Marina Crane (00:01.442)
Well good afternoon. It's September twenty first and I just wanted to let my audience know that I'm safe and I managed to just block my cousin. Now she's my cousin based on her father is married to my mother's first cousin. And her mother is married to my father's first cousin. So the fact that she was coaching me to kill myself
And just the fact of my rebuttal to her. I just I'm just like I the more the more I talk to people about it, the more they're going you know, like they're they're they're upset. because, you know, that like even when I told her too that what she's doing is is considered
illegal. You can't be coaching someone to kill themselves.
Marina Crane (01:08.384)
So anyway, I thought I'd better get on my podcast and give the update because it's just really hard to generalize when I talk about respect and there are a lot of people out there who don't know how to respect themselves and as a result they're just mean.
And and also too, like it has to do with probably depression and aging as well. But gave me some insight into understanding too that I need to make a list of preparations, even might write my own obituary and buy my like shop around for my own casket, like to prepare when it's my time to go so that it isn't a stressful thing for my family. And just the reality like
I have to take some responsibility in in my own my own journey. Which which to me it's a really difficult thing to talk about, but I think we do need to do these things for ourselves because we respect ourselves. Now, we've had deaths every week in my community. But I wanted to share some of the s different videos that I had
been watching and and have some discussion on it. because like I was saying to a friend of mine, I said, I don't think like like I'm seventy four and and the fact that it's taken me this long to to get that warm fuzzy feeling about like the fact that I respect myself that's all I can describe it. The the process and and and knowing and
dealing with that is is is too you know, there are there are so many people in the world today, young, old, you know, professionals, paraprofessionals, that have this quick fix no fixed notion like, subscribe to me, subscribe to me.
Marina Crane (03:15.234)
When I was in Utah, I used to go to like I was Mormon and I went to church every Sunday. I I don't think I was a good Mormon 'cause I didn't pay into tithing and I sure as hell didn't go on a mission or go into the temple. But when I tell people I haven't been sexually active, that's not 'cause of religion, that's 'cause of choice. And
just the reality of some people that I know when I was younger who were very staunch Mormon are now like practicing native spirituality. When they were so staunch. I I like I like that's for me is a trigger warning n not to trust them. And the reality of it is like they're they're what's the word? They're they're claiming to be like these professionals look dealing with youth
youth in mental health and I'm going, my goodness, that's dangerous because you know they're they're practicing Mormon but they're also, you know, double standards dipping into indigenous spirituality, even calling themselves chief. Like I kid you not. There's a lot of weird people out there. So let's get on with this show here, okay? And
We're gonna talk about the soul.
Black people are forced to always be thinking about how racist white people see them. This causes them to develop a double consciousness that explains much of the psychological suffering, in this case derived from racism, but which we can generalize to many things. This is the theory of double consciousness by sociologist and activist Du Bois, who suffered the consequences of racial segregation in the United States. Blacks and whites separated by a color line not so long ago in schools, universities, and public transportation.
Marina Crane (05:13.442)
He wanted to explain how this line doesn't just affect equal opportunity, which of course it does, but goes further. He spoke of the soul. The soul understood as black people being unable to reach their full potential as human beings. And he used the metaphor of the veil. White people see black people through that veil and don't see them as equals, but black people are forced to see themselves through that same veil. And this creates an identity conflict. There is the authentic self and the social self.
What I know I represent in society and what I have to adapt to, the second consciousness. Or another example occurs to me. As a woman, you look in the mirror and continuously see yourself through the male gaze. It's a super useful theory for explaining many nuances surrounding psychological suffering on these topics. And it leaves us with a very important message that this veil must disappear. Black people are forced to always be thinking about See it when I talked about my in my podcast it c I talked about
Erodomania versus limerenance and how limerence is based on fantasy and that the reality of it is like the person or the object that you're in fantasy of will eventually ghost you or disappear. And and so you you know that. And but whereas erotia is like unrealistic, it's it's like based on on the mind, like it's a really deep.
Both of them are both deep consciousness, okay? But why I'm explaining that is when this lady talks about double consciousness and how we are forced to see ourselves as as less than or or not part of. And and in Mormonism that's exactly what it is. And even when I talk about my sister who's like we were raised as twins, forty years she's lived in Utah, she's not the same person.
And and for me, the reality of it is like sh I will I have lost my sister. That relationship we had as children has been gone for forty years. And it and it's based on this duality, this this r notion that like the accountability of who who fits and who doesn't. And and so a lot of times when I hear people talk about limerence and how you can deal with it or recover from it.
Marina Crane (07:33.876)
i in a sense like you're going, okay, well how do I c recover from racism? Especially if the white gaze or the f like when she talks about the gaze is is based on fantasy or the illusion of the of the Pocahontas. and and then you look at murdered and missing indigenous women and that gaze is one of erotomania where, you know, people are stalking indigenous women or f like and I use the example of men who beat up their wives and
the wives have to get a restraining order because there is something deeply rooted in in that hate or that anger to towards the object that you're erotic eroticizing over. So these things are deeply personal in the sense of human sexuality and in in the terms of like how do we function within a society where you know people are who from different cultures don't really understand or even realize that like what they're
what conscious what consciousness they're they're projecting onto other people. And here again, this is has to do with harm.
If someone damaged you on purpose, I want you to hear me clearly. This wasn't a mistake. This wasn't a moment of weakness. It was a decision. And decisions have meaning. A person who chooses to break you with intention isn't confused. They hate you deeply and they want you to feel it. Now the real question isn't about why they did it. The real question is, what will you do about it? When someone causes intentional harm,
It reveals far more than just a moment of cruelty. It exposes a deeper psychological state, contempt. Contempt is not just anger or dislike. It's the belief that the other person is beneath consideration, unworthy of empathy, or even less than human. And once that belief takes root in someone's heart and mind, it becomes fertile ground for destructive behavior.
Marina Crane (09:38.808)
People don't damage others intentionally unless they've first stripped them of value in their internal framework. That's why intentional harm is one of the clearest signs of deep-seated hatred. To intentionally harm someone, a person must go through a process of mental justification. They don't just act, they rationalize the act beforehand. They tell themselves stories, they deserved it, they're weak, they'll never change.
They brought this on themselves. These internal narratives are not innocent. They're weapons.
That's why when I talk about in in in spirituality when I talk about hung prayers, the whole concept of somebody praying for something bad to happen. And I thought, how can people do that? But yet just like it as my cousin, how can she say to me, Well, Marina, take a pill? Do it, come on, do it. Like the intention of of hurting, deliberately hurting. And and the the reality of it is like
At what point you have somebody's beating the bejesus out of you and you're going, Wait, don't kill me like there's there's the reality of it is like the action is go is the one that's going to hurt you. And yet and yet that person has that extreme hate towards you. Even though you may not even know them or intentionally have even just done anything to them, the the notion like that you're less than i is is so evasive that it becomes it just
becomes normalized. And and I think in in some ways, like even with my late father, I used to just hate the fact that he'd come home drink drunk or like he'd be drinking. And the reality of it is like my mother really protected her children like a like a you know, a a a good mom. And and the reality of it is like a lot of a lot of children haven't grown up like that. Even some of my nieces and nephews haven't grown up like that. And and and for me,
Marina Crane (11:41.058)
The choices I've made in my life not not to have children so that they they're spared from that. But but at the same time too, just the whole notion of talking about what a hung prayer is. Because when my cousin was talking to me about kill for her telling me to kill myself, I said to her, Y you're you're you're you're you're you're praying that I'm gonna do something you're praying for me to hurt myself. I said, That's a hung prayer. I said, Do you know it's illegal?
