A Year After WestJet Incident, Indigenous Organizer Says New Activism Is Around the Corner

In January, Nikki Sanchez, a 34-year-old Maya Pipil woman (Indigenous to Central America), said she was racially profiled and denied service by a WestJet attendant in Victoria, B.C. 

The attendant “took one look at me, did not ask for my name or flight number, and instead she asked if I had been drinking,” Sanchez told VICE at the time. She didn’t make it to her destination in the end, and instead demanded an apology from WestJet in a post that went viral on Instagram.

Sanchez is no stranger to activism. VICE first met her in 2017, when she produced RISE, an eight-part docu-series that honours Indigenous communities fighting colonization. She’s currently doing a PhD that explores new media and Indigeneity.

In the spring, before pandemic lockdowns forced people indoors, Sanchez also rushed to support youth land defenders who staged a sit-in at B.C.’s legislature. They were standing in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs in their fight against the $6.6 billion Coastal GasLink pipeline, a heavily disputed natural gas pipeline that crosses through Wet'suwet'en territory. 

Then the pandemic hit, and the killing of George Floyd, acting as a nonstop reminder of the systemic racism targeting racialized folks. But Sanchez was undeterred. Here she talks to VICE World News about how 2020 has ushered in a new kind of activism, what allyship should look like, and if she ever did get that WestJet apology. 

VICE World News: What has changed this year, in a post-George Floyd world?
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.

It was really incredible in my own community, after Floyd’s death, we saw for the first time Black and Indigenous organizers come together, have difficult conversations, and deepen our relationships to support one another through these tragedies. I would assume that was a microcosm for many communities, especially after seeing the numbers calling for police reform and what became a massive call in Canada and the U.S. to defund the police. A year ago, I don't think most people would have thought you could say that out loud. 

I’m seeing a new form of unified activism emerge.

We’ve seen racial reckonings in all sorts of sectors. How do we distinguish between meaningful change and virtue signalling?
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? 

You've done a lot of work supporting youth activists for Wet'suwet'en. Have you seen any shifts in terms of how people are approaching Wet'suwet'en?
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.