Sh Dei Wooteen on speaking up — “Everybody has a warrior inside them”

This is Tongass Voices, a series from KTOO sharing weekly perspectives from the homelands of the Áak’w Kwáan and beyond.

Sh Dei Wooteen Jeni Brown is a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples’ advocate. Last week, she offered a training that honed in on one aspect of violence that people sometimes overlook — stalking. 

For Brown, this work is personal. She’s a survivor and she’s lost family members to domestic violence. And often, a stage of that increasing danger is stalking. 

Content warning: This interview contains mentions of domestic violence and violence against Indigenous people.

Listen: 

Sh Dei Wooteen Jeni Brown: You don’t have to be quiet. We’re not in the day and age where you’re quiet about this. If they’re doing something that makes you uncomfortable, speak up. Everybody has a warrior inside them, and it’s time for them to wake up. 

My name is Jeni Brown. My Lingít name is Sh Dei Wooteen. I am T’aḵdeintaan from Hoonah, originally Glacier Bay. 

[The trainings] started because I am an advocate for missing and murdered indigenous people, and I’m an advocate for people that are incarcerated. I’m an advocate for recovery. And I feel like this training, the stalking awareness and prevention training, ties into domestic violence, sexual assault, missing and murdered. It all plays a part — like a beginning. You know what I mean?

Sometimes it’s re-traumatizing. Sometimes it’s healing, because I’m not a person that’s gonna sit there and be quiet about things like this. You know what I mean? Like it needs to be brought to the light. We’re no longer in the generation of what happens in the home stays in the home. 

I’m a firm believer in like, “No, you did wrong. We don’t deserve that.” A lot of the self-care that I do is — I’m in counseling. I do counseling with the Community and Behavioral Services with Tlingit and Haida, and I have a good support group. 

I talk to my pastor, I talk to my friends. I’m really well supported. I talk to my sponsor. I’m really well supported in things that I do. You know what I mean, which makes me feel like I am the one that needs to reach out and show people. You know what I mean? 

I’ve said many times in many interviews before that I want to be the light so that people from the dark can see the light and come towards that. To be the path and help people, because I don’t want to stand on a platform by myself. You know what I mean? I feel like we all deserve to be on that platform. 

It kind of really opened my eyes, because I’m a person that likes to be doing awareness trainings in our community, to be like, “Hey, this happens in our community. Please don’t turn a blind eye. It could be your neighbor. It could be somebody that you see every day and not know.”

People use it very loosely, like, when people say, “Oh, I was stalking you on Facebook last night.” Like, we need to end that kind of language. You know what I mean? Because it’s something; this is something serious. 

What happens when the victim gets a restraining order, and the stalker comes forth and kills them, you know what I mean? And nobody took them seriously, because everybody uses it so loosely. “Oh, I was stalking you at the store,” or if you see somebody more than once at the store, “what are you stalking me?” You know what I mean? Like the language in itself needs to stop. 

I always have the saying that my door is open, my phone’s always on, my door is always open. If this is happening, don’t be afraid to reach out. I know that our services in Juneau are limited, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t have a community that cares. 

There’s always somebody — I feel like every person should have that one support that is there through thick and thin, and will answer at the drop of a dime at three o’clock in the morning. And I like to be that person, because I don’t want somebody to feel like they’re alone.