So so even that this this person is Laura L A U R A K A E R C H E R. that that did this on people don't damage others by accident unless they first strip them of value. Rationalization is just the alibi for deep hated seated hatred. Cruelty isn't confusion.
It's a deliberate decision and the story people tell themselves to justify it are their true weapon. And and for me, just just use people who use religion or their their narrative in in a story that they're telling, which is totally false, but it's built up to to strip away the other person's value. Because the whole notion of my sister living in in Shangri-La, which is a Mormon university town.
where you know people who rent ha have to obey university standards. So part of the standard is you can't be having sex. So if you're if the the landlord or somebody suspects that you're not living appropriate, they can contact the university and you can get expelled. So so that's Shangri-la. It's like a strict, you know, a strict university town where you're run by the standards of the private university. i like I said, it's a cult, right? So
Again too even even that deep seated hatred, even e like just the ve very f very fact that I chose not to have children, is like pe like my cousin, like the hatred because I chose not to have children. Or or that I've never had I've never ha been in a I've never had an affair. or or things like like I like even
Marina Crane (14:03.15)
prostitution or anything that has to do with violence, I've never been involved in. And and the fact that it's a deep seated hatred, it's it's rationalization and it stripped me of value. So so my own sister has has done that to me for the past forty years. And and the fact that, you know, I chose not to even wish her sympathy for her husband passing away because he wa he was mean to her.
I know that, but whatever narrative she has to deny that, I I don't have the time or the patience to even go there or discuss it with her because we're we're seniors now. And like I said, I I I have to choose my battles and that's okay. Now decolonizing from God and religion is not an easy thing to do. And it can be a very sensitive topic. But let me try to take what I've said in my last couple of videos and
Maybe frame it in a different way. This is me a race. For the entirety of human existence, humans have only lived in one of two ways. Indigenously and colonized. Now there are many systems in both, but those are the only two ways we've ever lived. See, being indigenous and indigenity is more than just this definition. Indigenous is not a race, it's an essence. It is quite literally the
Original way of living. And we lived this way for 300,000 years. This is why people find so many similarities in all these cultures from all around the world. It wasn't because some advanced alien civilization came down and taught us all these things. We learned how to live with the land in order to survive. And then around 3,000 years ago, colonialism started taking root. And the very first tool they use
To shift the paradigm of thinking was religion. See, colonialism didn't just spread religion everywhere. It reshaped the entire worldview. Before colonial expansion, cultures all over the world, from Native American cultures to African cultures, Asian cultures, island cultures, and even European cultures, understood the world through relationships, land.
Marina Crane (16:28.19)
cycles and forces of nature. And those forces of nature they gave names to. Then colonialism took these diverse cultures that all held the same basic principles and flattened them and reframe them. But before they did that, they stole from them. They took their stories, they took their lessons, they took their names.
They even took the basic principles and they reframed nature to religion. They took all of these different elements to create familiarity, but it wasn't to make it easier to convert you, it was to make it harder for you to leave. They translated all the names that all of these cultures used and used one word to translate them all: God.
And they said all of these cultures had all of these different gods, which eventually allowed them to collapse all of these quote-unquote gods into the one Almighty superior God. Thou shalt not worship no other gods but me. But what that really is saying is thou shalt not honor nature, but worship me instead.
And this was the first step in disconnecting you from the land in your indigeneity. Losing that connection means that it's much easier to make the land a commodity. You control the land, you control the resources, you control the people. And the way you control the people is by turning the land into a commodity.
Once they turned relationships into hierarchy, interconnected forces of nature into gods, collapsing that all down to one God, tied into the church and tied that entire structure to authority, obedience, and control. And that was the paradigm shift from indigeneity to colonialism.
Marina Crane (18:47.182)
Once you get everybody thinking into one worldview, you can then colonize the entire globe. The creation of a monolithic god was the greatest shyab in
Decolonizing from God. So that's Maya Ray. The truth isn't easy to hear, but it will set you free. Sit with what I am saying for a bit, she says. And like it resonates with me because like I said, I've used throughout throughout my family it it was like the Indian residential school and then and then it went into the Anglican church and and then it went into more
moral rearmament, and twelve step AA program, then it went into Mormonism. All again too with because something there was alcohol and drug abuse. And even then too when I say that my family, like we're we there's no alcohol and drug abuse. I mean there're some members like my some of my siblings, but they quit. And but the reality of it is that that colonization and that
the whole the whole nature of of religion. It it just it just has had its grips grips and like I said, my sister isn't my sister anymore. You know, it's just it's just the reality. Forty years of it being indoctrinated in in a a small town in Utah. We are powered. But they have separated us from our spiritual connection to the Earth.
So people feel powerless.
Marina Crane (20:41.146)
How
Marina Crane (20:46.29)
We were put here on this sacred mother earth to serve a purpose. And somewhere in the history forgetting what the purpose is. The purpose is to honor the earth. The purpose is to protect the earth. The purpose is to live in balance with the earth. The earth is our mother. We must take care of the earth. They pollute.
This machine meant this machine that has gone mad and run among it is berserk. They keep telling us, you know, progress. They keep telling us face reality. Well let's deal with reality. The reality is the earth can no longer take this. We are power. But they have separated us from our and that's from
OTA Space AU Space Films. And the person who is talking is the late John Trudell.
Marina Crane (21:42.57)
So a lot of the things that I try to talk about
in terms of of like indigenity and just you know for for for us to really take a look at at how we treat each other and even how we not first of all ourselves how we treat ourselves. Some of the men hurting our women aren't just outsiders. They are the ones that are also in our communities acting traditional while also just behaving just like the colonizers did. In this country, being a native woman means living under the threat of sexual assault and sexual violence. More than four
Four out of five of our women have experienced some kind of violence in their lifetime. Over half have survived sexual assault or sexual violence. On some reservations, our matriarchs are murdered at ten times the rate of the national average. This isn't drama or bad choices. It is a system that allows men to act lustful, rageful towards our native women and walk away. And believe it or not, the majority of the people who assault our women.
Native women are non-native men, but some of it does come from our own. And that is how you know that we've lost our way. Our Northern Plain ancestors did not see that as normal or regular. In our societies, our native women, especially the Aunties and the Grothers, were matriarchs, which was the backbone of our people. A woman's body was not something a man could touch out of lust or entitlement. So when a man raped or beat a woman, he faced
Not only her family, but the entire tribe or village itself. He could lose his hair, his horses, his weapons, mostly his honor, or he would be banished if he refused to change. And if you were a non native doing that, well, I bet you could imagine what happened. The message was clear. Our women are not here for you to use. Colonization flipped that message and tried to erase our standards of how men must carry themselves. So this is a warning and a
Marina Crane (23:47.068)
Call to action. Do not put hands on our matriarchs in violence or lust. And do not stay silent if another man does. And to our men, protect the women and the children first. If you care about culture, bring back the standards that made it clear that predators are not allowed, nor should they ever be around our people. Our matriarchs are not statistics. They are the backbones of our nation. If you want to learn more about indigenous health and indigenous policy, please like this video.
video, please follow my page because you don't want to miss what's coming next. Have a great. And that's Bright Hawk Vitness. And he says some of the men hurting our native women aren't strangers sneaking onto the reservation. They they're standing in our own communities, calling themselves traditional, while they act just like colonizers. And that's the shame of Nathan Chasing Horse. And and many more and many others, including my own brother.
