It’s Saturday morning.
As I sit up and look out my bedroom window, it’s a mixture of bitter and sweet, the bitter grey sky and the sweetness of spring’s melt. The extra added bitter to the morning was that I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. And the reason I woke up on the wrong side of the bed was because I woke up thinking, and thinking can often throw my lazy morning thoughts into pure and utter turmoil.
At this time, the idea of getting up and doing anything is brutally exhausting. However, the idea of not doing anything is both exhausting and depressing, so after about 30 seconds I get up and waddle my way to the washroom. After another 30 seconds, I waddle my way back to my bed, sit down and think some more. I take note that the kids are still sleeping, partner down 3 floor levels having his coffee and cigarette and there was nothing in particular I was waiting to watch on T.V., as I had already caught up with this week’s iTunes. The quiet time is mine–reading it is!
Simple enough. Perhaps it can help me clear my unclear line of thinking, that had taken over when I first awoke. I take out some adequate reading material from my work back pack, while not to forget my highlighter and pack of post-it’s and hunker down for some informative reading.
After about 15 minutes, I find it helpful but not as I expected. In fact it was only producing more thoughts!
So after a little thought, out comes my laptop to write, which has brought me at present, to you. I need to get out some of those thoughts from the past week, month, year…well maybe years, and I thought that I would share my most immediate thoughts of the morn, blog style, with you…
There are many different programs and policies put in place to ensure that Indigenous people are treated fairly, in all areas of the Western world culture.
However, these programs and policies are for the very most part designed from the perspective of the Western world, which leaves us at the most familiar place of ‘here we are, yet again, put up to standards and quo’s that do not reflect our world view; here we are again, set up to fail.’
Many of us can live and work in the Western world, so we are “okay”. We are “contemporary”. We must be “smart”. And we are “successful”, according to the Western checklist.
But it isn’t about just ourselves and our families living in this world to be “better than” or “better off”, we also need to be okay, smart, successful, and all those things in that world so that we can help our people who struggle.
We need to know how things work in the Western world because our people are held hostage in them. Confined to a value system that does not or will not work towards mutual respect and understanding.
Child welfare.
Justice, Law, Corrections and Policing.
Employment and Welfare.
Education.
Healthcare and Mental Wellness.
Land-use and Ownership.
Just to name a few.
Don’t be fooled into thinking we have any control over these areas. No policy in these areas is written for the sole purpose to enhance, nurture or provide meaningful assistance in our lives. It is mainly about control. There may be supportive components to them, but until the government hands over their millions (minus a thousand pages of contribution agreement jargon) and says “here, do it your way,” then the bottom line is – we have zero control.
Some of my own personal frustration lies in the hoops we jump through, and the game of skip rope we are forever jumping in. We are never holding those hoops or the skip rope handles, we are just exhausting ourselves playing the game.
It is always up to us to ‘reconcile’ by healing ourselves, understanding ourselves, doing better (which isn’t a bad thing) BUT, and it is literally a big BUT… all of that is expected so that we can fit in and be successful in the Western world, to be the kind of parents, citizens, students, patients, that they want to deal with. So ultimately, their reason for is for their benefit and does not include their own healing steps that they must take.
Uh oh, here come the why’s.
So why is there is no meeting in the middle? Why do we not hold the hoops or skip rope handles? Why is there is no great wave of CULTURAL HUMILITY in the Western world that has been mandated and strictly enforced in the areas that we as Indigenous people fall prey and hostage to? And why is it always up to us to do whatever we have to do to reach that bar above our heads, that has been strictly and violently enforced for centuries?
If you have passively read through to this point, then I humbly ask you to please pay attention to this and encourage you to click on the link to a much informative presentation: Cultural Humility vs. Cultural Competency:
Cultural Humility is respecting worldview, “being aware of power imbalances and being humble in eery iteration with every individual” (Foronda, Baptiste, Reinholdt, & Ousman, 2016)
Cultural Competency is knowing about a culture; attempting to become a qualified expert or ‘qualified’ to work with a culture.
The goal is not to tell you everything you need to know about Indigenous people, but to help you develop cultural humility in order to build relationships with Indigenous people.
-Dr. JoLee Sasakamoose: Indigenous Cultural Responsiveness Theory (ICRT)
I believe that our people have been taking too many ‘first steps’ and doing our part in showing good faith, with no meaningful progress. When something doesn’t align, and we explain how things work from our cultural perspective, it is disrespectfully rebutted with references to organizational and government policies and laws. And we are left yet again to conform.
Creating more space for us to grovel at the feet of child welfare, justice, industry, health and education (to name a few) is not reconciliation. It is degrading and insulting and goes highly unrecognized far too many times.
At this point in time, we do not have much choice about our co-habitation situation. In fact, when our values work, boy do they damn well work. We have much to teach our Western counterparts, and there are many things in that world that work for us. We are just on highly unequal footing at the moment, which needs to be acknowledged by both parties.
I don’t have the answers but I am learning a few things–
We can no longer shut up and be submissive to a way of life that is holding our people hostage.
We can no longer accept the token space that has been given for us to beg the state for mercy.
We can no longer allow our culture to be exploited under guise of reconciliation.
I’ve been out there many times, for work or play, and I feel intimidated. Not because I am weak. But because that is what we were taught over generations -to be intimidated. And the western society was taught, over generations, to be intimidating.
BUT, and this is literally a big BUT…we have thousands upon thousands of years of the Spirit (and DNA for all you science buffs out there) of our ancestors that proves how strong and resilient we truly are. And this is a fact…not just a facebook quote.
(Writer’s note: It started snowing while writing this, so it is somewhat more bitter than sweet outside at the time of publishing)
Bittersweet lyrics
CreeGirl in a lonely world. 