Tlajang nang kingaas (the one who is known far away)
As submitted to Sealaska Heritage
On August 15, 2020 my brother, Ben Davidson, transformed into the light that he brought to the world. As an incredibly gifted Haida artist, Ben left us all wealthy with the art that he created and shared with the world.
My brother’s creativity was nurtured from an early age. He often told the story about our great-grandmother, Florence Davidson, directing our father to wash my brother’s hands beneath his own. The belief was that my father’s creativity would thus be passed on to my brother. When I first heard this story, I imagined my brother as a small boy standing between my father’s feet at the sink with water splashing from the tap over my father’s hands onto my brother’s dimpled toddler hands. But whether or not you believe this story, my brother’s hands contained the ability to transform wood, metal, paint, and paper into exquisite creations that were traditional, whimsical, and full of life – just like him.
Biography statements written about Ben describe that he began carving at the age of 16, eventually completing a four-year formal apprenticeship with our father, Haida artist, Robert Davidson. The biographies also state that my brother was mentored by other artists including our uncle, Reg Davidson, and the late John Livingston.
While Ben learned about art from many people throughout his life, his earliest teachers were our father and our uncle. They apprenticed him in the art form, but also in an approach to life that included commitments to excellence and making contributions to his community. My brother took these commitments very seriously, pushing himself in his art beyond what could be seen by the casual viewer. He also believed in the importance of sharing his knowledge and time with others, whether it was through offering workshops or classes on art or business, or introducing children to Haida art for the first time.
My brother and I were born into art. We joined our father in his studio and while he created Haida art, we drew or painted on large pieces of paper. Later, we carved small blocks of wood into our rudimentary versions of Haida masks. I have vivid memories of painting unicorns while my brother painted trucks on the easels that our father made for us during those early years in Whonnock, BC. Later, my brother’s trucks turned into beings created from ovoids and U-shapes when he began to explore Haida design.
But my brother and I were not only born into Haida art, we were also born into Haida culture. Our father and uncle made sure that we learned Haida dances and songs, and that we practiced our culture as part of our lives. As founding members of the Rainbow Creek Dancers, we were immersed in our culture from an early age in ways that our father, uncle, and grandparents were not able to be because of the Potlatch Ban. And when we stayed with our father, he sang us Haida songs every night before we went to sleep.
My brother’s art reflected the life in these experiences. His paintings leapt off the paper, his masks danced off of the walls, his sculptures came alive when you caught a glimpse of them in corner of your eye. More recently, Ben had begun to explore the use of realism in his art that he described as a way to honour our mother who is ‘Waasdan janaas. His art reflected a passion for Haida shapes and vibrant colours that echoed the way that he lived. Whether it was biking into the wind or painting with his children or teasing those around him, my brother radiated a light that everyone around him could feel.
Each piece Ben created provided us with a glimpse into how he viewed the world. Each piece had its own life. Each piece told its own story. I was lucky enough to write the stories of his art with him. He would tell me about his inspiration for the piece, and I would tell him what I saw in the shapes and the lines and the colours. Together, we would weave together our ideas to tell the stories of his art. Though I pretended to dread the texts that began with a request for a good story, I was always grateful to be included in his world, I felt honoured to be asked to translate his visual masterpieces into words. And somehow, he always made me feel that I had managed to find the right words to express what he wanted to say.
But now, words fail me.
I do not know how to capture my brother’s spirit in these words, and he is no longer here to make sure I get it right. It seems impossible to believe a world exists without my brother in it, and I never imagined that letting him go would be part of my journey as his older sister. As a family, we are working hard to focus upon all that Ben has contributed to our lives instead of the magnitude of what we have lost; my father reminds us, “He left us…with so much.”
My brother came into this world with gifts from his previous existences, with knowledge about the art that did not come from his mentors but from our ancestors. My father describes this as a cosmic memory that travels with us from one lifetime to the next. So, when I grieve the loss of my brother, my father reassures me that one day he will return to continue his artistic journey. And next time, he will return with all that he learned in this lifetime. Next time, he will continue on from where he left off.
Until next time, Brother. Have a light heart on your new journey.
Raising the Issues with the “Family Totem Pole”
Last night, I came across a resource designed to assist teachers to bring Indigenous content into their classrooms. It made me exceptionally uncomfortable. As a teacher educator trying to support new educators to respectfully bring Indigenous content, perspectives, and pedagogies into their classrooms, I was deeply disappointed to see this resource, which contained stereotypes, pan-Indigenous perspectives, and cultural appropriation, had been developed in 2018.
I have to believe we can do better.
Well-intentioned people have told me not to take it personally. I don’t. That is, I do not believe that educators are deliberately trying to create and replicate lessons that will reinforce stereotypes and trivialize cultural knowledge for the sole purpose of hurting me.
However, it is personal.
When I see an activity that directs students to think of their immediate family members and choose animal and character traits from a list associated with “Indigenous” representations of those animals for the purpose of gluing them to paper towel rolls and making “Family Totem Poles,” I cannot pretend that it does not impact me personally. I cannot pretend to be able to reconcile the image of my father raising the first pole on Haida Gwaii after the Potlatch Ban was lifted with the picture that I now have in my head of non-credited “Indigenous” art being coloured and glued to construction paper. And I cannot reconcile this “art activity” with the image of the Elders gathering to weave together the threads of their ancestral knowledge that ultimately led us back to living our culture – a culture which was forced into dormancy because Sir John A. MacDonald deemed the potlatch “a debauchery of the worst kind.”
I believe we can do better.
So instead of hoping that you will come to the same conclusion as me, I am going say exactly what I am thinking in the hopes that I do not need to continue to repeat myself:
- Indigenous art is created by artists who have names, Nations, and bills to pay. If you want to use their art, please ask their permission and offer to compensate them. If they do not want you to use their art, respect that decision. It is their right. It is their art.
- If you are granted permission to use their art, please make sure that you confirm with the artist how they would like to be acknowledged. Then, make sure that you include that acknowledgement (if one is requested) every single time you use it.
- If you are granted permission to use their art, please make sure to correctly name it. Haida eagle and raven designs may look similar, but that does not mean their names are interchangeable.
- The Haida have a Clan system. Based on our Clan, there are specific animals (and other Beings) that we have permission to wear as crests. Those crests are carved onto a pole based on the Clan of the person who is connected to the pole. Sometimes we make references to characteristics of a Being, but there is no list of characteristics for each crest, nor is there a list of animal traits to be associated with the crest. If you want to ascribe particular traits to animals, please do not label the activity as Haida or “Indigenous.”
- If you want to share ceremonial knowledge and practices, do your homework. Ask yourself, “Is it appropriate for me to share this information?” “Do I have permission from the Nation, community, Clan, or person to share this information?” “Do I know enough about this to be able to share it respectfully?” If you do not have enough information, do some more homework. Learn some more. Practice with knowledge that does not have protocols associated with it.
- Finally, there is no “Indigenous” or “Aboriginal” Nation. We are unique and we are diverse. Please recognize this by using the names of specific Nations when you are describing us and remember that even within our Nations, we have different beliefs and values.
I know that BC educators are scrambling to find resources to support this work, but please know that it does require work. We have made progress, and there are some incredible resources out there (for example http://FNESC.ca), but there are no worksheets or resource packs or instructional videos that will magically “Indigenize” your classroom for you. It requires deep reflection, deep commitment to learning, and, sometimes, moments of deep discomfort.
I know that we all make mistakes, but please remember who is impacted by these particular mistakes. In the case of the “Family Totem Pole” activity, the people who are harmed are Indigenous children, families, and communities. When we reinforce these inaccurate stereotypes and trivialize culture, we are complicit in the erasure of ancestral knowledge that has been passed on for generations. We are complicit in the erasure of ancestral knowledge that the government attempted to assimilate out of existence. We are complicit in the erasure of a cultural inheritance that only exists because it was fiercely protected and passed on by Elders and families who were dedicated to ensuring that future generations know what it means to be Haida.
We must do better.
Still My Teacher
We may not all be able to remember our Grade 2 or 3 teachers, but I remember mine. Her name was Mrs. Walker. Her first name was in fact Mrs. Even later, when it was revealed to me that she had another first name, she was always my teacher, and therefore her first name was always Mrs. This is not to undermine her independence or her identity but rather to honour her as my teacher – which she was when I first met her and continues to be today.
I was fairly new to schooling when I met Mrs. Walker. It was only my third year, so I did not know how truly remarkable she was. I thought that all teachers spent what I now realize must have been countless hours collecting and painting boxes to create ponds for the glued and painted rocks which were transformed into frogs and toads so that I could learn addition and subtraction. At the time, I hated math, but I did not hate carefully choosing which box, filled with handmade creations, I would use to follow along with the stories that inevitably led to learning addition and subtraction.
Though it may seem that my love of reading and writing is something that emerged naturally, I know these passions were first nurtured in Mrs. Walker’s classroom. There, I was a singer when I composed a song and played it for the school on my ukulele, I was an author when I wrote stories daily in the small books she made out of bundles of white pages sandwiched between vibrantly coloured covers of construction paper, and I was truly seen when gave me holiday gifts of carefully selected books that interested me.
As an Indigenous student, school can be a very difficult place. But I did not learn that lesson until I left Mrs. Walker’s classroom.
In grade 8, I won a math award, and Mrs. Walker was there to see me receive it. It had been five years since I had left her classroom, but she was still my teacher. Following the award ceremony, we went out for a celebratory meal. I do not remember what we ate, but I remember the feeling that I had truly accomplished something great, and I know that is because Mrs. Walker’s pride in my achievement was genuine.
Even more years passed, and I moved to Whitehorse. During a particularly cold and dark winter, I received a package from Mrs. Walker filled with colourful drawings and photographs of my much younger self. The drawings were filled with such hope that somehow they managed to warm me and remind me it was possible to be optimistic and believe in the future. You see, even from afar, she was still my teacher.
One of the last times that I saw Mrs. Walker was when I defended my doctoral dissertation. Though many would agree, this was an important event, I was incredibly honoured that Mrs. Walker was there. Following my defense, she joined my family and me for a celebratory dinner. She regaled us with stories that made us laugh. She showed us by example, that even as our age advances and many of the people we love are no longer with us, we can continue to find joy in our lives. We can continue to live.
Mrs. Walker always saw the best in me. She believed in me, and she demonstrated this by showing up to support me whenever she was invited, regardless of how many years had passed.
It has always been my goal to be able to be the person that Mrs. Walker saw in me.
Today, I teach future teachers. As an educator, Mrs. Walker has continued to be an inspiration to me as I work to create learning spaces that are as safe and exciting as the one that she created for me. And it is my hope that the educators who leave my classroom create their own classrooms where all children know they are important and feel like they belong. This is Mrs. Walker’s legacy, even for those she has never met.
I wish you a light heart on your new journey, Mrs. Walker.
Haw’aa for always being my teacher.
Raven Bringing Light to the World
When I was 11 years old, an American friend of my mother’s came to her and asked if she could borrow me. This may sound like an unusual request, but it was because her friend wanted to join a “peace mission” to the Soviet Union. This was during the time of the Cold War, and there was a group in the United States who wanted to strengthen relationships between the people in the US and people in the Soviet Union. The idea was that if Americans met Soviets, they would come to better understand the human connection that could exist between nations and thus be less fearful of one another. The group organizing the trip thought that the best way to change our thinking was to create an opportunity for parents and children to travel together to the Soviet Union to connect with as many Soviet people as possible. But my mother’s friend did not have a child, so she asked my mother to borrow me.
When I learned of the opportunity, I was ecstatic. Though I had very little knowledge of what I was agreeing to, the thought of an adventure to a place on the other side of the world was thrilling (and I am sure also terrifying) to my eleven year-old self. However, the trip was going to be expensive, so in order to pay my way, we decided to do some fundraising. My father offered to help by creating a print and donating the proceeds from the sales toward my trip.
Awhile later, he showed me the painting that would be used to create the print. It was a beautiful raven, but it had a blank circular hole at the centre. It was unlike his other designs, and I wondered why he would leave such a large empty space in the middle of the design. Then he informed me that he had left the blank area for me to finish, and he wanted me to design what would go in the centre and complete the painting.
I was terrified of ruining the beautiful art, but I also understood that I had to make a contribution to this fundraiser. Knowing the Haida story of Raven and the First People, and also being aware that the steadiness of my eleven year-old hand could not match that of a professional artist, I decided to use my father’s oval stencils to create a spiral of human faces to represent the First People who emerged from the clam shell. I also included a sun and a crescent moon to represent the light.
My unpracticed hand resulted in shaky edges on the people in that painting. Their smiles were lopsided, but I was not too worried. I had seen my father create the silkscreens to make prints, and I knew it was possible to fix all of my hesitant lines during the cutting phase. But when the time came to create the silkscreens, my father directed the designer to make sure that every wobble and stray line was included. At the time, I was mortified. But now, I understand why my father wanted to capture the authenticity of our collaboration.
Many of the prints sold, and the money was used to help pay for the trip. It took quite a while, but I think that eventually the edition sold out. I suspect that it took a bit of extra time because the market for such collaborations required an appreciation for different sort of art.
Over the years, the prints have occasionally reemerged on eBay or in a gallery. Someone will see one somewhere and mention it to me in passing. I look at them more fondly now, as a daughter looks back on a time when she sat at her father’s real artist easel and painted on a real artist painting. I examine the lines on each print that I see and find myself smiling as I glimpse the uncertainty of my eleven year-old self.
More recently, my father’s part of the painting resurfaced on the arm of a well-known amateur boxer. In this rendition, the people at the centre of the design, had been replaced by a world, the boxer’s world, one that existed before he “Indigenized” it. At first, I did not give it much thought. Maybe the boxer did not know that tattoos are a significant cultural practice for the Haida people, maybe he did not know that it is disrespectful to use someone’s art without their permission, maybe he did not know that it is reprehensible to alter an artist’s design to suit his own personal needs, or maybe he just did not know that the story ceases to exist when the First People have been removed.
Now, I am not so sure that the boxer can continue to benefit from my doubt.
But at the very least, I want him to know that in separating the Raven from the First People, he broke something apart that was supposed to remain intact, something that was created specifically to co-exist, something that was created by a daughter and a father.
Our designs are not commodities to be repurposed on a whim. They are connected to our identities, our stories, and our relationships. They represent our Clans, our Crests, and our Nations. To wear a Haida design communicates our commitment to conducting ourselves in a way that honours our ancestors. To wear a Haida design is to publicly promise to represent our Nation in a good way – and to wear a Haida tattoo is to add permanence to that promise.
A small act of resistance.
I used to believe
that by
vanishing
I could not be hurt
anymore.
I thought
that if I could
fade
into the background
I could not be seen
enough
to be a victim.
You cannot harm
what you cannot see…
that’s what I believed.
But now
I know
it is my invisibility
that makes you
target me.
Because
if you fail to see
my humanness
there is no consequence
if you murder me
or make me disappear.
But I cannot wear
a red dress
to remind you
I am here.
It is too big
and too bold
and too
uncomfortable.
So instead,
I will paint my lips red.
A small act of resistance.
A reminder that
I am not
disposable.
Singing for the End of the Line
Last night I went to visit my mother and instead of listening to an audiobook or a pop song on the drive over to her house, I listened to a CD of my father singing Haida songs. This is not unusual, I often bring the CD out in the weeks before a performance to prepare my voice to sing publicly.
I am currently teaching a course on Indigenous education for teacher candidates. One of the last classes in the course has to do with respectfully hosting Indigenous guests. To teach this, I invite the teacher candidates to host me in the classroom. The idea is that it provides them with the opportunity to practice hosting and to learn about the associated protocols in a safe environment. The teacher candidates practice doing a territorial acknowledgement, an introduction, and they also practice thanking me at the end. For my part, I do a short presentation for them, similar to what I might do in a school. I sing traditional Haida songs and tell some of the stories about my regalia. Last night, I was practicing for this presentation.
Haida singing has always been a part of my life. Unlike my father who was alive during the Potlatch Ban, I grew up being part of a traditional Haida dance group from a very young age. There was no need for my father to hide the songs that he sang to me before I went to sleep, no need to use paper bags for masks when he showed me the dances that accompanied those songs, and there was no Indian Agent to report him when he did. During my lifetime, it has always been legal to practice our Haida culture.
Though there were times when I was embarrassed to practice our dances and songs and times when I equated my Haida identity with the negative stereotypes associated with Indigenous peoples in Canada, I rarely questioned why I sang. It was a part of my life, it had always been a part of my life, and in the future it would be a part of the lives of my children. Those songs were what made me Haida and regardless of my future children’s other ancestries, the songs would make them Haida as well. Perhaps because I have always had access to Haida songs, I took it for granted that these songs would always be a part of my life.
Years ago, I attended an event hosted by another nation. Our dance group was invited to perform; however, many members of our dance group were unable to attend the event. As a result, there were only a couple of us there that day. When the time came time for us to sing our songs, I quickly realized that I did not truly know them. In that moment, I discovered I only knew how to follow the songs – not to lead them. This realization led me to wonder what would happen to these songs when our leaders were no longer with us. What would happen when it was left to me to lead the songs and to teach them to my children?
I returned home and asked my father if he would teach me some of the songs well enough to lead them. I worked closely with him to learn the words and the meanings and the protocols connected with them. I wanted to be sure that these songs continued into future generations, for they had survived far greater hardships than I was facing at that moment.
My father describes our connection to our history as a thick rope that has been made up of thin threads we all hold. Our songs bring us together and strengthen that rope. I did not want to be the one who broke the rope that connected us to our ancestors.
Years passed, and I became pregnant with a daughter. From early in the pregnancy, I imagined passing the Haida songs onto her, and I sang them to her knowing that then they would be familiar to her when she was born. Being pregnant changed my perspective on my life. For the first time, I began to think about the long lines of ancestors reaching back across the history of our world whose lives had all lead up to the life of this tiny being I was carrying. My daughter became the end of that line. She died shortly after she was born. With her death, the line that stretched back to the beginning of human life and passed through me, ended. With her death, I felt that I had let down my ancestors. Without children who lived, it became hard to know how I could contribute to the world. I had always believed that my contribution would be my children and the life and experiences that I passed onto them.
Last night, as I sang in my car, I asked myself, for the first time, why do I sing? Why do I sing when I am now at the end of this line with no children to teach? Why do I continue to work to learn the words? Why is it important that I know how to lead the songs? Why do I continue to sing?
As I continued my drive home, the answer came to me: I sing for the end of this line.
I sing for my daughter who took those songs with her when she returned to our ancestors. I sing for those ancestors so they know that their songs and their knowledge did not die with them. And when I sing for those who are not Haida, I sing to remind them of our strength and our resilience as Indigenous peoples. I sing so our history continues to live on in the present. And so the rope of which my father speaks is never broken.
Prove Them Wrong
When I was finishing my masters, I read the book Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson. I would like to say that when I reached the last page, I wept. It would likely be more poetic than the truth. I didn’t actually weep, I just felt kind of sick and tremendously sad. I was sitting on the couch in my living room, and I remember being hit with the realization of the impact of my formal education upon my beliefs about myself and my limitations as a person of Aboriginal ancestry. And worse, that many of my feelings of inadequacy could have been bypassed if I had simply come into contact with the right educator.
In my early years, my mother and father would come to the school and do various presentations and activities about Haida culture for the students in my class. It was largely uneventful until I went into grade four. Then, I was at a larger school and the presentations brought attention to my ancestry. Once the other students realized what I was, they taunted and teased me about being a chief and echoes of the ubiquitous war whoop would regularly follow me down the hallways. It was, perhaps, my first clue that being Aboriginal was not a good thing.
As I moved into secondary school, I surrounded myself with non-Aboriginal friends attempting to create a barrier between myself and what I understood to be the Aboriginal identity. I assumed that my association with non-Aboriginal people would create a chasm with me on one side and failure in school, issues with drug and alcohol addiction, chronic behaviour problems safely on the other. I did not want to be Aboriginal, so I simply wasn’t.