And and again, even within within my own community. So like again to the whole notion of trying to keep someone quiet and and not r not show any respect. Is it any wonder why until this year I felt the respect of a man when the majority of our indigenous men act in this in su as act as colonizers.
Marina Crane (25:20.012)
Now I don't know if I can this is going to even come through. It doesn't seem like it is. But we'll see what happens here. I think I I think I put it on
I'm sorry that I'm doing this, but we're gonna try and get this done here. Let's see this. Second generation cutoff was introduced in 1985 by the Canadian government. And when they introduced this cutoff, they knew that it would lead to the legislated extinction of First Nations. The current way things are it's discriminatory against their indigenous women and children.
We need to change that. We need to stop that because the future generations depend on us to give their voice. Listen to the people. The people are saying they want this. I guess deserves to be recognized for who they are. They're indigenous, they deserve that recognition.
It's been already too long and a lot have been affected their whole lives through this legislation. So the time to end the discrimination is now. There's no better time than now and we must act now.
Marina Crane (26:39.564)
So it's a documentary call. Second generation cutoff was introduced in my there's a there's a bill that's gonna be passed. Decide to end
criminalization now, decide to stop second generation cutoff. Decide to prevent the legislative distinction extinction of First Nations. Learn why many leaders, chiefs, advocates, senators, MPs, youth, allies, over five hundred First Nations across across the country support the S2 amendment passed by the Senate. And you can find that on www and the cutoff dot ca.
And th like this is so vital because again, it it's discriminatory act and it it per it was pervasive against indigenous the identity of indigenous feminism or indigenous women, matriarchy. a lot of times too, a lot of people wonder, well why do why do I why does it feel like I I'm putting up with this? Well, let's let's listen to this fellow. It says Trump supporters
Trump is there's a psychological reason for that, most more disturbing than you think. Political scientist Dave Moore of the University published a peer review research and it called The Profess In Professional Wrestling, Everyone Knows It's Fake and the Occome is Scripted. The rivalries are performed and the fans don't care because they're not there in reality. They are there as the villain, the drama, the spectacle. And they're there to show the show moon. Supporters engage in political way, acts
Like it's like pro wrestling. Trump promotes new cars. There is a war. He promised cheap gas prices. Gas prices are over four dollars. He promised lower bills and they are are all gone up and they
Marina Crane (28:26.016)
And and they just don't care because they've never b had they were voting for a show and their favorite pro wrestler, the psychology. In wrestling the villain is called the heel, and the heel is always two things at once unstoppable and a victim at the same time. Sound familiar? Trump perfected the role of the heel. He is the most powerful man in the world, and yet claims to be the most persecuted victim in the world. His supporters hold both of these ideas at the same time, without any conflict.
Wrestling trained them to do exactly that, to turn off their sense of reality and enjoy the show, no matter who it hurts. This is why facts don't work on Trump supporters. You're trying to have a policy debate with someone watching professional wrestling. These people would burn their own house down and an hour later sit in the rubble of their burnt down house and watch it burning down on TV for entertainment. Their jobs are here, their kids go to school here, their parents collect Social Security here, and they applaud the man torching it all. Because the show is too good to turn off.
Our country is not professional wrestling, and anyone willing to burn it down for entertainment cannot be trusted with power ever again. Because the next time there may not be anything left to save. Our country is not a wrestling ring, and when the show is finally over, the damage is real. The people who did this knew exactly what they were watching. They just didn't care. That should be unforgivable. And the least we should do is never allow them anywhere near power ever again. White Trump supporters don't care that Trump is lying to them. There's a psychological reason for that, and it's more disturbing than.
You think. Political scientist David Moon at the University of Bath published peer-reviewed research on exactly this. He called it kayfabe. In professional wrestling, everyone knows the fights are fake. The outcomes are scripted. The rivalries are performed. And the fans don't care. Because they're not there for reality. They're there for the villain, the drama, the spectacle. They're there for the show. Moon found that Trump supporters engage with politics the exact same way as pro wrestling. Trump promised no new wars. We are in a war.
He promised cheap gas prices. Gas prices are over four dollars. He promised the lower bills. They've all gone up, and they don't care. Because they were never voting for results. They were voting for the show. They were voting for their favorite pro wrestler. Now here's where the psychology gets a little dark. In wrestling, the villain is called the heel, and the heel is always two things at once unstoppable and a victim at the same time. Sound familiar? Trump perfected the role of the heel. He is the most powerful man in the world, and yet claims that
Marina Crane (30:55.596)
To be the most persecuted victim in the world. His supporters hold both of these ideas at the same time without any conflict. Because pro wrestling trained them to do exactly that, to turn off their sense of reality and enjoy the show, no matter who. See, and again, too, in some ways it's like Nathan's chasing horse, traditional dancer, spiritual advisor, the show, holding sweat, sundance, performative, like the erotic, the romanticized noble sat.
and and everybody knew like the outcome. Like that like they're they're they're they're not willing to go into the nitty gritty, but they want to see they want to they want they want to enjoy the juiciness of the the soap opera like like the wrestling. And and that's what's so pervasive in in the sense that it i you know it it
when you're held accountable and you know that you should never tr ever trust him again, well of course he's serving life now. He's serving life in prison. So now again I I this whole status of indigenous women played a hu has still played a huge part and this is in twenty twenty six. So the federal government is really misleading the public about Bill S two. Bill S two was introduced in the Senate last year to remedy discrimination in the
Indian registration rules under the Indian Act, also referred to as Indian status. Those rules determine who can be registered as an Indian or a First Nations person. And we have no control over that. The government has 100% control. Now this bill came about after the Nicholas class action, where the court agreed that the inability to have status or pass it on to your kids or grandkids and so on is a form of discrimination.
Dealt with the old enfranchisement rules where those who voluntarily or involuntarily lost their Indian status couldn't pass it on to their descendants. In fact, it's the first case dealing with Indian status where the federal government has conceded, they admitted that the inability to have status or transmit status was a form of discrimination on the basis of race or ethnic origin and violates the equality rights and.
Marina Crane (33:16.032)
Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, the version of the bill that the government introduced would not remedy the discrimination. The government wanted to limit the remedy to a few thousand people. And those few thousand people deserve to be registered. The problem is that when they get registered, they're going to be immediately subject to the same discriminatory rules that our kids and grandkids are.
So, when the bill was being considered in the Senate, the Senate heard from First Nation leaders, First Nation women, legal and human rights experts, and there was a major consensus around the discrimination and how it had to go. So the Senate amended the bill to get rid of most of that discrimination. Keep in mind, these amendments were just not just made up by the Senate, they were asked for by First Nations.
In fact, MiGamaw Senator Paul Prosper's office counted all of the letters and submissions and testimonies and public statements from more than 500 First Nations calling for an immediate end to the discrimination. It passed with a unanimous vote in the Senate to the cheers of all of the First Nation leaders who were watching from the Senate gallery. That sounds great. Problem solved.
Right? Yeah, except no. Indigenous Services Canada Minister Mandy Galmassey said no. The government does not accept the Senate's amendments. In fact, she called them racist for making those amendments, even though those amendments came from First Nations. She said that the government couldn't amend the Indian Act until they engaged in another round of consultations on the exact same issue that we've been.
