We're Together

There is something especially powerful about the first time someone chooses to share their voice in this space.

Today’s Teachings Tuesday is written by Rebecca Harris. Rebecca is a member of our Culturally Committed community and our Manager, Operations and Community. She is also a white settler married into a Coast Salish family, and the statlus (spouse) of our mentor, George Harris Jr..

Rebecca is thoughtful, steady, and often quietly observant. Sharing publicly does not come comfortably to her — which makes today’s reflection all the more meaningful. It takes courage to name what we are still learning. It takes humility to examine ourselves out loud. And it takes heart to share an experience that feels tender.

I am so grateful for her willingness to use her voice.

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For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Rebecca Harris. I am a white settler who married into an Indigenous family and I live on my husband’s traditional territory. Because of that, I often see injustice from a kind of side line. I witness it happening to the people I love. I see how it affects them. Sometimes I experience small pieces of it myself. Not in the same way or with the same weight, but enough to see how it works.

Recently on one of our Community Calls, the question was raised of what settlers can be doing better. One of the main takeaways was that we need to look at the prejudices we inherently carry. Ones formed in our education and our upbringing. The assumptions that live in us without us even realizing it. The stories our brains fill in automatically.

Recently I found myself on the receiving end of exactly that.

Our family is big. When we get together there are more than 20 of us. This means that even when we make reservations somewhere, we usually end up waiting for a bit. It is just part of being a big group.

We went to a restaurant in Duncan to celebrate my sister in law’s birthday. When my husband and I arrived, some of our family members were already there sitting in the waiting area. It was warm and stuffy inside and the small waiting area was full with us, so my husband and his sister stepped outside to get some fresh air.

That left me inside with my two teenage nephews, my father in law who had just walked in, and my niece.

I was standing near the door holding my niece’s hand and talking with her about hockey. We were smiling and laughing. Just waiting like everyone else.

A staff member walked over to me and asked, “Do you need help?”

I gestured toward my family sitting nearby and said,

“We’re together.”

On its own, that might not seem like a big deal. Maybe he was just trying to do his job. But a few things stood out to me immediately in that moment.

First, he was not the host who had originally helped our group and second, he did not ask my father in law if he needed help nor my nephews. 

Even if he had already seen the boys and knew they had been helped and were waiting, my father in law had come in after me and was sitting closer to the host stand.

But he walked over to me, standing by the door and specifically and asked if I needed help.

He did not say, “Have you been helped?” He said, “Do you need help?”

That difference mattered.

It felt like an assumption had already been made. Like I must not belong with the group I was standing beside. Like I needed to be separated out and assisted.

This man saw a white lady standing with Indigenous people and assumed I was not with them.

Despite the fact that I was holding my niece’s hand.

Despite the fact that I was laughing with her.

Despite the fact that I had not approached the host stand or asked for help in any way.

His brain filled in a story before he had any real information.

What hurt me most was not the question itself. It was the look on the faces of the three young people with me.

They knew.

They understood what was being implied. And they understood it quickly, because they have experienced it before. More than once. They are already used to reading those moments. Already used to catching the small shifts in tone and body language. Already aware of when they are being seen as separate.

That is what stayed with me.

It's a feeling that is all too familiar. Because this wasn’t the first time something like this has happened. When I am out with my husband, it is often assumed we are separate. In stores. In restaurants. In everyday spaces. I say the words “We’re together” more often than I ever thought I would have to.

These moments are not dramatic. They are not loud. But they happen over and over again. And that is what makes it clear that it is not random.

In our Culturally Committed community we talked about how settlers need to be better to effect change in the world. To do that we have to address the prejudices we carry.  Not just the obvious ones. The quiet ones. The ones that show up in split second decisions. 

I don’t think that the staff member intended harm. I truly believe he thought he was doing just his job. But intention does not erase impact.

If we want to do better, it has to start with questioning these automatic assumptions. Why did I assume they were not together? Why did I assume they wouldn’t know how to do this task? Why did I check his bag but not hers? Why did I assume they didn't belong? What story did I make up in my head before I actually knew anything?

These are uncomfortable questions. But they matter.

Because prejudice does not only show up in big obvious ways. It often hides in what feels “normal.” In what feels automatic. It is in what we were taught, quietly, over years, without ever being told we were being taught it.

And sometimes it shows up in a simple question in a restaurant waiting area.

I will keep saying, “We’re together.”

But I hope one day I will not have to.

~ Rebecca Harris

Becca, thank you.

Thank you for noticing. Thank you for staying with the discomfort. Thank you for modelling what it looks like to examine the quiet assumptions that live beneath the surface.

And thank you for your courage in speaking — especially when speaking doesn’t come easily.

This is how change happens. Not always in grand gestures, but in small, honest reckonings.

I raise my hands to you.

<3 Kim