Police officers in Thunder Bay, Ont., are being accused of verbally assaulting a facilitator who was delivering cross-cultural training on Indigenous issues, but a city official says it was all a misunderstanding.
I read this article over 24 hours ago and yet I can still not form a cohesive response because I am so frustrated.
I am frustrated that a similar event happened in one of my graduate courses during a seminar on cultural safety. A group of girls in the back of the class snickered during a video clip on residential hospitals. The clip was heart wrenching - an Indigenous woman was describing the conditions of the hospital and the effects on her long-term mental and physical health. The girls should have been kicked out of the class and given a serious warning about how they are/were in a graduate degree on public health where learning about equity, Indigenous health, and the social determinants of health are not only largely mandated but are also considered the cross-cutting themes of the degree. However, when politely spoken to, the students said that they were just talking about something else and it was funny.
Similar to the police officers in this article, these students brushed the importance of the seminar (or, in the case of the article, training) aside and made excuses for why they couldn’t be respectful for two hours. Why are there sidebar conversations being had when there is a facilitator there talking about how Indigenous women’s lives are at risk? If this week was so difficult for the officers, would it not be possible to reschedule? Surely, the facilitator must have more empathy and compassion than the officers appear to have.
Even as an outsider, I have a hard time believing that the facilitator misinterpreted the police officers responses and laughter. Colonization and all its incredibly oppressive policies, programs, and attitudes that came with it commoditized Indigenous women to such an extent that their value was solely seen within sex, and if they were not being used or raped they were forgotten or seen as worthless. This isn’t an attitude that’s gone away and by laughing during a cultural safety seminar or a training course, people continue to perpetuate and devalue the lives of Indigenous peoples, particularly Indigenous women.
These attitudes are systemic and entrenched in our institutions. Never again do I want to have to write in my Masters Capstone that Indigenous communities can be reluctant to address trafficking. Because in no way does that reluctance stem from communities not putting value on their women and girls who are being raped or murdered. But because first responders can be so adversarial and racist that they victim-blame rather than work with Indigenous peoples to address the enormous issue that is ‘Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.’ And this article shows it.
This is crap. And those officers need a good dose of compassion (followed by a serious lesson in how to not be racist or colonizing to their facilitator, Indigenous peoples, or their communities).