Consulting on for decades. And we were like, what? The vast majority of First Nations told you end the discrimination now. They even helped draft the amendment so that the government would get it right. We've never had a consensus this big. Consultations are about listening to First Nation voices. It's not about
Marina Crane (35:40.346)
Setting up endless processes. And there also seemed to be this suggestion by the minister, Indigenous Services Canada staff, and a few liberal MPs that while the discrimination was bad and we know it needs to be addressed, maybe the government should just give First Nations the option. And we were like, the option to do what? Discriminate? First of all, the majority of First Nations don't want the
Option to discriminate and to imply otherwise is painting them in a bad light. Kind of sounds a bit racist. Second of all, First Nations don't have the option to discriminate. Yes, we have Section 35 constitutionally protected Aboriginal Treaty Rights to govern ourselves, but Section 35.
Also, Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms prevents discrimination on the basis of sex, race, ethnic origin, marital status, family status, and even where First Nations people live. Also, the Canadian Human Rights Act, section 3, prevents discrimination on all of those grounds, too. And finally, UNDRIP, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which has now been implemented.
Into Canadian law, and the Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed it is positive law in Canada. UNDRIP recognizes our collective right to be self-governing and to choose the responsibility of our citizens to our nations, but you can't just only look at that right. UNDRIP is all of the rights working together. And so other rights include the right of individuals to belong to their First Nation. UNDRIP also protects
Protects us against forced assimilation, like what's happening under the Indian Act, and guarantees equality between male and female indigenous peoples. And I will add that for those of us with treaties, especially historic treaties like the Numbered Treaties or Pre-Confederation Treaties of the Mi'kmaq, for example, our treaty rights that are now constitutionally protected, they are meant to protect our rights for the heirs and the heirs of our heirs.
Marina Crane (38:09.866)
Forever. And there was no Indian Act back when we were negotiating the treaties of 1725 and 26. Even our traditional laws that I researched for my doctorate on this specific issue shows that citizenship, well, I mean we didn't use that term, but citizenship was primarily a birthright. Our sense of belonging and our connection between individuals and our nations was very much based on.
kinship and that we weren't races, we were nations of people with our own sovereign governments and laws. It was a complex mixture of legal, political, social, cultural, and economic factors that made up our nations.
Doesn't really seem to want to end discrimination or they could literally implement the solution that First Nations gave the Senate and the Senate amended. It hopes that First Nations will legislate themselves out of existence. Canada
Is so wrong. We have the right to exist. Trying to destroy our nations is actually a form of genocide under international law. So if our choice as First Nations is extinction or existence, we choose existence. Our ancestors fought for generations to protect our right to exist as individuals and in our
Nations and battled the colonial governments who wanted to ensure our extinction, quoting the government to get rid of the so-called Indian problem. So, no, Canada, you cannot discriminate against us, and you cannot mislead the public to think that First Nations want to or can discriminate against their own people. It's long past time to stop the delays, possibility.
Marina Crane (40:20.224)
S to it was amended by the Senate and make sure that the discrimination ends. I hope that clarifies a little bit about Bill S2, getting tons of questions on it.
And the thing too is like when I talk about the caste system within the Indian Act, with it comes to indigenous women, or even white women who marry and all of all of a sudden they become status Indians and and they're white. And so we have this pyramid of like who who has more privilege. And then like I said, from for someone like myself who's never been married or have children, I'm on the lowest of the low. And the the women next to me that I grew up with that have
Never married out and who just have decided to remain single parents chose not to marry their partners, but they chose to have children. So their children didn't have to go through all this membership, all this discrimination that's under the Indian Act once a woman legally gets married. And those are the things when you talk about genocide and why, for example, a woman who chooses not to have not to marry her partner has five.
five children, she's a single parent living in poverty. th their children are apprehended. She's pregnant and she goes in to the hospital, has her sixth baby. Instead of even seeing her baby, child and family under prov the provincial law, not not sovereign under First Nations anyway, or Metis sovereignty, the province goes and takes her baby away without her even seeing that baby. And within two months that indigenous woman dies from a broken heart.
All the women who have chosen to have children, who chose not to marry their partners, was what understood the Indian Act, understood understood discrimination and genocide. So the women who marry in, they have a little more clout than the ones who've lived here. And and rightfully so too, because even if they tried to move back to their home communities, they'd face again the same caste system structure.
Marina Crane (42:31.542)
So again, these things a lot of people don't understand when I say a nation within a nation. And even Geor the late George Manuel, the national chief of the National Union Brotherhood, went to the United Nations and and they and the indigenous people called it a fourth world, a fourth world concept. So the th so let's do this here.
Okay, now that's there there are there are some some books. let's do this here, interference. Trauma of indigenous peoples has trickled through the generations. Centuries of oppression, of isolation, of invisibility has led to a muddled understanding of who we are today.
It's very, very difficult to be in these shoes, to stand here as a product of genocide, survival of genocide. We face this constant barrage of unteaching the accepted narrative.
87% of references in textbooks, children's textbooks to Native Americans are pre-1900s. Only half of the US states mention more than a single tribe. And just four states mention the boarding school era, the era that was responsible for my grandparents, my grandmother, and her brothers and sisters having their language and culture beaten out of them. When you aren't viewed as real people, it's a lot easier to run over your rights. Indigenous peoples are impacted.
First and worst by the fossil fuel industry. They are native people being pushed off their homelands from rising sea levels. That's our reality, that's what we live. And with these projects comes a slew of human costs that people don't think about. Thousands of workers influxing to build these pipelines to build and extract from the earth, bringing crime and sex trafficking and violence with them.
Marina Crane (44:32.576)
Missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada has become so significant it spawned a movement and a national inquiry. Thousands of Native women who have disappeared, who have been murdered. And here in the US we don't even track that.
We are instead left with an understanding that our Supreme Court, the United States Supreme Court, stripped us in 1978 of the right to prosecute at the same rate as anywhere else in the United States. So, as a non-native person, you can walk onto a reservation and rape someone, and that tribe is without the same level of prosecute prosecutorial ability as everywhere else, and the federal government declines these cases 40% of the time. It used to be 76% of the time. One in three
Native women are raped in her lifetime. One in three. So what can you do? How can you help? How can you change the conversation for extremely oppressed and forgotten people?
Education is foundational. Education shapes our children, it shapes the way we teach, it shapes the way we learn. In Washington state, they've made the teaching of treaties and modern Native people mandatory in school curriculum. That is systems change. When your elected officials are appropriating their budgets, ask them: are you fulfilling treaty obligations?
Treaties have been broken since the day they were signed. Are you meeting those requirements? That would change our lives if treaties were actually upheld. Stand with us, empathize, learn, grow, change the conversation. Forty percent of Native people are under the age of 24.
Marina Crane (46:18.85)
We are the fastest growing demographic in the United States. We are doctors, we are lawyers, we are teachers, we are scientists, we are engineers. We are medicine men, we are medicine women, we are sun dancers, we are pipe carriers, we are traditional language speakers, and we are still here.
Marina Crane (46:44.396)
When when I talk about the narrative and curriculum in in the lack of education and isolated communities in northern Alberta or Northern Canada. And and then you have people in the South who are maybe second, third generation Indian residential school. Understand this, the Inuit in the territories are just first generation. That means like like my parents' age would have been the first
first generation to go to Indian residential school. Whereas in southern Alberta it's my grandmother. Like it's it's second second generation, third generation.
