Sarain Fox is an Indigenous activist and dancer of Anishinabe heritage. She’s also the host of the new SBS VICELAND show Rise, which takes her to North American Indigenous communities fighting to protect their homelands.
As Nick and Fiona discover on The Playlist, she’s really easy to talk to and generally delightful. On the latest episode of the podcast, the trio covered a lot of ground, including why cultural appropriation is still a huge problem:
“Everyone wants to be native until it’s actually time to be native,” Sarain said. “Everyone wants to put on a headdress because it looks cool but nobody wants to go to the front line and put their fist in the air when there’s a pipeline being built through your home.”
The conversation also involved...
- How Sarain’s upbringing on a reserve outside of Toronto taught her to become an activist
- Why she doesn’t stand for the Canadian anthem – or even refer to herself as Canadian
- Why Canada’s national apology meant nothing to the majority of Indigenous people
- How the show brings viewers to the front lines of Indigenous resistance
- Why she feels connected to Indigenous Australians
Listen to the episode here:
Rise airs Thursdays at 9pm on SBS VICELAND. Watch the first episode at SBS On Demand:
