EDMONTON—An online video depicting three Fort McMurray-area youths mocking what appears to be a powwow dance went viral this week and was widely condemned as racist, but the conversation became more complicated when one of the boys in the video said they themselves are Indigenous.

The video, originally posted to Snapchat and then shared on Facebook by a user named Britney Commonda on Monday, drew a range of reactions, with some comparing it to a recent viral video of a young man standing disdainfully in front of a Native American elder at the Lincoln Memorial, while others defended the boys’ behaviour as a youthful oversight. The video has since been shared more than 5,000 times.

The Fort McMurray Minor Hockey Association then issued a statement on Monday saying it was “devastated” by the members of the midget A team and said their actions are “in no way indicative of our values or the values of any of our house league or elite stream junior Oil Barons teams.”

But when one of the people in the video came forward and claimed Indigenous ancestry, the story grew more complex.

Regardless of the youth’s ancestry, the video shows how stereotypical representations of what it means to be Indigenous still dominate popular culture, says a University of Alberta researcher who studies how the idea of Indigeneity is shifting in the 21st century.

First off, it’s important to note that the boys were not engaging in any kind of traditional Indigenous dance, says Jessica Kolopenuk, an assistant professor with the U of A’s Faculty of Native Studies.

“They were jumping around the room in what looks like a mocking fashion. They were representing a stereotype of what a traditional Indigenous dance would look like,” Kolopenuk emphasized.

A Facebook user by the name of Devon McCray shared the original video and said he’s one of the boys in the video, adding he’s received death threats as a result. When reached on Facebook, McCray declined to comment on the video.

“For anyone who’s seen this video, yes, it is me. There are two other boys in this video and we are all Native. I would just like to say I am deeply sorry for the actions we made and to clarify we were not trying to be racist or offending anyone or anything,” the post reads.

That statement drew comments such as, “Can I see ur (sic) status card?” and “Which reserve are you from then?”

But Kolopenuk, whose doctoral project, The Science of Indigeneity: DNA Beyond Ancestry, explores how science and the availability of DNA testing are affecting what it means to be Indigenous, says the boys’ ancestries don’t matter.

“Whether they’re Indigenous or not, all people are subject to buying into very stereotypical representations of Indigeneity,” said Kolopenuk, who also grew up playing hockey in the Prairies and is currently studying how sports and race intersect.

There are many representations of what it means to be Indigenous in popular culture, Kolopenuk noted, with the depiction of Indigenous peoples as motifs or mascots in sports being particularly problematic.

“Unfortunately, sometimes those are the only representations that youth are exposed to. So it’s more of a systemic structural issue in sport … We can’t really expect youth to know how to appropriately express culture when they have all of these racist representations of Indigeneity,” Kolopenuk said.

On one hand, Kolopenuk said she was encouraged to see how many people reacted to the video, because it gets people thinking about how stereotypical representations can be harmful. But it’s also a symptom of a larger sickness that is not being addressed, she says.

“I think if we are going to call out bad behaviour amongst youth and racist behaviour, if that’s what you want to call it, we also need to call out the rest of the society that enables them to live in a world where this is what they think is OK,” Kolopenuk said.

For example, Kolopenuk says society would be better off thinking about how Canada’s relationship with Indigenous peoples is based off an inherently racist piece of legislation: the Indian Act.

“To me, (the video is) problematic because it is like a loose thread that you pull on and it reveals the whole fabric is faulty. It’s these moments that bubble up that remind us that we have so much work to do if we are going to be a country of reconciliation or decolonialism,” Kolopenuk said.

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On the other hand, she said, the comments where people were questioning the youth’s Indigenous ancestry point to the complexity of Indigenous identity, which cannot be determined by any one indicator, such as DNA, but is based on a confluence of factors, such as kinship, connection to community, and ancestral relations to territory.

“To me, they’re saying, ‘You don’t represent us. You’re saying you’re Native so it’s OK to dance like that. Who do you represent, because you don’t represent us,’” Kolopenuk said.

And while the behaviour in the video may be shocking to some, Kolopenuk said it’s nothing new to anyone familiar with locker-room culture, which she says promotes a narrow concept of masculinity that is harmful to boys, girls, and gender nonconforming people, which is also a conversation Canadians need to have.

“My mom actually told me something really insightful today, and that was, ‘Boys won’t just be boys — boys will be who they are taught to be.’”

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