So, and even you look at Eastern Canada, a hundred years earlier of systemic racism, so you have all the colonizers coming from the east to the west, and then again from the north, like the colonization and how all indigenous people within within that framework are so different from each other, but yet we are all under the laws, like I said, a fourth fourth country law. So
Like said, it's it's understanding and getting people to realize that that we're not we're not just like okay in Canada, we're not just Alberta. We're we're we're governed under under the Indian Act. We're governed by a genocidal l act.
that that has forced women, indigenous women, to to make choices. Choices that non-Indigenous women will never ever have or never ever experience. On top of the sexual violence, yes, that's in common, but it's deeper it's deeper in a collective holistic approach. And that's why when my late uncle used to say the colonizers created the problem, let them solve it.
Marina Crane (48:44.874)
Because it's the it's it's the the notion that somewhere along the line someone has to come forward and say, We did this, we created this. And and as white fagility happens and as more and more young people become educated and as more and more indigenous women start to heal
and understand this whole difference between erotic and limerence, that whole need to to educate non indigenous men about cross cultural orientation or understanding one's culture, just based on human sexuality, does not give a white person the ability to kill us because they think that we're throwing ourselves at them.
when really it's a double the double consciousness that of that people of color struggle with our whole lives. Because the the the gaze has a gaze of of eroticism, of mythology, of romanticizing the other. And and in so doing forgets, you know, what really is happening in in in in that person's life. The struggle of poverty, the struggle of raising
being a single parent raising your child. The stress and not ha and having to have that and having to live like that because you're not governed under the same laws as the province or the or the country in Canada.
Marina Crane (50:25.804)
I'm sorry, I'm having a I'm eating a chip.
No
Marina Crane (50:38.562)
Let's try this one here.
Marina Crane (50:43.95)
I don't know if this is gonna
Sometimes these things
in a relationship and beam
in relationship and how you associate that with your identity. And so the problem with women is that when women are highly spiritually gifted, they may have psychic abilities, they may have the ability to talk to or or see spirits, they may have all these different avenues of talents that they incarnate it with that are here to serve a very specific purpose. But what happens is when women get in relationships, they have to merge their nervous system. So their partner actually borrows theirs.
And when someone is borrowing your nervous system, you can't maintain your capacity, and therefore you can't sustain the gifts that you have. But when you're in relationships and you're bound by marriage, your gifts can't fully come online. That doesn't mean you can't tap into them. And this is what a lot of people don't realize. I know some sisters right now who are very spiritual, spiritually powerful and have that authority, but that authority is diluted because they're compensating for their man's frequency. Patriarchy using
Marina Crane (51:55.614)
relationships as a tool to hijack the feminine is the reason why we have these fortune 500 companies in in primary millionaire and billionaire statuses being occupied by men because when they're in relationships with women the power that he shows up as having when he's the face of the company or he's the face of these organizations is actually being usurped from the mother in the equation.
So when you are tapped into your gifts, which means you have to be single and navigate relationships rather than being in them as a woman.
You will be compensated by the universe. The universe will compensate you forward because you are living your authentic purpose, which means that you are fulfilling your soul contract. And that's what patriarchy doesn't want you to know. Patriarchy wants you to think that you the masculine and feminine corresponds to genders, and that every woman needs a man in order to get in tune with herself. But that's the illusion, and that's the basis of the narcissistic spell. So in my programs, in my community, I help women break the spell and learn how.
to rewrite the script of how to be the best and most authentic version of themselves. Women were never supposed to be in relationships exclusively. There's a difference between having a relationship and being in relationship.
So her handle is R E V S A A J A. And she says this is not about abandoning companionship, but understanding who are outside of the relationships. Because the inability to do so is keeping the divine feminine within you suppressed. I so and the p of course that's what I'm I talk about.
Marina Crane (53:56.726)
And yet when I talk about it with other women, what do I get? Marina, kill yourself. You know, like the the divine like that that energy the patriarchy is so perma pervasive, colonized that they want to suppress that that that in like the the individual woman, the energy within women. And yet
Like I was talking to another lady who was divorced for three years and she says, I just feel this surge of energy. I said, Yes, because you're not you're not giving that to to a partner. You're you're you're embodying it yourself and it and it's mak your your your authentic self. So a lot of that too, I think, is very like like when I try to explain
the the duality or the like as a as a person who hasn't come from privilege and how it's important to to educate women and what it is that we're we're giving away and and to negotiate with with our partners. Because not is all everything is not all lost. There there you know they there there are people who do respect you
And but the thing again too is like you have to be at a point in understanding, if I respect myself and I find a partner who respects me, then I can put the boundaries down of what I what energy I will share with that individual.
And again too, ha hopefully, and this is the whole nature of coercive control, in Canada it has become a law that you can be charged with controlling another human being, coercive control. Which again too is you know historical when it comes to indi it women in in general. So hopefully what I've talked about in terms of the things that I've been going through this past week,
Marina Crane (56:11.072)
helps helps resonate with with any with anybody that's listening. let's see.
How much?
Marina Crane (56:25.858)
There are psychological papers and stuff, but I
Marina Crane (56:33.024)
Okay, so I have to address the fallacy of white proximity because I got enough DMs about it, and I can't just sit here and talk about how amazing Islam is without addressing something that actually as a society we all need to address. So a lot of times people have been taught to want something that never created anything. Look at what actually keeps people alive: medicine, food, systems, water, energy, communication. The innovations that actually make survival possible. When you trace where they came from, it's not whiteness. It never was.
Whiteness didn't create that. Whiteness took it, renamed it, claimed it as its own. And here's what you have to understand. Whiteness is not a real thing. It's a construct. That means that it was it's something that was built. It was made up. It was designed to function a certain way.
A construct is what happens when people agree to believe something that isn't true and then build systems to make that lie feel real, to make people act like it's real, to make it seem natural when it's entirely artificial. The reality is that whiteness got constructed through violence, through slavery, through colonialism, through laws that said certain people own things and certain people are things, through institutions that lock certain people out and let certain people in, through educational systems that wrote certain people into history and erased others. That's the machine.
That makes a construct feel real. You know what whiteness actually created? Violence. That's the only thing it ever brought. The violence to steal labor, the violence to control who gets into rooms where thinking is happening, the violence to rewrite history. That takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of machinery and it takes a lot of force. If whiteness was actually superior, would it need all that? If we're talking about superiority, then it's certainly in what you produce, what you leave behind, what you
What your work does for people, and by that measure, black and brown people have been far superior. That's just the facts. So when your child, your daughter or son, brings home a black or brown person and you say no, understand what you're actually chasing. You're chasing a construct, something that's not real, something that was built on theft. You're chasing a power that comes from oppression, and somehow you think it's superior. You're not chasing innovation, you're not chasing creation, you're not chasing the future, you're confusing dominating.
Marina Crane (58:47.888)
With capability and ability. You're calling theft great and essentially reaching for proximity to something that's very hollow. Black and brown people built what the entire world runs on. That's where superiority lives. In the building, in the making, and what endures because it works, more importantly, because it benefits humanity. That is what's real, that's measurable, that's what the world depends on. So we really have to stop reaching for proximity to a construct and start looking at what your own people create.
