Okay, so thinking about those four kind of , development, developments in this cycle
of the stereotype, prejudice, discrimination and rationalization and
self fulfilling prophecy. And we were just talking about how we can
intervene in that cycle at different points.
We also have the different levels of a different context in which we can
intervene. And this is kind of like it's been
described to me before as Dishnovy family tree.
But I also kind of see it as. These are a kind of different levels of
our relationships. And in, in, understanding indigenous
knowledge and world view everything is about relationships, because everyone is
related and everything is alive. Everyone is related.
So if we think about, kind of, our internal our in, our inner space, if you
will, as Willie Ermine describes it, he says we have an inner space that is as
large as outer space. We have the level of the self.
And, so we can be, at that moment when we're internalizing the stereotype.
When we encounter the stereotype. The problem is when we first learn a lot
of these stereotypes they're naturalized. They're like assumed to be common sense,
it's the way of the world. We often encounter them as, as, as truths.
As realities you wouldn't even think to question, because that's the way, that's
the true nature of, of indigenous being. That's who they are, that's what they're
like. So it's very hard to do this but we are
capable of doing it and we're doing it right now.
We're critically thinking about these notions and ideas.
So internalization of bias and stereotype is one level at which we can do this work
of countering. So we're, we're intervening at the level
of self. We're intervening at prejudicial
developments, the rationalization phase. Do we ever stop ourselves by, maybe we
think well we're rationalizing a stereotype.
Maybe if we're, we become very good at the, the self conscious critical, meta
critical thought when we find ourselves reading a piece in the sun of something
like that and we, we say, hm, what's going on here?
The rationalizing a certain action against indigenous people.
If we can question that and look for, for other context.
Family is a big one. I like to describe, like, the, the
Thanksgiving dinner. And you're with that extended family.
And inevitably someone's going to bring up some sort of ridiculous racist comment.
And how do you engage? [laugh] Right?
It's a big, big question. But that's another level where we do this
work. If someone says something and we say, hey.
Where do you get that idea from? What are you talking about?
This could be our own children and how we, how we talk to out kids about this notion.
It can be the elder generation, and how do we respond when they're sharing they're
wisdom about certain things It, it's different for everyone.
But this is another level where those conversations can be had and should be
had. If we're ever going to see any sort of
change in the way that these stereotypes circulate and how prejudices are formed
and enacted as discrimination. Community level as well.
And we're seeing a lot of work right now, going on in the community to attempt to
bring awareness to certain issues and this is another way to kind of counter certain
ideas and stereotypes. The danger, of course, is it also, in some
ways, can help reinforce certain stereotypes.
So we, we do have to do our work to in our own ways with our own relationships, in
the best way we can, to make sure that some of those stereotypes aren't being
replicated. And so that's when we kind of ask who has
the right to do these kinds of things in certain circumstances.
And not every struggle is ours to take up. Right?
And so, when we're looking at our different set of relationships.
Like, I wouldn't presume to speak to your family about some, some issue, but that's
where you can have a voice. And then in our communities, we are
members of multiple communities. So maybe, you know?
It's, one person's place to criticize the actions of elected chiefs about something.
But someone else should be looking at a different community when they're making
their, their kind of interventions in these stereotypes.
It kind of depends on what our relations are and so forth.
Then we're all circumscribed by this very, the broad notion of our societal
relationships and I would say. What kind of fits in this outer ring or
outer category is some of that national legislation and policy that utilizes some
of those stereotypes about aboriginal people, to enact a certain, kind of power
over. We can be critiquing that.
We can be looking into what our state representing us.
Is saying it's the right way to act toward indeginous people.
And we can start to look at that and question that.
So, much of the paternalism of Canada's Indian Act, it relies upon a stereotype of
indians as child-like, and incapable of running their own affairs.
And we can see this stereotype coming up quite a lot.
With the financial management on a lot of first nations communities.
Which, first of all, I have to get this in there [laugh].
They are run by Indian Act government models, which is an imposed system of
governance, which is not our traditional governance.
So when Ottawa or, the media critique the way that certain chiefs are running
certain communities, they're doing so under this sort of imposed colonial
government model. So really are they not critiquing they're
own system of government they imposed upon us?
