A Status Indian

Is it ever a weird time to attempt becoming an emerging creator, we do live in the 21st century now. Sometimes talking with members from my home community makes time feel like an alternate reality, similar to stepping through a vortex into a reality from the world’s most racist eras. So I am going to spill the cooled beans I have here in Canada, from ongoing attempts of genocide perpetrated onto First Nations peoples to unhealed traumas in First Nations peoples; I have met less than a handful of people who are open to bi-racial relationships between First Nations people and Canadians. To put it into more descriptive terms, I’m indigenous, first nations, legally, a Status Indian and I am with a White Canadian male.

Oh snap, that forced assimilation got me! This is what I assume many First Nations people and my Canadian friends believe about me, I have been told by friends that they do not trust white males. ‘Now flip it, and reverse it!’ (-Missy Elliot) I was placed into a home where I was only surrounded by caucasian Canadians. It was a life of being falsely accused and judged, with little to no, honest communication between myself and any stranger adult growing up. As a female of colour from a young age, I quickly learned to not follow through with certain things a caucasian person told me to do, as it will ‘be beneficial’, yes for caucasian people. So instead of accepting encouraging work support in my late adolescent years, I retracted away from areas of work that I was passionate about. I retracted away to deal with mental health issues, that I knew if I didn’t focus on and treat, it would backfire on me in the future. I am happy knowing I choose to inhabit the sacred ways of the turtle, which in my cultural region represents truth. I needed to accept truths of my life that I unacknowledged through communicative avoidance, over exercising, and over consumption of cigarettes. I have longed for healthy relationships with specific family members, I have come to accept that I won’t know anything about my father and accept my mother and I will not have any form of healthy communication. (insert passive canadian comment here). I wrote this to also help with releasing some anxiety from my first podcast upload where I mentioned my boyfriend. I don’t speak of my personal relationships on media much these days and today’s short story is sharing self acceptance around life situations as a Status Indian in this wild world. I wanted to write this not only as a reminder to myself in the future, but to those who make unhealthy assumptions about themselves and others in life, life is too short to not love yourself and those around you kindly. For a long time, I thought in order to love kindly towards others I needed to check off things off an imaginary list. Why did I think this, well the people who were around me, were folks who I trauma bonded with. I trauma bonded with these folks through my Career of Child and Family Services. When you grow up in group homes, what should be deemed normal, is outings with your biological family. Not with other Kids in Care, from other group homes. I thought my life with Mr. Scot and Mrs. Brit was alienating enough, neigh, it became further alienating in the group home era. I wound up finding it very penned up, or in another word institutionalizing. I’m thankful for not being placed in a lock up facility during my group home era, I can only imagine the facility feeling like that penned up feeling during the group home outings. This made my adult career passions dwindle for a period of time, I couldn’t explore activities that could have helped with fundamental brain development. I got my first dose of lateral violence in my group home, I believe that would be the correct term for oppression between indigenous peoples. I could be totally wrong, this is my opinion though, I think racism, bigotry and discrimination would fall under the category lateral violence. I end up visualizing an umbrella, oppression at the top of the umbrella pole, then the umbrella fabric becomes lateral violence, as the umbrella arms branches out into racism, bigotry, and discrimination. Shortly after my first dose of lateral violence, I found an activity that wasn’t deemed legally okay for a kid in care, which was a multimedia program. It became a safe haven for my mental health, as I was only permitted to attend the program with conditions. I had other programs I needed to attend like therapy and drug counseling. A year into the multimedia program, I found myself moving out into my first apartment at the age of 16. It was a suggestion based upon my behaviours from a support worker. I still was struggling with staying sober from hard drugs, which I turned to on the weekends and days I didn’t have programming. It was suggested in the springtime, after the majority of snow melted. I remember this as this was just after I experienced homelessness for the first time. I couldn’t stay in a building where I was deemed an apple, based upon the fact of the specific placement into the Mr. Scot and Mrs. Brit home from my biological mother. Being deemed an apple was the first form of lateral violence I faced, it was only until a younger foster sib explained to me what they meant. I was red on the outside and white on the side, if I didn’t create a “dumb persona” from being called an apple would have hurt a lot more. So after my career in Child and Family services ended, *uuhherrm* what is called aging out of Child and Family Services. Leading up to aging out of care, I became a participant of a different program that helps marginalized, low income persons. I did not need to create a persona, or a couple; however it was a defense mechanism to survive the trials and tribulations of CFS. During this transition with the help of this program, I met one of my best friends who saw through my personas. He straight up asked what my name was, every time I gave my given name, he corrected me and asked again until I shared my chosen name of Roxie-Jade. Once I said my name, he then said it was nice to meet the “real you”. My given name was a blip in my path to healing, the given name made myself an easier target for first nations people, in particular, as the name seemed to match my unknowingly “big brained” personality. I always thought the mannerisms I was taught were “proper” but it is unreal to people, it is “proper” for first nations people to be what is stigmatized upon us, being an addict, homeless, a drunk, a crazy indian. I walked away from situations in which others became provoking towards me, as I’m not any of those things. At least not anymore, I choose to improve my mental health, I choose to allow space for healing, I choose to end friendships that were not serving well intentions for my being. From making these choices with the help from one of my best friends I was able to heal, and really hone down on the passions and paths that bring me joy. Which has led me to share these experiences.