Geoff Russ: Radical activist is as unhelpful an Indigenous stereotype as the noble warrior

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A year has passed since unmarked burial sites were located outside the former Kamloops residential school, setting off an unprecedented wave of sympathy and interest in Indigenous affairs. Surely, this would mean a greater understanding of the lives and aspirations of First Nations people? Unfortunately not. Indigenous people remain as misunderstood today as they were a year ago, or even sixty years go.  

Whoever has watched a John Ford Western can see the ignorance, deliberate or not, that accompanies those movies’ portrayal of Indigenous people as the primitively-armed antagonists. Ford was an incredible filmmaker, and the cultural impact of his technically fantastic movies meant his inaccurate portrayal stuck in the public imagination for decades. Baby Boomers, most Gen-X’ers, and many older millennials grew up with an idea of Indigenous people as a defeated, wise warrior race. Bags filled with plastic “Cowboys and Indians” miniature figures were once sold on almost every toy aisle. 

In 2022, the characteristics defining Indigenous people in popular culture have changed, but the levels of inaccuracy have barely lessened. Indigenous people are no longer primarily portrayed as intimidating warriors, but as sympathetic characters who require daily apologies. Indigeneity is equated with automatic radical environmentalism, and a revolutionary mindset.  

In the most extreme cases, fringe activists have been normalized as regular members of Indigenous communities. These are the ones who enthusiastically vandalize public property against the wishes of chiefs and other leaders, and celebrate burning churches. Many draw inspiration from far-left American public figures, who spend vast amounts of time denying the cultural genocide of the Uighurs in Western China on social media. The Uighurs are being systematically rounded up and sent to government institutions where they are forcibly stripped of their religion, language, and culture.

Nonetheless, the locating of unmarked burial sites near residential schools gave these radical hypocrites cover to destroy public property and burn places of worship last summer, actions excused as “understandable” by the federal government. These aren’t normal people, and they certainly aren’t representative of Indigenous communities. Yet, they’re grotesquely feted as leaders by progressive publications and academic pundits. 

These pseudo-intellectuals inform the Canadian public’s opinions and views of Indigenous people by praising the radicals on television and their books, lending them undue credibility, though they have little right to do so.Remember, academics and sociologists helped craft the policies that led to residential schools in the first place. Academia is an insular world, and most viewpoints found within it have no bearing outside it. If you formed your opinions on Indigenous people based solely on the academic worldview, you would believe we brush our teeth while contemplating how to best decolonize the toothpaste label.

I got a firsthand experience of how these kinds of misconceptions play out during fourth grade. My well-intentioned teacher decided reforms to the Indian Act, instead of my school performance or the last Canucks game, were an appropriate way to start a conversation with my dad on parent-teacher night. They would have gotten further with the hockey talk. Using political or sociological issues to start a conversation with strangers is odd, regardless of their ethnicity.

For all last year’s regurgitated rhetoric of listening, learning, and understanding Indigenous people, there is remarkably little of that actually happening. It is nearly a cliche at this point, but the anti-pipeline blockades on Wet’suwet’en land perfectly symbolize the divide between what non-Indigenous people think Indigenous people want, and what the latter actually wants. If many of our alleged “allies” really listened to Indigenous people, they wouldn’t like what they had to hear.   

If expanded pipeline and forestry operations weren’t what activists had in mind when they called for incorporating Indigenous ways of knowing into public discourse, they should have done more research. The elected councils of the First Nations located on the pipeline’s route approved the project, despite the university-brewed stereotype of Indigenous people as being anti-development. Although created by the Indian Act, elected councils aren’t illegitimate as representative of a people’s will, no less than in any other democratic system. The pipeline’s steel is in the ground, and it isn’t coming out.  

That hasn’t stopped celebrity activists like actor and 9/11 truther Mark Ruffalo, who has fully embraced the cause of the Wet’suwet’en blockades. He exposed himself as a monarchist, stating his belief that only hereditary chiefs have authority there, while downplaying the leadership of elected councils with the same enthusiasm and knowledge of a first year sociology major. Ruffalo champions democracy in the United States when it comes to issues like gun control, but embraces the hereditary principle when it comes to natural gas pipelines in Canada. The most Ruffalo has achieved, aside from proving he was miscast as the supergenius Bruce Banner, is exporting the image of Indigenous people in Canada as besieged tree huggers, living miserable lives without the reign of hereditary chiefs.  

Indigenous people are in a better place than ever to determine their own futures. Yet, after the unmarked burial sites captured the Canadian public’s hearts and minds, the method of creating the portrayal of Indigenous people has not changed. Will we still be largely misunderstood and typecast this time next year? Probably. Decolonization Inc. has too many textbooks to sell, television slots to fill, and Patreon donations to harvest, to stop treating First Nations as plot devices for made-up narratives.  

Geoff Russ is a Haida journalist and writer based in British Columbia. Find him on Twitter at @GeoffRuss3.

National Post