Moving Past the Headlines

Linda Diffey

When my mother was in residential school in the late 1930s, she became gravely ill with pneumonia. As her condition worsened, she was transferred from the infirmary at the Lebret Indian Industrial Residential School to the Fort Qu’Appelle Indian hospital 7 kilometres away. No one notified my grandmother, who was at home with her two younger children on our reserve in File Hills, even as my mother reached the point of receiving the last rites. Nevertheless, my grandmother felt compelled to get on a train and go to Lebret to check on my mother. Upon arriving at the school, she learned of my mom’s transfer, but her request for transportation to get to the hospital was denied. She eventually found help from a priest in the nearby village, and my grandmother was able to make her way to Fort Qu’Appelle to be at her 9-year-old daughter’s bedside.

I am fortunate that my mother survived to tell the tale of this, and many other sickening experiences she had during her 12 years in residential school. 215 children at the Kamloops Residential School are among countless others that did not. As First Nations people subject to state control through the Indian Act, three generations of my family had all aspects of their life regulated. They were moved onto our reserve and required written permission to leave its boundaries. When the federal government decided to implement a social experiment in our community to help accelerate assimilation, my great grandfathers were trained to work the land, although they were not permitted to sell or consume the commodities without approval by the Indian Agent. Illness had devastated the population in our community, and there weren’t enough men to carry out the government’s farming experiment. Their solution was to forcibly relocate individuals from other reserves and place them into arranged marriages. And, of course, all children had to attend residential school where they were punished if they did not conform to the Eurocentric standards.

It is mind boggling to me that I am of the first generation in my family since the passing of the Indian Act who had the privilege of being raised at home year-round. That I think of this as a privilege speaks to the deep and persistent impact colonization has had on people like me. And despite being spared the direct trauma of attending residential school, the legacy of my

predecessors’ collective experience reverberates through my life. Being robbed of my connections to my culture, language, and land has often left me with a general sense of unease. I don’t quite fit in the non-Indigenous world, and for decades I had internalized the colonial ideas about indigeneity being inferior and shameful.

In the journey to reclaim my identity as a Plains Cree/Algonquin woman (with a sprinkling of British and French in the mix), it’s become increasingly important to me that my energy be directed at transforming the systems that continue to oppress Indigenous peoples. The way I’m choosing to do that is through my work to implement anti- racism in professional health education. Anti- racism education is not just about understanding racism; it includes a commitment to challenge the structures that result in certain groups in society being oppressed because of their racial identity. When I started down this path over 12 years ago, non-Indigenous colleagues did not want to discuss racism as an integral part of Indigenous health curricula, instead insisting that I focus on “the beautiful parts” of my culture and not dwell so much on the negative. But Indigenous people don’t have the privilege of escaping racism. It has been with us as we move through the world, rearing its head at every turn in both overt and subtle ways, since the beginning of colonization.

As a health educator, I am grateful that there appears to be a shift in consciousness in this country that is permitting Indigenous experiences of racism to be acknowledged in a greater way. But I want to be clear that this has come at a great cost to Indigenous people. Over 6500 Indigenous people recounted their trauma during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings that ultimately led to the publication of 94 Calls to Action, including one specifically instructing medical and nursing schools to integrate mandatory anti-racism in their Indigenous health curricula. The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls heard the painful testimonies of over 1500 family members, survivors, experts, and knowledge keepers. More recently, evidence presented in the Joyce Echaquan inquiry (As Joyce Echaquan coroner’s inquiry closes, community marches in her memory. https://montreal. ctvnews.ca/as-joyce-echaquan-coroner-s-inquiry-clos- es-community-marches-in-her-memory-1.5452739) in Quebec illustrates the lethal consequences that can result when Indigenous people seek health care in systems where racism goes unchecked. Ms. Echaquan, a 37-year-old Atikamekw woman, died shortly after she livestreamed her experience of being subjected to racist comments from multiple healthcare staff while her health needs were neglected. This is a situation that those of us who reside in Winnipeg know all too well from our own high-profile inquest into the death of Brian Sinclair, an Indigenous man who presented to the downtown Winnipeg ER for treatment of a bladder infection and catheter change. (Ignored to death: Brian Sinclair’s death caused by racism, inquest inadequate, group says. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg- brian-sinclair-report-1.4295996) He was found dead in the waiting room, having not been seen during his 34 hour wait despite the efforts of other visitors to alert the staff to his declining condition. And the latest tipping point has been the discovery of the remains of 215 children at the site of the Kamloops residential school. While I appreciate that more of my fellow Canadians are moved to take action as a result of these stories of Indigenous suffering, I remain frustrated that it has taken such extreme efforts for our voices to be heard.

So often in my anti-racism work within health education, the situations that gain attention are the acts of egregious, interpersonal racism directed at Indigenous students, staff, or patients. And these incidents absolutely need to be addressed. But if you are interested in making profound and lasting change, I invite you to tune into the smaller, quieter forms of racism that are present in all aspects of our society. Racism has an uncanny ability to hide in plain sight, remaining unseen and unacknowledged by those who are not targeted. For Indigenous people, these forms of racism are not invisible, and the impacts are very real. Racial battle fatigue is a term that has been used to describe the chronic state of stress many racialized people experience from having to navigate these everyday forms of racism.

