Controversial TV show sparks debate about changing racist attitudes toward Indigenous people

Conversations are heating upover a televisionshow that aims to challengestereotypesagainst Indigenous people.

In the seriesFirst Contact,which airs on APTN,six white participants travel across Canada andopenlyairtheir thoughts about Indigenous people, whom participants describe as "lazy,""alcoholics,""welfare cheats," and "hopeless" among many other negative stereotypes.

They are thenintroduced to Indigenous people who share stories about their lives, history and realitiesin hopes to educate.

Jamie SueSykesfrom Chatham, Ont.,is one ofthe cast memberswho went into reserves, Indigenous homes,homeless sheltersandthe bushto learn.

"I thought they were all funded by the government by our taxpayer dollarsandI thought that was the reasonwhy they were all partying," Sykessaid in a phone interview with CBC after the show aired this week.

"But that couldn't be further from the truth," she said.

Sykessays on the show she was taught about residential schools, the Indian Act, the Sixties Scoop, the reserve system andtrauma. She says the experienceprovided her with a more compassionateview ofIndigenous people.

'So many hurt community members'

But when Jesse Housty, a mother from Bella Bella, B.C.,heard about the concept of the show, she questioned it andcalledit triggering.

"I saw so many hurt community members across the countryencountering thisshow and feeling the trauma of it in their bones," Housty said.

Housty said while education about Indigenous people is needed to combat racism, she feels it should be non-Indigenous people educating their peers rather than Indigenous people shouldering the burden.

"As Indigenous people, I don'tfeel like weshould constantly be in this position where we have to defend and explain our humanityto people who question it," she added.

Housty is not alone in her sentiments about the program. Other Indigenous people, like author David Robertson, have taken to social media to air their concerns about the format.

Listen to the full episode of Reconcile This about the controversy over First Contact:

'A breath of fresh air'

APTN isnot the first TV network to air such a program.

In 2014, an Australianreality documentary series also called First Contactdocumentedthe journey of sixEuropean Australianswho werechallenged over a period of 28 days about their pre-existing perceptions ofIndigenous people.

SavvySimon, a Mi'kmawmother who lives in Vancouver, anxiously awaited the Canadianshow's debut.

"It can be so exhausting to be a Native person because there'sso much ignorance and people are not taking responsibility to be educated," Simon explained.

"So I feel like [First Contact]is a breath of fresh air, for those like us who get asked those questions over and over again to save our breath," she said.

'Dark stain on Canada'

For Sykes, the show gave her a view into a part of Canada she had never seen before. Learning about the deaths of children at residential schools was the momentshe saidher perceptionsbegan to be rattled.

"It was horrible, I thought oh my goodness, this is such a dark stain on Canada," Sykes said.

But some people are questioning the show's ability to change people's views.

Toby Rollo isan assistant professor of political science at Lakehead University who is originally from B.C.He is skeptical of the the TV show's ability to change the participants' discriminatoryviews.

"Exercises such as this are extremely resource intensive and tend not to result in lasting changes to the attitudes or actions of adults," he said.

He pointed to studiesdone on the "Contact Theory," which he says shows that education to prevent racist attitudesmust happen much earlier on in life, before racial bias is cemented.

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