Put Your Foot on the Brakes: Standing Up to Indigenous Specific Racism

Even though my son, Andrew, graduated over two years ago, I still follow the Facebook page of the school he attended. Last week, I was pleased to see a post about how the school had acknowledged Orange Shirt Day, and I quickly hearted it. Then I noticed a comment and decided to read it. I felt a flash of frustration when I saw: “There is a lot of emotion, nuance and politicization around this day. I really wish we’d keep the young kids, who don’t think critically and are emotionally immature, out of this.”

Others had already begun to respond, and the thread had turned into a debate about residential school statistics and whether these topics belong in school at all. Those who know me know that I am conflict averse. My often daughter gives me a hard time for choosing silence over speaking up, and she is not wrong. But through my time in circle with our CC community, I have been thinking carefully about how to respond to disinformation and dissenting views about Indigenous peoples, and more often than not, I now say something.

I did not want to get sucked into a debate about numbers. Instead, I tried to bring the conversation back to the people. I wrote that the school sits on the unceded territory of the Snuneymuxw people, that many of the parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents of today’s students are still living, and that some of them gave testimony about their time in the residential schools in this region. I said that when someone shares their lived experience with you, it changes the way you see the world, and that I hoped anyone in that school community who was directly affected felt honoured and lifted up. The commenter never responded to or acknowledged my comment, although a few readers liked what I wrote. It’s my hope that I gave the commenter something to ponder.

That is why George’s words this week mean so much to me. He writes about some painful events from the past few weeks, and he asks all of us a question I have been sitting with: what will we do when we see it? Please take care as you read, as this one is heavy.

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Uy skweyul siiye’yu (Good day friends),

Before anything else, I want to say huy ch q’u (thank you).

Huy ch q’u (Thank you) to everyone who wore orange on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, who sat and listened to a survivor’s story, who explained to a child why every child matters, or who simply paused to remember. I see you, and your care makes a difference. I also need to talk with you about something heavy, because over the past few weeks we have witnessed some painful displays of Indigenous specific racism in this country we call Canada.

Canada likes to think of itself as a country of polite, loving, caring people. Many of you truly are. That is exactly why these moments hurt so much. It is disheartening to see that this kind of behaviour is still happening here, today, in 2026.

On Sunday, September 27, 2026, just three days before the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, a group believed to be white nationalists showed up on Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc lands dressed in black, with white material covering their faces. They came to intimidate the community and to instill fear. They put up a banner that read “Got Bones?” That banner is widely understood to be aimed at Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc for the courageous work they shared with the world in 2021, when ground penetrating radar identified what are believed to be the unmarked graves of 215 children on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

I invite you to sit with that for a moment. Grown adults travelled to a community that is still grieving its children and held up a sign mocking those children. That is not a debate. That is not free inquiry. That is cruelty. For our people, those children are not a number or a news story. They are somebody’s little brother, somebody’s auntie who never got the chance to grow up, somebody’s grandpa who never made it home. Survivors carried the memory of those children for generations, long before any radar ever touched the ground. The knowing was already in our communities.

Leaders have raised serious concerns about the rise of groups like this, and about the possible ties to fight clubs where white nationalist groups are training physically for a war. It seems some of them believe a fight is coming. I want to say this as clearly and as gently as I can: our people are not coming to attack you. We know what it is like to be on the receiving end of violence. We know physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and sexual abuse because it was done to us, to our parents, and to our grandparents. We know the kind of damage that settles into a community long after the harm has ended, and how many years of healing it takes to come back from it. We would never wish that kind of pain on anyone. So how about we simply treat people the way we want to be treated? Most of us learned that as children.

