A seventy-two year old, world-class chef, fitness expert and motivational speaker, Chef Babette runs a successful Inglewood, California restaurant, Stuff I Eat, while also producing online cooking classes, and participating in health summit and speaking engagements all around the country. She is an amazing, inspirational human being who lives her life from a place of love. I hope that you will take some time to learn about her incredible journey.
Category: IBPoC Creators, Authors & Leaders
Watch List: “Bones of Crows”
Bones of Crows is the first Indigenous and female-led produced, written, and directed drama about the residential school experience in North America. It was created by Marie Clements, a Canadian Métis playwright, performer, director, producer and screenwriter.
The film is a psychological drama told through the eyes of Cree Matriarch, Aline Spears. It reflects the protagonist’s survival of Canada’s residential school system and the impacts of systemic racism, starvation and sexual abuse. Bones of Crows unfolds over a one hundred year span; it captures an inter-generational fight for survival, as well as highlights the strength and resiliency of Indigenous peoples.
I had the privilege of attending a private screening of Bones of Crows earlier this week. Marie Clements and many of the cast members were there in person at the event. Not only was it deeply moving experience to watch the film but it was an honour to learn, first hand, about its creation. Every single Indigenous person who spoke was either a residential school survivor themself or knew a family or community member who had survived. The experience of being there, in that room, bearing witness to the truth of Canada’s dark past, is something that I will never forget.
Black History Month
Every February, people across Canada participate in Black History Month events and festivities that honour the legacy of Black people in Canada and their communities.
Historically, Black people have largely been ignored in the telling of mainstream Canadian history. Black History Month is a time to learn about these important stories and significant contributions.
The 2023 theme for Black History Month is: Ours to Tell. This theme represents both an opportunity to engage in open dialogue, and a commitment to learn about Black histories, successes, sacrifices and triumphs. I encourage you to start by checking out this great series 28 Moments of Black Canadian History by Unilearnal.
National Day for Truth & Reconciliation
Today is the second annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day in Canada. It is both a day of mourning and reflection, as well one of action and hope for a better future ahead. I am honouring this day, in part, by highlighting a poem, “Wild West”, written by an Indigenous author, Cobra Collins.
Cobra is a Mohkínstsis-based mixed Indigenous and Metis poet. She has represented Vancouver on a national level at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, as well as collaborated with artists of different backgrounds for dance (Fluid Movements Arts Festival) and performance festivals (IKG 1 ! Live Performance Festival). She currently sits as Indigenous advocate on the Writers’ Union of Canada’s (TWUC) National Council. Cobra was also honoured to be shortlisted as a nominee for Calgary’s 2016 & 2018 poet laureate.
The Ungrievable
“One way of posing the question of who ‘we’ are … is by asking whose lives are considered valuable, whose lives are mourned, and whose lives are considered ungrievable.”
~ Judith Butler, Frames of War: When is Life Grievable?
Both the Canadian government, and the Province of BC, have declared September 19, 2022 a one-time Day of Mourning to mark the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. The swift and unified response demonstrates the immense value that our elected officials place upon the monarch’s life and legacy. It also reveals the ongoing strength of colonial ties between Canada and Great Britain. What this day highlights for me how our country continues to devalue Indigenous lives and how we are failing to live up to our promises of meaningful reconciliation.
September 30, 2021 marked the first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its final report, with 94 Calls to Action, in December 2015. It took almost six years for the federal government to respond to Action #80, which called upon the federal government, in collaboration with Indigenous Peoples, “to establish, as a statutory holiday, a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to honour survivors, their families and communities, and ensure that public commemoration of the history and legacy of residential schools remains a vital component of the reconciliation process.” Six years. In that time, the remains of more than 1,000 people, mostly children, were discovered in unmarked graves on the grounds of three former residential schools in two Canadian provinces.
On the first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, Prime Minister Trudeau chose to surf with his family in Tofino, rather than spend the day with survivors and their families. Conversely, the Prime Minister immediately flew to London, England to attend the Queen’s lying-in-state; and on the National Day of Mourning, he will attend her funeral. The respect and reverence that he shows for one day over the other speaks volumes.
On this Day of Mourning, I will respect its intention to honour the legacy of a woman who gave her life to public service; and I will equally reflect upon the violence that colonialism continues to inflict upon Indigenous lives. I will read the 94 Calls to Action, and the Calls for Justice, in the Final Report for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. I will think about how I can, as a Canadian, do my part to move forward the calls to action and honour the thousands of lives lost.
A Day of Reflection and Remembrance
September 30th, 2021 marks the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The creation of this day is in response to the 94 calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It is a new federal statutory holiday in Canada, marking the genocide that took place in our country, as well as the irreparable, intergenerational harm that residential schools continue to afflict upon Indigenous families and communities. It honours the survivors. Residential schools were government-sponsored religious schools specifically established to “kill the Indian in the child” and assimilate Indigenous children into Euro-Canadian culture. They ran for over over a hundred years, from the late 1800s until 1996: impacting over 150,000 children.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission final report estimates that more than 4,000 indigenous children died in residential schools from either neglect or abuse. It is believed that this number is actually five to ten times higher, but the final total is unknown, due to poor record keeping by the churches, and unmarked mass graves.
Throughout the spring and summer of 2021, many new discoveries of children’s bodies were made due to the ground penetrating radar technology. The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation in British Columbia discovered 215 unmarked graves on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. The Penelakut First Nation located 160 undocumented and unmarked graves in the province’s Southern Gulf Islands, once home to the Kuper Island Residential School; and 750 unmarked graves were discovered on the grounds of the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan.
September 30 is also Orange Shirt Day. This is an Indigenous-led grassroots commemorative day that honours the children who survived Indian Residential Schools and remembers those who did not. This day originates from the experience of Phyllis Webstad, a Northern Secwpemc (Shuswap) from the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation, on her first day of school, where she arrived dressed in a new orange shirt, and it was taken away from her. It has come to symbolize the stripping away of culture, freedom and self-esteem experienced by Indigenous children over generations. Orange Shirt Day invites Canadians to wear orange shirts on September 30th each year to honour survivors of residential schools, their families, and their communities.
Many Canadians view the residential school system as part of a distant past, disassociated from the current day. This is incorrect. The last residential school did not close its doors until 1996, and many of the leaders, teachers, parents, and grandparents of our Indigenous communities are residential school survivors. Although residential schools are closed, their effects remain ongoing for both survivors and their descendants who now share in the intergenerational effects of trauma and loss of language, culture, traditional teachings, and mental/spiritual wellbeing.
In Canada, 52.2% of children in foster care are Indigenous, but account for only 7.7% of the child population. This means 14,970 out of 28,665 foster children in private homes under the age of 15 are Indigenous: many of them permanently removed from Indigenous communities. Results from the 2011 National Household Survey also show that 38% of Indigenous children in Canada live in poverty, compared to 7% for non-Indigenous children. This stark reality illustrates the ongoing ripple effects of racists government policies, such as the Indian Residential School System, and the Indian Act.
On this first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, every Canadians must take small, incremental steps on the path towards reconciliation. This can be done in many different ways, through learning, attending events, or donating to your community. It is a personal journey but one that we all need to commit to if we are to successfully move this country towards meaningful reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.
Here are some links that provide ideas for how you can take action today:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/community/personal-acts-reconciliation-1.4687405
“Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson
Bryan Stevenson is the visionary founder and executive director of the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative (EJI). EJI is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, challenging racial and economic injustice, and protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.
In his book, Just Mercy, Stevenson mixes commentary and reportage, against the true story of Walter McMillian, an innocent black Alabaman sentenced to death for the 1986 murder of an 18-year-old white woman.
Throughout the book, Stevenson provides historical context, as well as his own moral and philosophical reflections on the American criminal justice and penal systems. He ultimately argues that society should choose empathy and mercy over condemnation and punishment.
“Today we have the highest rate of incarceration in the world. The prison population has increased from 300,000 people in the early 1970s to 2.3 million people today. There are nearly six million people on probation or on parole. One in every fifteen people born in the United States in 2001 is expected to go to jail or prison; one in every three black male babies born in this century is expected to be incarcerated.”
Just Mercy is centered around unravelling McMillian’s case, revealing gross police and prosecutorial misconduct, while also weaving in stories of other death-row inmates. Stevenson does this to illustrate the common infringement of victims’ rights, inflexible sentencing laws, and practices of injustice that result in too many juveniles, minorities, and mentally ill people being imprisoned in the United States.
“We will ultimately not be judged by our technology, we won’t be judged by our design, we won’t be judged by our intellect and reason. Ultimately, you judge the character of a society . . . by how they treat the poor, the condemned, the incarcerated.”
Throughout the book, Stevenson writes about the histories of different marginalized groups. He describes the racial history of the United States, from slavery through Reconstruction, post-Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, to the current day. He argues that efforts to oppress and dominate black people have not ended, but have endured through new institutions and social practices; and mass incarceration, which disproportionately affects poor people and minorities, is the latest incarnation of systemic racial and economic violence.
“Proximity has taught me some basic and humbling truths, including this vital lesson: Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done. My work with the poor and the incarcerated has persuaded me that the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice.”
This is an incredibly well-written and powerfully presented book. I learned a lot by reading it and I highly recommend that you pick it up.
“Indian Horse” by Richard Wagamese
Indian Horse is a stark, yet incredibly beautifully written novel by Ojibway writer Richard Wagamese. As one of Canada’s foremost Indigenous authors and storytellers, Wagamese’s body of work includes six novels, a book of poetry (Runaway Dreams), and five non-fiction titles, including two memoirs and an anthology of his newspaper columns.
Indian Horse tells the story of Saul Indian Horse. It is set in northern Ontario in the 1950’s and 60’s. It begins with Saul, a former minor league hockey star, recovering in a treatment centre for alcoholism; he is chronicling his life experience as a means of facing his addiction. Although a deeply personal tale, it is also reflective of the wider intergenerational trauma experienced by thousands of Indigenous residential school survivors across Canada.
It begins in the northern Ontario where Saul lives off the land with his parents, grandmother and older brother Ben. Saul is happiest when learning traditional skills and family lore from his grandmother. Both of his parents are residential school survivors. They desperately hope that living in the wilderness, away from their community, will save their boys from being taken away to from them; but despite the family’s best efforts, the boys are eventually found, and taken against their will.
Once Saul arrives at St. Jerome’s Indian Residential School, his experience is harrowing: the students are subjected to beatings, sexual abuse and ritualized humiliation. The school is not designed to teach them to thrive in a new world but to break their spirits and erase their traditional ways of life. Although exceptionally difficult to read, Wagamese truthfully reflects the dire reality experienced by thousands of children across Canada: chronicling a dark chapter in history that should never be forgotten.
A form of hope arrives for Saul when an idealistic young priest introduces the older boys to ice hockey. The priest takes Saul under his wing, and allows him to play, even though he is younger than the other players on the team. The reader observes eight-year-old Saul exuberantly clearing the snow off the ice for the school team and practicing stick handling in the pre-dawn hours using frozen horse turds for pucks. Saul has a natural talent for the game and, like all great players, he visualizes complex plays before they unfold on the ice. He is soon outplaying the older boys, and he is eventually given permission to board with a family in Manitouwadge, so he can join the Native Tournament Circuit.
Saul finds love and acceptance in his new home: both with the Kelly family and his team, “The Moose”. He enjoys camaraderie with his fellow players both on an off the ice. But as Saul’s opportunities increase, so does his exposure to the overt racism and discrimination of the 1960s hockey world, and Canadian society. Saul’s rise up through the ranks of the minor-league is swift but it is also fleeting. He is stripped of his passion for the game and he ultimately walks away from his dream: adopting the nomadic life of a drifter. After many lost years, he hits rock bottom. With some support, he eventually finds his way home, rediscovering his connection to the land, his people, and himself.
Wagamese’s use of language throughout this novel is masterful. He is an incredibly skilled storyteller, with an uncanny descriptive power. I especially appreciated the visceral way that he captured Saul’s experience playing hockey; it helped me to understand the joy of the game. Throughout the book, I found myself stopping and rereading sections, just to take in its richness. Indian Horse is one of the most heart breaking and heart opening books that I have ever read. It is a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit and a stunningly beautiful piece of literature that everyone should experience.
“Son of a Trickster” by Eden Robinson
Son of a Trickster is a 2017 coming of age novel by Eden Robinson. The first book in Robinson’s Trickster trilogy, Son of a Trickster, was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and Canada Reads 2020. The second title, Trickster Drift, was also a bestseller; and the third volume, Return of the Trickster, is set to be released in March 2021.
Robinson is a member of British Columbia’s Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations. She weaves together traditional Indigenous narratives, with contemporary tales of violence and survival. This unique, genuinely surprising novel is a blend of difficult coming-of-age story, with mythic fiction, and it is powerfully subversive.
The story’s protagonist, Jared, lives in the basement of his mom’s house and gets by selling drugs to other kids at school. His northern town, Kitimat, is being torn apart by a pipeline debate, with one side for jobs, and the other fighting to protect the land. Jared’s parents are divorced. He financially supports his unemployed father; and his mother’s addiction, erratic behaviour, and love life, are a constant source of stress.
Robinson’s writing leads readers down a path in which Indigenous spiritual and supernatural worlds collide with the everyday world of pop culture and high school coming-of-age narrative. Son of a Trickster is exactly as slippery as a trickster tale should be, changing direction and shape, even as you convince yourself you know what is going on, and what will happen next.
Jared is followed by a chatty raven, who later claims to be his real father, and an old woman who appears to have a creature moving beneath her skin. When he starts to see animal spirits and strange ape-men everywhere, his mother admits that his father is a trickster named Wee’git.
“Wee’git is a transforming raven and he has a very specific role in our culture. We tell our children Wee’git stories to teach them about protocol, or nuyum. But he teaches people this protocol by breaking all the rules. He is the bad example, the example of what not to do. So his stories are always funny and he’s a very lively character.”
~ Eden Robinson
Son of a Trickster was recently adapted into a six-part television series by CBC, called Trickster. Robinson worked with filmmakers Michelle Latimer (Rise, The Inconvenient Indian) and Tony Elliott (12 Monkeys, Orphan Black). It features Indigenous actors such as Joel Oulette, Crystle Lightning, and Kalani Quepo. The creative team includes notable Indigenous writer-directors Jesse Wente, Marie Clements, and Adam Garnet Jones; and the soundtrack features Indigenous musicians, such as the Snotty Nose Res Kids.
Although the series diverges from the novel in places, it is a strong interpretation. I highly recommend that you watch it, once you read the book. It can be accessed, for free, on CBC Gem.
“Me and White Supremacy” by Layla F. Saad
As a part of my anti-racism journey, I am committed to reading more works written by Indigenous, Black and People of Colour (IBPoC). There are some amazing resources available and I am grateful to these creators for sharing their time, expertise, and emotional labour. I will be featuring the books that have made a big impact on me through a IBPoC Authors’ Book Club. I hope that you will read them and tell me what you think. The more we read and share these resources, the farther the message spreads, and the more likely we can influence meaningful change. This starts by using our financial resources to support this important work.
The first book that I am featuring is Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad. She starts the book by defining what she means by “white supremacy” and presenting an invitation to the reader:
White supremacy is a system you have been born into. Whether or not you have known it, it is a system that has granted you unearned privileges, protection and power. It is also a system that has been designed to keep you asleep and unaware of what having that privilege, protection and power has meant for people who do not look like you. What you receive for your whiteness comes at a steep cost for those who are not white. This may sicken you and cause you to feel guilt, anger and frustration. But you cannot change your white skin colour to stop receiving these privileges just like BIPOC cannot change their skin colour to stop receiving racism. But what you can do is wake up to what is really going on. I invite you to challenge your complicity in this system and work to dismantle it within yourself and the world.
Saad has structured her book around a 28-day challenge, which she first introduced on Instagram after writing a post entitled I Need to Talk to White, Spiritual Women about White Supremacy. After it went viral, she was left fielding questions from white women about what to do next. This book is the result and it is structured to be an active and engaged process. She asks the reader to not only to think about the intellectual concepts that she presents, but to journal and self-reflect upon how these ideas show up in our daily lives. The doing element is very important. Each day Saad presents a new concept and then asks you to closely examine it (e.g. Day 1: You and White Privilege; Day 2: You and White Fragility; Day 3: You and Tone Policing).
White people are not used to seeing themselves as a race. From my own experience, I’ve been very aware of being a black person from a very young age because, when you’re not part of the dominant culture, you’re always the other. And so you’re aware of the thing that separates you from being seen as ‘normal’ like everyone else. White privilege means you don’t have to think of yourself as white. You just think of yourself as a person.
~ Layla F. Saad
I appreciate how clearly Saad presents each concept and then lays out a series of reflective journalling prompts to work through. Rarely do white people, including myself, analyze their own complicity and participation in the racist system that we all inhabit. The emotional burden of fighting for equality is predominantly left to those already disenfranchised by the system. This cannot continue. We cannot keep looking away. I was personally humbled by some of the things I discovered through doing the work. When I investigated the questions that she asked, I began to recognize the invisible and pervasive nature of racism. My failure to previously see it does not make me a “bad” person. It simply reveals the inequity of a deeply rooted system designed to benefit white people; once it is revealed, however, the challenge is for us to do something about it.
