bonjour, Mishko Paganon Queen Additiona Cost Magno Dam Hi, everybody. It's Andy Boucher here. Once again, I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine River First Nation in Northern Ontario Treaty 3 territory. And I'm thrilled to be bringing you this next set of videos that will offer you some insight into life on our side of the feather. If you've had the chance to attend any one of my seminars or listen to one of my speeches, there's a good chance that you've heard me explain to people. The reconciliation is a topic of discussion for non Indigenous people, but it's lived experience for us who walk that path. So as you watch these next couple of videos, if I trip over a word or you hear my voice crack, know that I'm still very committed to this journey. But what I'm talking about is real. And it's important to me that you understand that in this video, I want to talk about something that is incredibly real for many Indigenous people, if not all. And what I'm talking about is the hum. Now, for me to explain this to you, I have to travel back in time to 2016, when I won Businessperson of the Year for the city of Thunder Bay, a city known for its anti Indigenous racism. At that point in time, I had already been in business for near 10 years. I was thrilled to be nominated, but there is no way I thought I was going to win, especially when you looked at the non Indigenous business professionals that I was running against. But anyone who knows me and my personality, I was determined to enjoy this moment. So I bought the shoes, I bought the dress, I went and got my hair done. Cinderella was going to go to the ball because I didn't think I was ever going to have an experience like this again. I got ready for the event, but the one thing I didn't do was write a speech. And when they announced that I had won, not only did the room erupt in applause, which was absolutely so affirming for me, but I suddenly realized I had to give a speech that I hadn't prepared, which is really embarrassing when you make a living as a public speaker. But somehow I managed to get up to the stage and get up there in front of those 600 people and I gave a speech. I was so overwhelmed in the moment that I didn't even know what I had to say. I had to watch the replay of my own speech to hear what I had said. And that's the important part, because when I watched the replay, the first words that came out of my mouth were they said it could never happen. Now, over the course of the next 3, 45 months. I had many, many people raise up to me in grocery stores and events to congratulate me on my win. And most of them wanted to know who was this person that had the nerve to tell me that I wouldn't succeed. And you see, that's the problem. Because after being asked 5, 10, 20 times, I decided to sit down and ask myself, where did that come from? Because, you see, I couldn't name one person who had said those words to me. But I knew in that moment that was a heartfelt utterance. I needed to know where it came from. So I did what I always do. I thought about it. And then I sat down and I wrote a blog post. And I called it the Hum. Now, if any of you have ever worked in an office with fluorescent lighting, you know exactly what I mean by the hum. That constant buzzing sound in the background as you go about your day. But for indigenous people, or for me at least, the hum was a voice. And it was saying things like, you're never gonna succeed. Why are you even trying? They're not gonna hire you. No one that looks like you works there. Why are you trying to go to college? You're not gonna be accepted there. That person is not never going to want to be your friend. Why do you keep trying? Because, you see, as an indigenous person in this country, when we walk into a store with our parents as a youngster and we don't see any indigenous people working there, our little brains register that indigenous people don't do that. When we go to schools and none of our teachers look like us, we assume indigenous people can't be teachers. And on and on it goes. I shared that blog post, and it instantly became my most popular blog post, because suddenly I was flooded with responses from indigenous person after another after another. And often all the email said was, I heard the hum too. The first time I shared it in seminar, as I shared the story I just shared with you, different people in the audience started crying. And there was this one young woman near the front of the room, and I asked her if she was comfortable sharing why she was so upset. She shared that she had three universal degrees, but that she couldn't count how many times the Hum had almost convinced her to quit, had almost convinced her that she'd never be able to graduate. After she shared, I looked around the room and I asked the audience of about a hundred indigenous people if anyone else had heard the Hum. And everyone, every single one of them, put up their hand. I gave them the opportunity to share. I went around the room and asked people to share their story if they felt comfortable. And it became obvious really quickly that not only had every single one of them heard the hum but every single one of them thought it was only them that they were the only ones that could hear it. So when you wonder why indigenous people don't apply for that job, don't come out of the communities, don't go for the higher education, it's not lack of interest, it's not because we enjoy poverty. It might just be because we don't know how to silence the hum. Now I'm living proof you can do it. I've gone on to succeed and now I spend a lot of time time teaching other indigenous people how to do same. So if you're indigenous watching this reach out. I have some advice for you that might just help. And if you're non indigenous watching this, please don't go to judgment. Next time you see someone struggling remind yourself it might just be the hum. Until next week. Take care of you you bye bye.