Demystifying Q&A with Matika Wilbur — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00(instrumental music)
2. 0:07- I'm Matika Wilbur.
3. 0:08I'm from the Snohomish and Tulalip tribes
4. 0:11in Washington state.
5. 0:13I'm a Photographer, a Filmmaker, a Writer,
6. 0:16and the Creator and Director of "Project 562",
7. 0:19which is an effort to photograph all of the tribes
8. 0:21in the United States, over 500 sovereign nations.
9. 0:29Project 562 is an effort to photograph all of the tribes
10. 0:32in the United States,
11. 0:34and it was started because we wanted to put together
12. 0:38a year long worth of visual literacy curriculum
13. 0:40while I was a teacher at the tribal school at my res,
14. 0:42and there wasn't enough material
15. 0:44to create a comprehensive collection.
16. 0:46So that's the main reason why I started this project.
17. 0:50This is my fifth consecutive project
18. 0:53that is centered around identity.
19. 1:01Here, I would say that
20. 1:03its primary focus has been focused on identity
21. 1:06and aiming to understand how do we describe,
22. 1:10understand, teach a contemporary indigenous identity?
23. 1:15And so we asked each of our participants
24. 1:17what it means to be an Indian,
25. 1:19it was problematic,
26. 1:21and so of course we had to change our questions
27. 1:24because we know that we can't be Indians,
28. 1:26we can't be something we never were.
29. 1:28And you know the definition of an Indian is wrought with,
30. 1:34well, not necessarily the definition,
31. 1:36but the identity of an Indian is wrought with
32. 1:38assimilation and termination and relocation and genocide,
33. 1:43and those experiences don't define our people
34. 1:47and they certainly don't give us a future.
35. 1:49And since extinction is a very real part
36. 1:52of the narrative when people consider American Indians,
37. 1:56we have to rearrange that thinking
38. 1:59so that people have imagined indigenous people
39. 2:02as a part of the present.
40. 2:04And so ideally folks would have the opportunity
41. 2:08to learn the indigenous history
42. 2:10and what it means to be a steward of the place
43. 2:13that they're occupying.
44. 2:15And hopefully we can create relationships with one another
45. 2:18through that process.
46. 2:20But yeah, in my experience,
47. 2:23"Project 562" first started by asking that question,
48. 2:27and then of course I've realized that
49. 2:29the better question is,
50. 2:30what does it mean to be
51. 2:35Tulilap or Snohomish or a Warm Springs?
52. 2:40And then I started to get a more land-based
53. 2:42and relationship-based identity answer
54. 2:44where people would say,
55. 2:44we're the people of the tall pine trees
56. 2:46or the people of the blue-green water
57. 2:47or the people of the four sacred mountains.
58. 2:49And those answers were more related to
59. 2:52the original agreements of the land.
60. 2:54And then I started to realize that that identity is connect
61. 2:57since we are land-based relationship-based people,
62. 3:00and started exploring that idea,
63. 3:03I realized that all over the country
64. 3:04people were at the forefront
65. 3:06of almost every major environmental protection movement
66. 3:08in the United States.
67. 3:09And so I started questioning what it means to be indigenous
68. 3:13and be relocated or feel displaced,
69. 3:16even though we haven't relocated at all
70. 3:18because the face of mother earth
71. 3:19has changed so dramatically around us.
72. 3:21And so how do we maintain a land-based identity
73. 3:23when in many occasions the land that we are from
74. 3:27historically do no longer resembles our original identities
75. 3:30or our original agreements?
76. 3:38Well, I go back and forth with the way that
77. 3:41I talk about this with young and up and coming journalists,
78. 3:44in some ways I often, you'll often hear me tell
79. 3:48that I think that representation of indigenous peoples
80. 3:52without consultation and consent
81. 3:56and a constant revisiting of that consent
82. 4:01is sort of like representation done to us.
83. 4:04And I think that the misrepresentation of indigenous people
84. 4:07is primarily responsible for many of the misconceptions
85. 4:10and therefore the Supreme court decisions
86. 4:13and the policies that affect our people.
87. 4:15And I think it's very dangerous when non-Indians report
88. 4:19or tell indigenous stories.
89. 4:21And I think it's dangerous because
90. 4:24I think that there's subtle nuance to understand
91. 4:30and without having a comprehensive education,
92. 4:33indigenous education
93. 4:34without taking American Indian studies 101, 102
94. 4:38and becoming an indigenous scholar of sorts,
95. 4:42I think that it's really easy
96. 4:46to not fully understand the complexity
97. 4:48of an indigenous story.