Subtle Forms of Racism

To assist in bringing the more subtle forms of racism out of the shadows, I’ll highlight three types that, in my experience, seem to be particularly challenging for my non-Indigenous colleagues to recognize when they first enter anti-racism work: racial microaggressions, systemic racism, and epistemic racism.

Racial Microaggressions

As a person who has experienced countless microaggressions, I can attest to how difficult these are to deal with. These are the casual and subtle remarks, actions, body language, or questions that can be painful because they reinforce race-based stereotypes or biases. Even though I am very familiar with the concept, I still find myself blind sided and asking myself, “what just happened?” And when you push back, there are the typical responses by the perpetrator to say they were only joking, I’m being too sensitive, or they didn’t mean any harm.

This brings us to an important concept that you need to understand in racism: the intention-impact gap. Racism tends to be thought of as intentional acts directed at individuals based on their racial identity. We now understand racism as not requiring intention. The colleague who was asking me to focus on my culture’s beauty was, I believe, trying to be supportive. How it impacted me was a complete invalidation of the lived experiences of my people under colonization. Had she approached it differently, perhaps asking why I was choosing to focus on racism instead of my culture, I could have entered into a dialogue to share my knowledge on this topic instead of being directive of how I should approach my work. I still feel the impact of her well-intentioned words seven years later and how it made it difficult for me to continue discussing racism in that meeting.

Systemic Racism

It is useful to keep the intention-impact gap in mind when considering the role of systemic forms of racism in our country. In the early days of colonization, legislation like the Indian Act and the related policies and processes that flowed from it did have a clear intention to assimilate Indigenous people and strip them of their land, culture, spirituality, agency, and language. In contemporary times, systems and institutions may not intend

to exclude or create barriers to participation for Indigenous peoples, but this is all too often the result. Systemic or institutional racism refers to the policies, practices, and behaviours that are part of the social, cultural, or administrative elements of an organization that create or maintain positions of disadvantage for racialized individuals. (University of Manitoba. “Disruption of all Forms of Racism.” Rady Faculty of Health Sciences Policy. https://umanitoba.ca/faculties/health_sciences/media/ Disruption-of-all-Forms-of-Racism_Policy-approved- August-25-2020.pdf.)

For example, my colleagues in admissions are examining the ways that standardized tests and processes may be systematically disadvantaging Indigenous applicants and how these could be changed to be more equitable.

Epistemic Racism

Epistemic racism occurs when the knowledge system of one group is positioned as superior to the knowledge system of another racial group. (Glossary. Addressing Racism. (2020, July 7). https:// engage.gov.bc.ca/addressingracism/glossary/) This is at the heart of colonization that has entrenched Eurocentric/Western knowledge as the gold standard and rendering Indigenous knowledges as alternative, inferior, or even invalid. To illustrate, I will ask you to tune into your reaction to the following statement:

For my PhD dissertation, knowledge emerging from dreams, visions, ceremony, and teachings will be considered as valid and meaningful as the data I gather from interviews.

What was your reaction? As a person who has spent decades training and working in the Western academic system, I have had to actively ‘decolonize’ my mind before I could fully embrace centering my research in an Indigenous worldview and truly hold the knowledge I derive from dreams and ceremony at the same level as data derived through Western methodologies.

What Can We Do?

Bringing these forms of racism out of the shadows is a critical first step, but what can you do to create health care systems that are truly safe for Indigenous people? It can be difficult to know where to start, but my advice is always to consider what can be changed in your personal sphere of influence. From there, the opportunities to challenge ongoing colonial oppression are endless. It is not possible or appropriate for me – or any Indigenous person – to provide you with list of what you need to do. Part of becoming active in anti-racism as a non-Indigenous person is doing this work yourself. What I can offer as an anti- racist educator are some principles and ideas for self-reflection that may help you in getting started on this journey.

Look in the Mirror Everyday

Are you aware of the biases or stereotypes you have concerning Indigenous people? Allow me to share some of the common ones I encounter routinely in my work:

• Indigenous women have too many kids;
• Indigenous people get everything paid for and they don’t pay taxes;
• Indigenous students have an easier time getting into medical/dental school;
• Indigenous patients are:

1. 1. 1. Non-compliant;
      2. Drug-seeking;
      3. Addicts;
      4. Never on time for appointments/no-shows;

• Indigenous people should just “get over” colonization/residential school – all our families went through tough times;
• Indigenous people have knowledge that can fix our environmental problems.

Did the last one surprise you? Stereotypes are not always overtly negative. I do believe my people possess deep and important knowledge that I am continually learning, and that there are important lessons that can benefit our world in these teaching. However, problems arise when Indigenous knowledge is fetishized, romanticized, co-opted, or otherwise taken out of its context. This can start as a well-intentioned effort, but we all need to be self-reflective about the intention- impact gap. If what you are doing is experienced as hurtful to Indigenous people, good intentions become irrelevant.

Reflect on your Privilege

When asking people to reflect on their privilege for perhaps the first time, I find it interesting that I often hear the many ways they do not have privilege. I can understand the temptation to do this. Privilege has some strong connotations in our language. I have a few non-Indigenous people in my circle who have struggled financially for most of their lives and chafe at the thought of describing themselves as being ‘privileged’. Yet, the very fact that a person is subjected to discrimination based on their personal characteristics, differentiates them from others who have not been subjected to the same discrimination. That is the experience of privilege, even if we are not privileged in every way. When we find ourselves on the outside of any of privileged category, we experience varying degrees of disadvantage and restricted opportunities that are not connected to what we have earned.