Absolutely.
One of the difficulties that I face in my work interfacing between my community and the broader Canadian society at large is a great deal of persistent racism and misconceptions about what it means to be an indigenous person and to stand up for indigenous rights in this country.
My strength as an individual comes from a very place-based cultural identity that ties me to my homelands as part of a legacy of stewards and guardians that goes back tens of thousands of years. For me, the work that I do is based very deeply on love and passion and commitment to carrying on that cultural leadership that I've witnessed throughout my upbringing and that I hope to pass on to future generations in my family and in my community.
I have worked for a number of years as a community educator and a community organizer around a variety of resource extraction issues that are putting pressure on my homeland. I do this work because I believe that our people should be engaged, informed, and empowered to stand up for their rights and their homelands.
I've watched as the peaceful actions that my community has undertaken have been labelled as security threats, as my fellow community members have been called radicals and agitators and eco-terrorists and everything you can imagine. It's an incredibly deeply hurtful thing because it really drives home the fact that the narrative behind what we do is so different from the narrative that is imposed upon us by wider Canadian society when what we're doing is rooted in love and commitment, but we're being portrayed as a threat.