Okay, so I have to address the fallacy of what somebody because I got enough DMs about it and I can't Her handle is is sacred F I T-R-A. and she says whiteness was constructed as a hierarchy through violence, theft, and systemic eraser of others work.
not through superior cap capability to innovate or create, through the ability to dominate, to control institutions, to write history, to take credit, to deny resources to com competitors.
The construct of whiteness required that deliberate creation of an underclass. It required slavery, colonization, segregation, and ongoing structural violence. If whiteness produced superior innovation naturally, none of that machinery would have been necessary. You wouldn't need to steal labor. You wouldn't need to exclude people from universities and laboratories. You wouldn't need to rewrite history.
The fact that all that apparatus was required reveals the truth. The hierarchy was built through domination, not merit. Power created the appearance of superiority. Superiority is not did not create power. This is why the
Marina Crane (01:00:48.364)
the lie to them maintained consistently through curricula that erases contributions, through funding structures that direct resources away from the BIPOC scientists, through institutional gatekeeping, through the daily work of making whiteness seem natural when it's entirely constructed. The construct survives on the repetit reputation repetit repe repetition
and institutional reinforcement. Not to not on evidence. Once you stop accepting the official narrative and actually look at what was invented, who invented it and what was stolen or erased, the hierarchy collapses. That's why this research matters. And so that's why like my podcast matters.
Because when I talk about the constructs or deconstructing theories and behavior and notions of healthy human sexuality and what is acceptable and what and why people were accepting things and and not even questioning why they were cheering. You know, cheering. You know, glad that things were happening because you know, if if you stopped cheering and you looked at your life, would you go, Okay, I need to change this?
You it's better to just cheer and and you know, like be intoxicated by this notion of this illusion. And and you know, and and that thing like that whole notion ha has to stop because if we keep on that line, if we keep on that notion, then then there's an artificial intelligence that that's gonna feed into that, that void, that space. And and when we do that, we're we're giving up something.
So it's important for people out there who are listening, who are academics, who understand what I'm talking about. And again too, I I wasn't raised this way. I wasn't born this way. I wasn't I didn't come to this conclusion on my own. I'm seventy four years old.
Marina Crane (01:02:54.892)
You know, the the reality of how I grew up as an indigenous person living off the land, hunting rabbits, eating rabbits, killing rabbits, skinning them, hauling water, chopping wood, riding horseback.
You know, just just knowing that there was a world out there and big cities because you know, I I heard of these cities that would go on for miles and miles and miles. I lived in a very isolated community in the sense that that I was a wild child.
I was a savage and I still remain a savage. Like I I use the analogy of my puppies. I've never kept them in house. I've never put a collar on them, never leashed them, nothing. They they roam around my home guarding my home. And now that they're adults and and they go off every day like they'll be here I'll collect them at noon at five or seven o'clock at night at the construction site I'll go by and I'll say come home and they'll come home, I'll feed them, and they'll be around until
until maybe three o'clock in the at night and then they'll go off. y the reality of it is like when I tried to get them to stay it and I put a choke collar on one of them, he he would have died. I literally he would have he was literally starving himself.
Four days, no water, just no food, like he was literal liter literally starving himself. And and the night before I is you know spoke to him and I told him I was going to take the collar off and feed him and you know let him go, but that you know I needed him to know that the reason I did this was for his safety so that cars wouldn't run him over. So I
Marina Crane (01:04:47.148)
the leash came off and he ate and drank water for the first time in four or five days. Perked up and took off and every evening he comes home with his brother. And that's how I see myself. When when this lady talks about you know, when you're single and you have that freedom and that energy to do your life's purpose because you're not giving that energy out to people.
And and the thing is like like even with my cousin when I was talking to her about the low birth rate in Japan and you know the what what the Japanese are capable of doing to to like sacrifice for for their children and grandchildren, then like no other religion in the world would do that. And and for for her to say, Well then why don't you kill yourself?
Like that was that was just a hypothetical scenario that I mentioned because you know the the the Japanese are industrious. I ha I I had a Japanese roommate in grade five they have these national ch tests and she scored highest in the whole country of Japan when she was in grade five.
Her brother was a doctor who was like twenty five years her senior and there was just her and her brother. The her parents were were seniors when she was born. And she said, My parents she was working on her masters in international relations and she said, My parents taught me that genius is ninety nine percent effort.
So when I'm talking to my cousin who has adult children who are unemployed, who depend on her to bring in money, as a senior, she's a senior. She deserves to have a good quality of life. But I'm saying in the Japanese culture, you know, the the the the children work.
Marina Crane (01:06:46.318)
Like they'll they'll they'll work and they'll take care of their families. And if it means that their their seniors give up their life so that they could fulfill like have their their property and their everything that they inherit could fall to their children, they'll do it. That's why she got gave the notion, well, kill yourself. And I said, I don't have children to inherit my house. And but the reality of it is that
Even even if we think we're helping people to understand what energy is and and like I said, the the blessings like this lady said, there are so many women and men who have abilities. And and how we use those abilities and how people respect our abilities is is totally, you know, like like I truly believe
that my abilities only come when how do I put it, not come. My abilities like w one of the ladies told me, she says, Marina, when when you're when you're reading people's energy, charge the money. She says, because I've realized like people like it's like that whole wrestle thing, you know, wrestling and watching people wrestle and you know it's all fixed.
Well, it's the same thing when I'm reading energy. They they don't really put any value with it unless it's unless they pay you. And and so, you know, I I try and say that if I've I've done this my whole life. The only time people put value on it is when there's money in in involved. And and it's the same thing too when you know, when people offer you help or want to help you, take it.
Take it because there's an exchange of energy happening and and whatever that exchange of energy, you're gonna be blessed for it. And if people are so jealous of of the sacrifices I've made to h try and find balance with my own energy, then h what can I what can I say? What can I do? I cannot teach people how to respect me. I have to do it myself.
Marina Crane (01:08:53.426)
And and if they don't understand like the reasoning behind it. Like like I said, my my brother in law di burial was on Saturday and just how mean he was to my sister and the coercive control he had over her with her religion and Mormonism and how she lived in Sang Shangri-La. You know, just though those high standards in that cloistered community.
Yeah, the reality of how people are. She had a lot of Mormon people i feeding her how horrible it is to live in my community, how horrible it is to be indigenous. And that to me is white supremacy. And and the reality of it is like, no. I was talking to my other cousin and her grandsons
they're biking around and fifteen, sixteen year old they're waving at me. And I said to my cousin, you know, your your grand your grandsons wave at me. I I said, it feels good to be acknowledged, like that they know who I am. And no other time or any place would I ever have that. Like I lived in Utah. I lived in another country. Nobody knew me. Nobody cared. I moved home, moved with people that knew me since I was a child.
And and you know, when they go to the hospital or anything where I see them, I'm glad to see them. It it it means something. It has to mean something. And and the sacrifice of of choosing to to live in my community and and to exist within my community, that's my choice. I I could have just stayed in Utah. I probably would have been six feet underground.
But anyway I I I hope I hope I've helped you out somehow.
Marina Crane (01:10:56.042)
I I don't I don't know how else to to say these things because you know it it hurts me. It hurts me that I that I have to block my cousin for for coaching me to kill myself. it hurts me that I have to block a lady that I've known for thirty years because she has no intention of ever visiting me. And yet it comes upon her every time she comes off of a cruise
to to rub it in my nose that she's got she's been on a cruise. And I'm going, okay. And yet she hasn't not o she never wants to come and see my home, the community I live in. She doesn't want to see like the the com how comfortable I live. She she has it in her mind, like the the the again, this notion of something's something's bad here, like like my sister.