I was in the French Immersion stream, so the focus was upon inclusion of French Canadian culture and with the exception of the minor mandatory injections of Aboriginal content in social studies, my courses were entirely devoid of anything authentically Aboriginal. Of course, my world outside of school was teeming with Aboriginal content. At the time, I was living with my father and my stepmother who were both Aboriginal artists. I was part of a Haida dance group. I frequently traveled to my father’s home community to visit all the members of his Aboriginal family. I never once admitted to them the fact that being Aboriginal was a source of shame for me. I simply tried to continue to separate myself from the aspects of the Aboriginal identity that I found most despicable. And at school, I made every attempt to maintain the illusion that I was not Aboriginal. I maintained my grades. I didn’t drink or do drugs. I was well behaved. And in all that time, nothing happened at school to change my thinking. Not once did anyone challenge my negative beliefs about Aboriginal people or by extension, myself. I left the school system with my negative assumptions intact and it took me a very long time to come to accept the Aboriginal part of my ancestry. To discover that being Aboriginal did not mean that I was unintelligent or prone to alcoholism. Eventually I began to accept my identity; however, the years of self-loathing did not simply fade into the background.
When I was adding the final words to my thesis and only weeks before my defense I read Monkey Beach and was spontaneously filled with devastation. Not because the book was anything less than brilliant, but actually because it was so amazing. Here was this book that was an example of quality literature that could easily have met many of the learning outcomes for any of my high school English classes (though to be fair it hadn’t been written yet). Its 80s equivalent could have been held up in my class as an example of good literature that was written by an Aboriginal person (not to be confused with “good Aboriginal literature” which is decidedly different). Any one of my teachers could have told me about the important contributions to science or math that were made by Aboriginal people. I am not saying that it would have changed my thinking, but I believe I could have begun to question the validity of my assumptions that Aboriginal people were unintelligent or lazy (or whatever other negative stereotype I could think of) long before I had left the school system. And what could the implications have been for my non-Aboriginal classmates?
I suspect that it was that kind of thinking that led to the introduction of English 10 First Peoples. A course that I never had when I went to school, but to be honest I would not have taken it voluntarily at that time either. It is a course that consists entirely of Aboriginal content. Stories, novels, poetry, films, non-fiction. All brilliant. All created by Aboriginal people. And perhaps it is not the silver bullet that the creators had anticipated, but it has achieved several things. It has challenged peoples’ thinking about the capacities of Aboriginal people. When the course was offered at our school, the assumption was that because it was an Aboriginal course, it would be “easier” or “less academic,” and I delighted in having conversations with colleagues that informed them that this was not the case. That this course stood up to the proverbial bar set by the Ministry of Education for English 10. Furthermore, the students who enroll in this course will never know what it is like to receive an education devoid of intelligent and meaningful contributions by Aboriginal people. Regardless of whether they pass or fail the course, they are exposed to some of the incredible achievements of Aboriginal people. And, as I have said before, this ensures that they do not need to view their Aboriginal ancestry as a barrier to their academic success.
On a more personal level, when I taught this course, I was able to have the difficult conversations about what it means to be Aboriginal and the value of formal education. I was able to talk about some of the discrimination I faced as a result of my desire to continue to pursue it. This resulted in the students sharing with me some of their own challenges of trying to pursue education for themselves. And truly I wanted to tell them that it has changed. That by embracing my Aboriginal identity, I have become stronger. That the kind of teasing that I faced in elementary school no longer exists or that when you grow up people keep their negative opinions to themselves. That in pursuing my education, I have combatted the negative stereotypes. But that simply isn’t true. I continue to endure the teasing associated with people who fail to understand.
What is worse, however, is that we as educators continue to make the same mistakes, even though we should know better. Following my realization about the potential impact of including Aboriginal content in all courses, I had a conversation with a colleague about ways to include it into a “non-Aboriginal” course. I shared my epiphany about the impact that it could have had on my own life, but it was met with reluctance then resistance and then a barrage of questions regarding the ability of content written by Aboriginal people to meet the rigours of an academic course. As an educator of Aboriginal ancestry, I felt that my own intelligence and capacity had been questioned as well.
I didn’t know whether to laugh it off or to scream obscenities or to cry about the futility of trying to change people’s minds. Instead, I left the room, which failed to achieve anything at all except to end the dialogue completely.
