Nikki Sanchez started out the year by speaking out against anti-Indigenous racism and then rushed to support youth activists supporting Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs. Photo by Mike Graeme
The people fighting to end systemic inequality have been talking to VICE for years. Now we're catching up with them to find out what's changed.
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Nikki Sanchez: To see the number of names just get longer and longer for Black people who have been shot by the police—in Canada, Indigenous peoples being killed by police—and missing and murdered Indigenous women, it becomes so overwhelming. There is a level of grief fatigue.At the time of George Floyd’s death, people had been in lockdown for three months, every one of us using social media to interact with the world. The visibility of that murder collectively broke our hearts to a new level. It felt at the point like there was nothing left to lose.
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There’s no box you can check that makes you an ally. Allyship is an action that you’re constantly engaging in. Because of the way racism works, folks think if they have a Black friend, donated to a Black or Indigenous cause, or have gone to a rally and put it on their Instagram, they’re an ally. That's not the case.Allyship means putting your skin in the game. It’s quiet, supportive work that requires offering what's needed, not just what you want to give. Ultimately, what are you doing when nobody else is looking? When you perform what you consider to be allyship what is the motivating factor? Would you be doing it if nobody was ever going to give you credit for it?
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With Wet'suwet'en we went from occupying a legislature and creating a community within a community to a full pandemic lockdown. There was a lot of uncertainty about how to continue to do solidarity work and activism during a pandemic. I think a lot of communities are struggling to figure that out. With my generation and Gen Z, in the face of everything they've inherited—an incredibly racist system, massive wealth inequality, and environmental catastrophe—there is a sense of nothing left to lose. That changes the face of activism when you have people who truly don't see a future worth living for and are willing to die on the streets for what they believe in.What are you looking for going into 2021?
With the COVID lockdown we’ve seen we can actually stop the economy, stop travel, and still survive. COVID proved to us that a few policy changes can make a massive impact on our reality. Then, life goes on: people find a way to adapt and make their lives functional, despite big changes. There’s a lot of empowerment there. That’s also meant we've had to find new strengths and approaches to show our adaptability and resilience. We also have a profound opportunity to have a conversation among ourselves as Indigenous and people of colour to remove the sense of opposition, competition, or scarcity that has been used as a tool historically to pit us against one another. It’s time to see the roots of our oppression—and faces of our oppressor—and start to name those forces and hold them accountable. Police are supposed to be the ones that keep us safe, when, in fact, they're acting as terrorists in communities of colour. For those of us that are still here and still breathing, the best way we can honour George Floyd and everyone who has come before and after him is to take a look at what we've inherited, what our skill sets are, what our points of privilege are, and really start to deconstruct and dismantle things in a system that doesn’t care about us. Did WestJet ever apologize?
No (laughs).The interview was edited for length and clarity.