When Deborah Green first entered the corporate world,
she pretended to be someone she wasn't.
Her mother had experienced systemic racism as an Indigenous
woman and wanted better for her daughter. So early in her career,
Green acted as if she weren't Indigenous when she went to
work.
"I would never reveal anything that would identify me as
Indigenous," Green, Suncor's senior specialist advisor,
Indigenous workforce development, said at Forward Summit West.
In order to fit in, Green pretended to like opera and the
"fancy restaurants" her colleagues went to – things
she could have cared less for.
"That's not sustainable," she said during a panel
discussion on Indigenizing the workforce. "Sooner or later,
the truth always comes out."