I have a theory: the COVID-19 pandemic has something to teach us about cultural safety. If you can bear it, think back to those moments in the early days of the pandemic. Remember how unsettling it was to have to cover your face to stay safe every time you left your home? Remember how, when in public spaces or even just walking down the street, you had to assume that anyone could make you unwell, and as a result, you tended to give them a wide berth? No doubt there were times when the lack of airflow in a particular interior space made you realize that the environment had not been constructed with your safety in mind.
This is what cultural unsafety feels like. For First Nations peoples, anyone, at any time, can inadvertently harm us because our way of seeing the world does not match the dominant culture. For us, we can be injured as