Mormonism, white supremacy. And and I I I just realized like, no, I I'm not gonna take that anymore. If she if she was any type of friend 'cause she has money. She took care of her her ninety four he took care of her mother for thirteen seventeen years, thirteen years? Seventeen years I think. Like she took care of her mother and she got rewarded after her mother passed away. And
No, she has she's not in want of anything. Her children work. she could she could easily come and fly fly into Canada and visit me for the weekend. She can afford it, but she chooses not to. Because her husband grew up in a very poor reservation. And he's ashamed to he's ashamed.
that that he grew up like that and and he he's constantly talking about the negative aspects of Native American spirituality. So you know decisions have been made and I had to make them and it's it's sad. It's sad. I've known I've known Diane for over thirty years.
Marina Crane (01:13:19.358)
And my cousin I was I always talked with her late my aunt before I even started talking to her daughter, my cousin. But but to let that go and even when my sister should she ever decide to move back home, 'cause she has to move home. As as much as it as much as she hates to come back home because she just thinks we're so dangerous.
I I have to not associate with her either.
for for my own mental health and for my own spiritual practice and my own energy. It's it's it's it's a sad tale to tell. But but you're my audience. And and don't get me wrong. I mean, yeah, I you know I'm I'm I'm grieving over a hell of a lot, but but at the same time too, I am hoping everything I say and do like like believe it or not
And I want the my audience to understand this. My my doing this podcast helps me in in ways that you don't even understand. Like I can get up in an audience like I like last Monday, I it's tape recorded and and it was tape recorded talking to the mayor and city council in Calgary, city of a million people, a little over a million.
And and you know, office like staff that work for the city can can watch it at any time. And for for the fact that I I got up and I talked.
Marina Crane (01:14:56.002)
Now, why am I bringing this up to my audience here is because without you and without this structure that I do in my podcasts, I would not have the tenacity or the wherewithal to know certain events that happen in Native American communities in the United States and Canada. The what I practice on my podcast and how I articulate and and explain myself.
gives me the opportunity to practice so that when I do have to go in public here where I live in front of an audience, I can do it with clarity. So even if you think that you're not contributing to the things that I do in my life here in Sudina, you do.
You you're you help me great f great greater than I could ever imagine. And the reality of it is yes, I'm aging. Yes, I have mood swings. yes, I've got to take care of my health. but so, you know, as aging and aging goes, I yes, I'd like to talk about those things later, but right now, like I said, every week we've had a death.
And it's it's hard it's hard people say, Well don't let your cousin get to you, Marina And it's hard because I I just can't comprehend
Marina Crane (01:16:35.257)
someone could have that kind of hate and anger.
Marina Crane (01:16:41.834)
A and yet she was employed, working for First Nations.
I just
Marina Crane (01:16:52.438)
No, you have an opportunity to to help educate people in y a a as in your job that you haven't and and that you're you're that you have these mental health problems.
I there's nothing I can do to even help her.
Like that's the hardest thing for me to to come to terms with.
Marina Crane (01:17:27.38)
And you know, my my childhood friend in Edmonton
Marina Crane (01:17:35.77)
Even she says, even with family. You know, the the things that I've done for my family and what my childhood friend has done for her family, the hundreds of hours we've put in and the things we've done for feasting and c family gatherings and and to realize like, okay, gotta look out for ourselves w whatever time we have left in this earth. And when we were younger w you know, we didn't even I didn't think about it.
I mean I I when I was taking care of my late mother it was just looking after her. And and the fact is like I had to talk to my brother a couple of days ago. You know, and he says he says, Well, I went to I went to the courts so that my children could be on like they were taking care of under child and family for three months and I said, No, they weren't. I said, I had to go to chief and counsel to have them transferred from the city onto Soutina. I said, And our brother and sister
were paid to look after your children. For five years or so, I told him. I said they they used up all that money. I said, When there was no money for them to get an allowance for looking after your children, they threw them away.
He says, you were getting paid two thousand a month? I said, No, our sister was. I said, 'cause your your boss told me she'd called in to want want payment. I said, during this whole time all we lived on I said, all our mother and I lived on w was like two thousand, maybe two thousand five hundred a month for four people.
I said, we struggled, but we took care of your your son and daughter. My my driving his daughter to school and to therapy for seven years. And I told him. I said, Mum and I used to talk and go, what was he thinking? What was he thinking when he sexually interfered with his stepdaughter? He wasn't thinking of his son and daughter.
Marina Crane (01:19:44.45)
He wasn't thinking about who was gonna take care of them or the repercussions of how people were gonna even treat them.
Like I'm I'm just grateful that I tried to get his son into therapy even though he didn't want to. But but my niece went to therapy for seven years. And and I told him that.
I said I said, our brother and sister di they they used up all the money.
I said what what my mother what mom and I lived on was next to nothing.
And he couldn't say anything. Because he made that choice. He committed a crime that's unforgivable. And all the arrogance that he had, the same as Nathan Chasing Horse. My brother served his time. But I wanted him to know when people look and think that I supported him, I supported his children. I supported his children because they would have where would they have gone?
Marina Crane (01:20:51.394)
We didn't have group homes or group shelters. My mother was a senior, she was in her eighties. You know, what what what was he thinking?
Marina Crane (01:21:04.29)
That's that's the whole crux of it. Yes, I have closure about Nathan Chasinghorse. But in that whole closure, I also have closure with my own family. And the lateral violence that I've had to live with. Just so that just so that my niece and nephew could could have access to the land here, so that when it's their time to have a house, they can they can live here. All that
At what price? I have a brother who is Mormon and a sister who's gonna move back from Utah that shun me. My sister has shunned me for forty years.
All because of religiosity.
So when somebody says to me, You were Mormon, like it really hurts because they don't realize just how much lateral violence I've had to deal with because of white supremacy.
How it how it's torn indigenous people apart within families.
Marina Crane (01:22:13.526)
And this is the notion of colonizing.
Now I have my brother who says, the si i yeah, my it's everything's gonna cut off at this at a at my at my life. Now my children don't have to deal with it. No, he he's in total denial.
Whatever I try to do and however I construct what I need to do, it comes with great thought and great effort. I just don't do it deliberately. I have to really think about what I'm what I do and how I'm going to do things. who else is gonna do it? I've I've done this my whole life. I don't have a partner, I don't have children. I have invisible helping hands that reach out and I can talk to them. And and the reality of it is like I'm very blessed and very fortunate.
Now, before I got on this podcast, I was talking with a a young woman. She's she's going she's getting her psychology degree. And she's also an artist. And she's repeating her st senior senior d statistics. I have been around very intelligent indigenous women most of my life. And and I've been around very intelligent indigenous men.
Not not just indigenous but also, you know, non indigenous. So I'm I'm very fortunate and and and I'm grateful. But but in that in that gratefulness and that in that sense I I have myself, my pride. And I have my self respect. And and if it means anything to anybody, yeah, I hope whatever you're going through in this life
Marina Crane (01:23:57.634)
And however bad you think things are happening within your own family, within your own job or just struggling.
Marina Crane (01:24:12.118)
My late mother used to say, Never give up.