Then on September 29, 2026, Frances Widdowson, a well known residential school denialist, came to the University of Victoria while the campus was holding its Orange Shirt Day events. She had announced online that she was coming back to criticize UVic for taking part in reconciliation activities, and she tried to conceal her identity with a wig and a cap. But the people gathered there would not stand for it. Instead of shouting back, the crowd raised their voices and sang the Women’s Warrior Song, lifting a song of strength and remembrance over the hateful words coming from Widdowson. Police liaison officers with the Greater Victoria Public Safety Unit asked her to leave peacefully. She refused, argued with officers for several minutes, and was arrested and taken away. This was not the first time. She has been arrested on university campuses before, including at UVic and UBC.

I want us to notice what happened in that moment. Hate came looking for a fight, and it was met with a song. That is who we are. Our songs have carried us through things that were meant to break us, and they carried that crowd too. To everyone who stood there and sang, Indigenous and non-Indigenous side by side, huy ch q’u (thank you). You showed all of us what standing up looks like.

There is something else worth noticing in both of these events. The people spreading this hate tried to hide who they were, one behind a mask, the other behind a wig and a cap. If you truly believed what you were saying was right, why would you need a disguise? Premier David Eby said something similar: if you think people are on your side, you don’t hide your face. I believe they hide because somewhere deep down they know the views they carry in their hearts would not hold up in the light of day. They are afraid of the consequences, and those consequences are real. Widdowson herself lost her job at Mount Royal University in Calgary back in 2020 after heavy criticism of her comments on residential schools. My hope is that people across this country will keep holding those who spread hate speech accountable, not with violence, but with truth, with courage, and with the simple refusal to look the other way.

It has been encouraging to hear our leaders speak up. Prime Minister Mark Carney called the display in Kamloops cowardly and abhorrent, and said it has no place in this country. The RCMP are investigating. Leaders from across the political spectrum in BC have condemned it. And Premier Eby called on every British Columbian to stand up to this kind of hate and say, not in our province. I want to take him up on that, because real change does not only happen in Ottawa or Victoria. It happens at the kitchen table, in the staff room, in the comment section, and on the sidewalk.

So this is a WAKE UP call to all Canadians. What you have seen these past few weeks is a glimpse of what Indigenous people live with every single day. Most of it never makes the news. It is the comment at the grocery store, the joke at work, the assumption made before we even open our mouths. It has gone on for hundreds of years, and it is still coming at us.

I am not asking anyone to put themselves in physical danger. What I am asking is that when you see or hear Indigenous specific racism, you speak up. It might be as simple as saying “That’s not okay” when someone repeats a denialist talking point at dinner. It might be kindly correcting misinformation when you see it online. It might be checking in on an Indigenous friend or coworker this week and asking how they are really doing. It might be learning the name of the nation whose land you live on, and saying it out loud.

Yes, it can be uncomfortable. There will be some friction. But think about driving a car. The only way to bring a car to a stop is to put your foot on the brake and let the brakes create friction. Without that friction, the car just keeps rolling. Racism works the same way. If nobody applies the brakes, it keeps rolling right through our communities. So let’s put our foot on the brakes together and bring Indigenous specific racism to a stop.

Our people have been through so much, and we are still here. We are still singing, still dancing, still speaking our languages, still raising our children and grandchildren with love. But for our people to truly heal, the harm needs to stop. Healing cannot happen while the wound is still being opened. That is why we are calling on all of you, our relatives, our friends, and our allies, to stand with us. Every Child Matters is more than the words on a shirt. It is a promise we make to the children who never came home, to the survivors who are still with us, and to the generations who are not yet born.

Let’s keep that promise together.

Huy ch q’u | Thank you

Wholwolet’za | George Harris Jr

What stays with me from George’s teaching is how ordinary his invitation is. It is not a march or a grand gesture. It is saying “That’s not okay” at the dinner table, or kindly correcting something in a comment section, or checking in on an Indigenous friend or coworker. His image of the brakes on a car has been rattling around in my head. Friction is uncomfortable, but without it, nothing stops.

I’d love to hear from you. Where might you be able to put your foot on the brake this week? Or is there a moment when you stayed quiet that you are thinking about differently now? Just hit reply. I read every message.

In learning,

Kim