And secondly, there's a little bit of, Hypocrisy there too.
When we look at certain corruption in, in, different government models, we can look
at financial, mismanagement in any number of other non-indigenous places.
What's unique about First Nations governance being critiqued in this way is
that it's, ascribed to the culture. Right?
It's, it's rationalized as, it's the culture, they're not ready to run their
own affairs. It's not about the kinds of things we
would say if there's a conflict of interests in a, you know, in the way the
mayor is running the city. Or the way that certain provincially hired
and trusted ministers ran their portfolios.
No one ever says, well, that's a white problem.
They, you know? But when, when it's, Attawapiskat.
Then, you know, it's, well, it's a cultural problem.
They can't run their own affairs. We need to impose third party management,
et cetera. What I've liked is this hash tag of
Attawapiskat. Where we're looking at, you know, the same
kinds of. Of issues but at the federal government
and, and other governments. So, I mean these are the kinds of
interventions like, that, that's a very clever way to get people to invert that
critique these are the kinds of interventions we can make at that societal
relationship level. Okay.
And as educators, we have a very a great opportunity to engage in these kinds of
conversations, in this kind of development of critical thinking among the, the people
that we work with, and in our own work. One of the things that this requires,
though, is for us to get really critical about the sources that we use, that we
engage with. Because there is no perfect source out
there. And one thing I kind of learn, in trying
to amass together sources to put together for teachers, and for educators and so
forth. Is that you start to see there is no one
perfect source. People say what's the one book I should
read, or what is the one the one lesson plan that changes everything.
Well, there isn't, right? There isn't just one.
And in every one has some good things and some bad things.
It has some things you can improve upon or so forth.
So we have to become really good at seeing what that is in the work that we do.
Oise has put together a website called The Deepening Knowledge.
And within that website, beside all the other resources that there, are there.
There's also a section that helps you to identify the bias in a source.
And to become very critical about what, what biases are operating.
What stereotypes, are, are operating. What questions should we ask of any source
that we're about to use? And we're never going to find one, I don't
think. That doesn't have at least some hints of
some stereotype operating within it, but it'll be very good and useful for many
other things. We just have to, as we encounter these
different sources and as we use them in our own work, Be aware of what they're
good at doing and what they're not good at doing and supplement that with something
that does that part well. So we're never going to find one perfect
thing, but we can find all kinds of supplementary material.
We can, we can introduce that, that concept of, of critical notions and
thought. Even with some of our youngest learners.
They, they can be really good at pointing out the limits of certain things.
And I'll give an example, I used for a ironically enough, for the Department of
Indian Affairs. And, one of my, responsibilities was doing
school visits. Because the Indian Affairs department
would get asked to send someone to teach the kids about indigenous issues or
something like that. Then they didn't know where to go, so they
went to the Department of Indian Affairs. They had enough requests that I think it
became something they had to do. And so a member of the communications
department, I, I, was asked one summer to be putting these things together.
And I went in with a group of grade threes, so they're seven and eight years
old. And I was asked actually to, what I was
asked to do is to talk about the constitution.
And,[laugh], how there are three recognized aboriginal groups.
You know? First Nations, Metis and Inuit.
Describe some of the, you know? The cultural contributions of each of
these three groups to the nature of Canada, to the fabric of Canada.
It's very positive. Lesson to, to give youth, right?
So it was focusing on positive contributions, things that you might not
think about as being indigenous like you know, corn.
Pain relief. You know?
Willow bark as a, as a form of pain relief.
These kinds of inventions, if you will, that came from indigenous peoples.
So, you know, after about 45 minutes of sharing the culture, sharing positive
contributions. I open it up to questions from the kids.
And usually. Like I told a creation story and the kids
would ask questions about the creation story like how many turtle's backs were
there? But in this, this case, the first question
that came from the eight year old was you know, if you said First Nations as the
preferred term. And if it were that Indian is on the way
out, why do you work at the Department of Indian Affairs?
And so there you go. Like the, from the very youngest age they
can point out. These kinds of problems with these over
generalizations and stereotypes. So there's a lot of hope, really I think,
in our youth and we can certainly help provide a model and a path for them to
follow.