And I used to think, where did she where did she get all that spiritual strength from? Then I think about her mother, my grandmother, who died from cancer. She was skin and bones when my mother was fifteen. And how this medicine woman came into the house. My grandmother was lying on her bed and the woman started singing.
And my mother said, I saw my my mum's body lift off the bed as as this woman was singing. So when she stopped singing, my my she says, My mum's body just dropped to the the bed.
Now, at back in the day they didn't have fentanyl or painkillers. My my grandmother was living isolated in a very rural community, rural reserve, poor, skin and bones, dying from cancer. I truly believe that the pain w had to have been so great that in spirit her spirit was was trying to leave her body so she could deal with the pain.
And that woman came in and connected her spirit and physical body to itself so she could make her journey home. These things when I th when my mother tells me these stories, and then she tells me about her grandmother, how she was blind and how she'd every morning she'd go outside with her pipe and and smoke it and pray to the four directions. Like us we're we're indigenous.
Marina Crane (01:25:56.524)
Or respect the earth.
And then and then I hear stories of this same woman and even other grandmothers who come through Montana as children and they see their cousins holding their babies and the grasshoppers eating the baby's eyes because whoever caught them killed them and wrapped them around with bob wire around a b a big tree, running away from cavalry. Genocide.
The largest mass execution in Mankato, Minnesota, they ran away from. Or even when my one of my grandmothers died when she was pregnant, fighting, landed on her knife. And then I hear about scalpers, colonizers, hunting pregnant Sioux women, gutting gutting them, taking their babies and scalping the babies, unborn babies from their bellies as scalping the mums and collecting the bounty on them.
And I wonder, where did I get this strength from? What is my purpose in this life? Who is it that I'm protecting? What is it that I have to do that generations of my grand my mothers, my relatives had to live through? The fear. When they say it it that it hang it's handed down in our DNA.
It's handed down in our DNA and
Marina Crane (01:27:32.514)
Whatever I can do to protect protect my nieces and nephews and my bloodline is is also part of why I do this podcast. And and why I talk to my friends who are from different tribes, struggling with the same identity issues that that I've gone through and that their their families, their children, their grandchildren go through.
Marina Crane (01:28:01.046)
And yet we live in this country, a country where people are supposed to look at us and think that we're we're equal, that they know us.
And yet I don't see them coming to visit me in my home. I'll go into the city. They'll see me. Even in school, like I we stayed overnight at our friend's place at grade were I think grade five. Ha went to we had to take a bath and the whole family, the whole white family came into the bathroom to watch us bathing in the tub. Three of us, my sisters.
Why? Because they wanted to know if we had an extra breast or a p hidden penis. Who the hell knows why they wanted to look us look at us indigenous ki kids? White people. Because they what? We're alien? Like they w like what what is it that they were taught that we were savages? yes, they did. They thought we were savages. And and people still think that. That's why I say I'm savage.
I'm like my dogs. My dogs have like I'm put a choke chain on me and I'll I'll and I and I will refuse to eat. But that that's the notion of being in a relationship. It'd be very difficult for me to be in a relationship because I'd probably end up dying if I if I don't get my way. Or well basically no, it's not that. I think it's it's having respect. I think I could survive a relationship.
knowing that the person I'm in a relationship with respects me.
Marina Crane (01:29:49.112)
There. Put it out there. Anyway, such such as I morand meandering around and saying stuff like a a bubblehead. I do like I said, I'm just grateful for all these women that I meet that that give me such insight into into things.
No, I don't even know what
And I feel like the Mormon temple is a Trojan horse. And that's why I wanted to get this as my little object lesson for today. Because I grew up doing activities like this constantly. Little indoctrination activities like coloring sheets, singing songs, crafts, all with the same purpose, which is to help you as a child view the temple as the most important place on earth. When you're a Mormon kid, the temple is sold to you as this beautiful, glowing representation.
Of eternal life, true love, romance, forever families, and all of these beautiful and grandiose things. In my house growing up, we had a picture of the temple in every single room. I had jewelry that had the temple on it. I grew up thinking it was the holiest place on earth. And that's where the Trojan horse thing comes in. Because you fall in love with the image of what the temple represents long before you know what's happening inside. That's why I made these little Lego figurines to depict.
What is actually going on inside of a Mormon temple? Because inside the temple, I don't think it is a beautiful spiritual experience. You're going through cult rituals which you were never informed about or consented to. You're given secret underwear, you learn handshakes, you chant in a circle, you stand across a veil from a man you don't know while he embraces you. You get a brand new name that you can never tell anyone. And when I
Marina Crane (01:31:44.57)
Went through all of this, even when I was an ultra-believing member, I still found it totally reprehensible. I felt like I was in a cult, I did not feel the spirit, I didn't feel closer to Jesus or God, I just felt sick to my stomach. And so that's why Lego sets of the temple really bother me, is that they are tools for brainwashing and indoctrination for children. So that by the time you get to the age where you can actually experience and see what's inside the Trojan.
You have so much of your life built upon this religion that it makes walking away from it extremely costly. This is a Mormon Lego set and the comp That's why, like I said, my sister has been down there for forty years. It would be very costly for her to walk away. I know that. So I'm not even gonna bother having a relationship with her.
This lady who who says this, her she's A L Y S S A D G R E N F E L L Alison Renfill. And
What can I say? F follow her if you want to, but it's a it's a ma amazing like like I said, I lived amongst the Mormons for over ten years in the state of Utah. I I went to Brigham Young University for a couple of semesters. went to Utah Valley Community University, got an associate's degree. I had to study scriptures, went to church and I had to study scriptures at Sunday school.
even though I never paid tithing or went on a Mormon mission or never dated a Mormon returned missionary. just the whole notion of the indoctrination and even have I've had I was fortunate that I had roommates who who weren't Mormon. At the beginning in the seventies I had roommates that were Mormon. So I've had I've had both. And so I'm grateful I'm grateful I had that experience living in another country.
Marina Crane (01:33:59.02)
But I I know what I'm up against when I talk about my sister or my brother. I I know. And even though my younger sister has never lived in Utah and she says to me, If you get if you say anything bad about the Mormons, I'm gonna hang up on you. Go ahead.
Marina Crane (01:34:20.597)
Like I I don't think she comprehends just how much I know. Again, if she respects me she would she would listen, but she doesn't.
But the irony of it is her children do. Which is really really good because I don't know what I'd do if they didn't
So their dad's influence did did pay off. 'Cause my brother my late brother in law had nothing to do with the Mormon church. So it's a bit ironic that my sister would try to become Mormon again just so she could be sealed, go to the Mormon temple and be sealed to her dead husband. Anyway, such is life and the whole you have to understand Mormonism to understand what I'm saying because I know it seems a bit
convoluted and it is if you don't really know the religion.
And again to even when I talk about the Indian Act, you know, you you really don't know it unli because if you haven't lived it you don't know it too. So I don't know, a couple of hard concepts in my podcast.
Marina Crane (01:35:33.973)
Such is life. But I'm just giving you the update. I'm safe. I'm not gonna kill myself. And it's the first time in my entire life I've had somebody coach me to kill myself. So like really and the fact that I had to s explain to her that it's illegal what she just did to me.
I just
Anyway, to my listeners, please don't ever coach anybody to kill themselves. It's illegal. And if you ever hear of somebody trying to ki coach somebody to kill themselves, charge them. Let the police know. It's illegal. Okay, anyway, such is life. Have a good one. Thanks for listening to me.
block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; ">
