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Archive Record
Images
Metadata
Object ID |
2024.3.5 |
Object Name |
Video Recording |
Title |
Waneek Horn-Miller We Will Do Better Conversation Starter |
Scope & Content |
Waneek Horn-Miller We Will Do Better Conversation Starter, 2020, Born Digital MP4, viewing time 00:07:05. We Will Do Better: Develop racism awareness and spark conversations about racism by listening to the stories of how Hall of Famers overcame the challenges of racism in their sporting career. These vidoes created by Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in partnership with TSN and Quantum Media House share these stories. Transcript: As Canada's national museum of sport, we have a platform and an obligation to amplify marginalized voices, and share the lived experiences of marginalized Hall of Famers. Today we bring you the story of Indigenous activist, and Olympian in Water Polo, Waneek Horn-Miller. In her sporting career, Waneek Horn-Miller was a Gold Medalist at the Pan-American Games, the first Mohawk woman to compete at the Olympic Games, voted MVP of the Canadian team after their Pan-American Games win, and was awarded the Tom Longboat Award - given to Indigenous athletes who excel in their sport. However, her journey to excel in her sport was not one without adversity. Speaking about some of her earlier experiences encountering racism, the conversations she shared with her mother about these encounters, and how they shaped her journey in sport, Horn-Miller said, "I remember the first time an official looked at my card as I was moving up to get ready to race, and was like 'Waneek what kind of name is that?' and me in my like little voice 'I'm Mohawk' or 'I'm Native' and he was just like he looked at me looked at the name and then for some reason he felt the need to tell me all these preconceived ideas about what I was who I was and it was so surprising because like... guy doesn't even know me, but it showed me the powers of peoples prejudice - the stuff that came out of his mouth, was like 'oh yeah I've heard your people are very talented athletes', he started out with that, but he said 'but you tend to quit' and that type of stuff and I remember going to my mother after and being just like really confused because everyone in my world weren't quitters or weren't what he said they were or have trouble with drinking because he said 'oh you have trouble with the drink', and I had to ask her 'is that what's gonna happen to me, is this my path moving forward' and she just looked at me and was so mad and was like 'what do you think? 'I said well no..' she said 'AM I a quitter? Do I have problems with drinking? Do your aunties your uncles?' and I said '..well no' and she said 'well that's racism, and you show him just how wrong he is every time you race and every time you go to practice and every time you race', from a young age I realized I had to first prove people wrong, I started on an uphill battle just to prove them wrong about who I was as a native person, and then I can put my own spin on it, and then define what I was capable of and how I as a native person wanted to represent myself which was my choice and my prerogative." Throughout her sporting career and beyond, Waneek Horn-Miller has been an advocate for Indigenous rights in Canada; one of the first catalysts for this activism was the Oka Crisis in 1990, which showed Horn-Miller the true racism in Canada, and how the true history of Indigenous peoples was never taught. Speaking about the most crucial moment, and what shaped her moving forward she said, "Being witness to all of that historical moments and being stabbed by a Canadian soldier, and becoming that photo that everyone associates with Oka, one of the main photos, it took my rose tinted glasses off, I was no longer a kid anymore after that, I was an adult and moving forward I knew that the decisions I made were very important, whether I chose to be a victim or I chose to be a champion of my own life was going to be a really important message not just to myself and to Canada and Indigenous people and I knew it meant something I knew my life meant something" Horn-Miller is an exemplary example of someone who took the adversity they faced, and used it as a motivator. Despite what she experienced, she went on to compete in Water Polo garnering many incredible titles throughout her sporting career. After retirement from competitive sport, she was a torchbearer for the Olympic Winter Games in Turin Italy, a CBC commentator for the 2008 Olympic Games, and a coverage host of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games on the Aboriginal People's Television Network. Perhaps most importantly, Horn-Miller went on to become a warrior in the fight for Indigenous rights. She served as the director of community engagement for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in 2017, was featured as an ambassador for Nike N7 which supports Indigenous youth sports programs, and continues to spend her time as a speaker and advocate for Indigenous peoples . What does she think about racism in Canada, now? "I am warily cautious, because I do experience racism, and I do fear it, and I fear for my children and I fear because the shootings are still happening, the issues are still happening, it's still happening, but I think we are talking about it and there is movements to do something about it. That is the only way we are going to find solutions, it's not my community or your community, it's our community and we're going to have to find it together, and our children are in great, great need for that because their future is at stake and I would never ever, ever want them to go through something like the Oka crisis that is my greatest nightmare, but it's always a potential unless we do something." We Can Do Better, We Will Do Better. |
Year Range from |
2020 |
Year Range to |
2020 |
People |
Horn-Miller, Waneek |
Search Terms |
Athlete Conversation Starter Mohawk Oka Crisis Olympic Games Racism Awareness Tom Longboat Award Torchbearer Water Polo We Will Do Better |