98. 4:49And so I would encourage young students to collaborate,
99. 4:52to truly find the spirit of collaboration,
100. 4:54and to ask for permission from
101. 4:57not just the one person that they're photographing
102. 4:59but maybe tribal council or tribal elders,
103. 5:02or to find a way to make sure that the people
104. 5:07that they're representing are given individual agency
105. 5:09over the stories that are told about those individuals.
106. 5:18If you're going to go into communities of color,
107. 5:22then first you have to define the methodology
108. 5:24with the people, the stakeholders.
109. 5:26And a community-based journalism is not a definition
110. 5:30that comes from within an indigenous community.
111. 5:32It's not an indigenous pedagogy,
112. 5:34so it's lacking in its definition.
113. 5:39So I that's why I asked you,
114. 5:45I don't think that it's been clearly defined
115. 5:47the best practices but
116. 5:54we can take from
117. 5:55what different industries are doing in these communities
118. 5:57and take them from their models.
119. 5:59Researchers, for instance, in academia,
120. 6:03have been almost like completely banned
121. 6:07from many of our reservations
122. 6:12because of their unethical approach.
123. 6:15So for instance, once and Havasupai,
124. 6:19a university came to Havasupai and said,
125. 6:21"we wanna study your blood,
126. 6:23and we're gonna help you with this crisis
127. 6:25that you have in your community,
128. 6:26we're gonna help you with diabetes.
129. 6:29"And so we want to study, take blood samples
130. 6:32and see if we can help you."
131. 6:34And the people said, "yeah, okay."
132. 6:36And then of course,
133. 6:37they took the blood samples and tested them
134. 6:39and did genetic testing
135. 6:41and studied the sequencing of their DNA
136. 6:44and then turn it over to the federal government
137. 6:46because the federal government wanted to prove
138. 6:47that the 'Supai's weren't from that Canyon
139. 6:49so that they could forcibly remove them from the Canyon
140. 6:52because they wanted that to be simply reserved for
141. 6:57a national park system.
142. 7:00And they had to fight it in court for a very long time
143. 7:03until they finally won.
144. 7:05And then precedents had to be set for the ways that
145. 7:08research is done in indigenous communities.
146. 7:11So these IRBs have to be signed appropriately
147. 7:18and tribal governments have had to create policies
148. 7:21for allowing outsiders to come into our communities.
149. 7:24And because it's been done so terribly
150. 7:28over and over and over again,
151. 7:29many times if a journalist calls one of our communities
152. 7:33there's just like a blanket, no comment, don't come here.
153. 7:36And so that's a problem
154. 7:37because we need our stories told,
155. 7:40but in order for us to be able to do that
156. 7:42we have to create collaborative models.
157. 7:45And agency has to be given back
158. 7:47to the individual in the image
159. 7:49and the decision makers of that community
160. 7:52should play a role in that.
161. 7:53And then, so it forces us to re-imagine our ideas of being
162. 7:59unconsciously biased.
163. 8:01I think it's a part of a post eighties generation
164. 8:05or post seventies generation, post civil rights movement,
165. 8:08where we think that we're past
166. 8:09like capable of not seeing color,
167. 8:12capable of moving beyond race and social
168. 8:16and class boundaries,
169. 8:17and now we think that we're post-racial
170. 8:21and a society where we're clearly aren't.
171. 8:23And so we have to acknowledge that
172. 8:26we come into every circumstance with a very deep biasness.
173. 8:31And it's through acknowledging
174. 8:33that we shift our perspectives and we shift power,
175. 8:36but we cannot, until we acknowledge
176. 8:39that no that's capable, we're even capable of that.
177. 8:43Your experience growing up wherever you grew up
178. 8:47was entirely different than my experience
179. 8:49and we are going to see things entirely differently.
180. 8:52We can go to the exact same place,
181. 8:54take the same image and have the exact same experience,
182. 8:57and your commentary is going to be exactly as you are
183. 9:03and it is going to be entirely different
184. 9:05than the way that I see it.
185. 9:08Even if we have the conversation
186. 9:10over and over and over again
187. 9:11about why we see it differently
188. 9:12we are going to have a different experience.
189. 9:14And so I think when the original four founders of
190. 9:18people writing about the ethics of journalism
191. 9:20were considering this,
192. 9:22they were considering it from their own perspective.
193. 9:26(closing instrumental music)