Empowering Indigenous Youth: LeeAnne on the Challenges of Everyday Racism
Meet LeeAnne Ireland
I’m mixed race, my mom is Indigenous, and my dad is white. So, I come from a mixed-race background and visibly it depends on how you see Indigenous people and cultures. I'm Anishinaabe, which is from the central Ontario region. I've always kind of been a bit of a do-gooder. When I was a kid, I started a composting system at my school, and I created a fundraiser to save the rainforest. I try to rewrite history, based on my knowledge of the Indigenous people in my life and my family.
I graduated high school when I was quite young, I was 16! I decided to go to university, and I wanted to be a lawyer to work in human rights and constitutional law so I could dismantle laws that exist to oppress and suppress Indigenous people. I got involved in Indigenous Studies and ended up majoring in it. My path started when I started working at the Urban Society for Aboriginal Youth (USAY) when I was 20 years old. Initially, I was in a do-gooder role, I thought I was going to help people and change lives. Eventually, I realized that no one needs my help. Everyone has the power within themselves to know what their version of success is. Everyone has the power to know what their pathways are and to know what they excel at. There are so many brilliant young Indigenous people that do not need my help. They need access to opportunity.
I realized that every time someone tells you that you're a ‘worthless Indian’ or you're a ‘chug’ or you're a ‘savage’ it knocks down your ability to envision that successful life that you have for yourself. It starts to repeat and has negative mental health connotations to it. We need to work on empowering Indigenous people to overcome and resist racism in their everyday lives. We need to have positive self-perception and self-worth. It wasn't about helping anyone or fixing anyone or being a do-gooder. It was about having conversations, creating self-perception and equipping people with the skills that they need. So, that when they went out into the world and people said some of these things it didn't knock them down. They can still achieve all these things that they want for themselves.
The ultimate goal is to raise Indigenous people in tandem with non-Indigenous people. That's how I got involved through personal revelations, my journey and how I could support other people in their journey. USAY produces a decolonization magazine so there is an entire issue on reconciliation and decolonization. We have a magazine about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women which honours Indigenous women but also how to value women and take action. And that’s my decolonization and anti-racism journey.
LeeAnne Ireland is a local decolonization activist. You can learn more about USAY here. Note, the interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.