There are many factors that contributed to my decision to pursue further education, and that conversation was one of them. It forced me to realize how difficult it is to enact change in the educational system. Honestly I don’t know if more education will help me to change anything for Aboriginal students, particularly since I suspect one of the most important things that I did in the classroom was to have the difficult conversations. The conversations about what it is like to be Aboriginal and formally educated. The conversations about the resistance from my own community to the pursuit of higher education, but also the conversations about the encouragement I have received. I must admit, however, that one of the most important conversations was the one about what we, as Aboriginal people, can do to challenge all of the negative stereotypes associated with being Aboriginal. Inevitably this is the conversation we had the most, likely because this was the most destructive for the students in my class, and sadly because it is the challenge that they face the most. And although no student has ever asked me for my advice about how to overcome such devastating assumptions, I always end this particular conversation with these three words: “Prove them wrong.”
In response to the writing on the wall…
Nobody has ever called me a “dirty indian” to my face, and yet it has been a label that I have tried to erase from my mind for as long as I can remember. No amount of education, professional success, or achievement has been able to eradicate this label from permeating every aspect of my existence.
This is not to say that I have not experienced racism. What began in grade four as taunts about being a chief and war whoops in the hallways, transformed into more subtly subversive statements and implied discrimination as I grew older. Because of my education, I was not “like the rest of them”. My choice not to drink was likely “because I was in AA”, not out of personal preference. The fact that I didn’t look the way some people believed that an indigenous person should look meant that I had to endure countless conversations about the problems with “the native students”. And I admit, there were times when I just smiled wanly and remained silent.
Yesterday, I helped to facilitate a class discussion for educators about indigenous perspectives on research. One of the tasks was to record notes from the small group conversations on chart paper that would be posted on the wall. At the end of the activity, each group presented the highlights of their discussions to the whole class. As the last group finished their presentation, I noticed that on the bottom of the page (presumably as a critique of our readings) was written:
“Dirty” aspects of indigenous people are not represented.
At that moment the room was completely silent, but the words deafened me. And then a single voice wavered, “I am uncomfortable with the use of the word ‘dirty’ to describe indigenous people”. The voice was my own, and I spoke because I knew that my silence would give everyone else permission to remain silent too.
My objection to the word “dirty” resulted in the decision to scribble it out on the wall, but scribbling out the words could not erase them from my memory.
A conversation began – one that I don’t remember much of. What I do remember was the sound of another voice explaining that we try to focus on the positive aspects of indigenous people and communities because focusing on the challenges does not help us to move forward. And I am very grateful to that voice. It served to remind me of the impact that a single voice can have. And it helped me to understand that I was not completely alone.
I have always tried to find the positive aspects of the adversity I have faced in my life, but it was not easy for me to find it in this particular experience. Following the completion of the class, I fled into the hallway and then outside and I spoke to someone who listened patiently as I cried and yelled and even swore. Someone who reminded me quietly of my courage and strength, and for that too I am grateful. It helped me to return to a quieter place – one where I was able to better reflect upon what had happened.
What I came to understand was that this student was a messenger – a canary in the coalmine if you will. And perhaps I needed this experience to be reminded that it was possible to be highly educated and an educator and still remain unconscious of the power of the use of words like “dirty” to describe aspects of human beings. And perhaps I needed to be reminded of how far we still need to go in our education about how to demonstrate respect for those around us, even when we don’t necessarily understand their realities or experiences.
The truth is that those words should never have been written in the class. Human beings all have challenges and complications in their lives; these should never be labeled “dirty”.
The truth is that those words should never have been posted on the wall of an educational institution where attempts to achieve understanding and respect, particularly for indigenous people, has been made such a high priority.
The truth is that in a classroom of educators pursuing the highest possible level of education, my voice should not have been the only one to object.
And the truth is that I will never be able to erase devastation that I felt in the moments following that class.
But it was not for those reasons that I chose to object.
I objected in the hopes that no student ever has to look up on the wall of his or her classroom and see the word “dirty” associated with any aspect his or her ancestry.
I objected in the hopes that the next time my voice will not be the only one to speak out.
And I objected because I know that in order for people to have their assumptions challenged, I cannot remain silent.