It is not comfortable to admit that you are safe because someone else is unsafe or that white people benefit from structural oppression in a very real way. Anti-racism work is uncomfortable. This discomfort is insignificant, however, compared to the harm that comes from doing nothing. These conversations among white people are long overdue; and they have never been more urgent. We need to ensure that the attention raised during the recent riots, marches and #BlackLivesMatters movement are not lost with the next sensational news headline. This is lifelong work. A commitment is needed from each of us to keep actively listening, learning, speaking out and examining our actions on a daily basis.
And what I really want people to understand is that this is not a one-and-done thing, this is lifelong work. White supremacy is a system and it’s impacted people of colour for forever. And so it’s not going to be dismantled or overcome by people saying it as just a one-time thing or just a simple set of actions that they do, rather it’s seeing themselves in the practice of anti-racism every day.
~ Layla F. Saad
A Day for Reflection
I am white settler woman of Irish, Scottish and French ancestry. I immigrated to Canada from the United States when I was seven years old. I love this country and I am so grateful to live here. Today is our national holiday, Canada Day. And although I am deeply proud to be Canadian, and I believe in celebrating many of the things that we stand for (e.g. universal health care), I am ashamed of the colonial underpinnings of our society. Canada’s history is full of racism, violence, genocide, and oppression against Indigenous peoples. This it not a thing of the past. It continues to this day.
In June 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) released its findings along with 94 Calls to Action regarding reconciliation between Canadians and Indigenous peoples. The Commission was officially established on June 1, 2008 with the purpose of documenting the history and lasting impacts of the Canadian residential school system on Indigenous students and their families. It provided residential school survivors an opportunity to share their experiences during public and private meetings held across the country.
The stated purpose of the TRC was to reveal to Canadians the complex truth about the history and the ongoing legacy of abuse in the church-run residential schools and to guide a process of truth and healing, leading toward reconciliation within Indigenous families, and between Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous communities, churches, governments, and Canadians.
In the report, survivors note how Canada’s broader colonial history, not just the legacy of the residential schools, has affected, and still affects Indigenous communities — including the establishment of the Indian Act, the over-representation of Indigenous children in foster care and adults in Canadian prisons, inferior education and health care, lack of access to clean water and infrastructure in Indigenous communities, and the growing number of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls.
On this Canada Day, I am reflecting upon this sobering reality, committing to continue educating myself and my daughter, and resolving to do whatever I can to support meaningful reconciliation. As a citizen of this country, it is my responsibility to demand that we foster an equitable and just society for everyone: one that we can all call home.
Here are some resources that I have found to be very helpful:
150 Acts of Reconciliation for Canada’s 150 by Crystal Fraser and Sara Komarnisky
21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Joseph
The Indian Act, after over 140 years, continues to shape, control, and constrain the lives and opportunities of Indigenous Peoples, and is at the root of many stereotypes that persist. Bob Joseph’s book, 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act, comes at a key time in the reconciliation process, when awareness from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities is at a crescendo. Joseph explains how Indigenous Peoples can step out from under the Indian Act and return to self-government, self-determination, and self-reliance—and why doing so would result in a better country for every Canadian. He dissects the complex issues around truth and reconciliation, and clearly demonstrates why learning about the Indian Act’s cruel, enduring legacy is essential for the country to move toward true reconciliation.
Speaking Our Truth: A Journey of Reconciliation by Monique Gray Smith
A nonfiction book for middle readers that examines how we can foster reconciliation in an accessible way. In Speaking Our Truth, we are embarking on a journey of reconciliation. This isn’t a read-and-do-nothing kind of book. It is an active exploration of Canada’s collective history. It’s about how we grow as individuals, families, communities and as a country.
Seven Fallen Feathers by Tanya Talaga
From 2000 to 2011, seven Indigenous high school students died in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The seven were hundreds of miles away from their families, forced to leave home to attend school in an unwelcoming city. Five were found dead in the rivers surrounding Lake Superior, below a sacred Indigenous site. Using a sweeping narrative focusing on the lives of the students, award-winning investigative journalist Tanya Talaga delves into the history of this small northern city that has come to manifest Canada’s long struggle with human rights violations against Indigenous communities.
The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King
Neither a traditional nor all-encompassing history of First Nations people in North America, The Inconvenient Indian is a personal meditation on what it means to be “Indian.” Thomas King explores the relationship between “Natives” and “non-Natives” since the fifteenth century and examines the way that popular culture has shaped our notion of Indigenous identity, while also reflecting on his own complicated relationship with activism
Breath by Breath 