The New Democratic Party, of which I’m a reluctant member, is holding a leadership race to replace Jack Layton, who died of cancer in August 2011.
Here are my thoughts about the NDP in general. They are all still true.
Romeo Saganash is Cree, he’s a lawyer and MP, and he is a survivor of residential schools, the active colonial structure in which legal, spiritual, emotional and sexual violence was perpetuated on Aboriginal children and youth up until 1996, when the last residential school closed.
1996.
That’s 16 years ago. That’s not ancient history.
Disgusting and shameful.
Romeo Saganash is running for the leadership of the NDP. He was elected to Canadian Parliament in May 2011 for the riding of Abitibi–Baie James–Nunavik–Eeyou, in Northern Quebec.
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Jules is a friend of mine, and I had the privilege of seeing her grad school thesis film during the spring of this year.
Her film has been accepted at the American Indian Film Festival, running in San Francisco this week.
The premise is about lost language, and the act and effort of reclaiming it, in a context of an aboriginal culture that the mono-linguistic English Canadian mainstream has been trying for hundreds of years to eradicate.
Jules and I have had a few conversations over the past few years, about language, culture and reclaiming. Some of her struggles with learning Cree are documented in her film. My own half-hearted struggles in learning Mandarin speak to many of the same issues.
Hopefully this film will screen again in Toronto, and elsewhere in Canada.
Congratulations, Jules!
I write this as I fly west on Air Canada, to begin my Groovy West Coast Tour: Summer 2010. After being seated on the plane, I received a “free” copy of today’s Globe and Mail.
Mainstream media is never free for me.
Three articles stuck out for me, all having to do with Aboriginal rights and social status in Canada. Spoiler alert: I’m pissed off and the Globe is full of racist bullshit. I know, it’s no news flash.
One
Section A Editorial “Letting a monster go free”
The editorial is about Robert Picton, currently serving years in prison for 6 counts of second-degree murder, but suspected of killing at least 21 women over a period of years. It seems that in 1997 a woman was lured to his compound by him, and managed to escape by stabbing him (the Globe generously adds “in self-defence”) and in the course of escaping she lost three litres of blood and almost died herself. She and Picton were treated in the same hospital in Port Moody B.C. and he wasn’t charged by the Crown. With anything.
Why?
Because she wasn’t “credible”.
Feminists have heard this bullshit before many times. She had on a handcuff that Picton has used to try to restrain her still on one wrist when she was treated. The key that fit the handcuff to unlock it was in Picton’s possession. I’m not sure what more compelling physical evidence is required.
Oh right. She was a Native woman. And probably a sex worker. And perhaps a substance user.
Fucking hell fuck. The last time I checked, this is what systemic racism looks like.
Now that Picton has been safely convicted and demonized, the Globe has no problem saying that this was a very bad judgment call by the office of the Crown. Thanks for nothing, G & M.
Seriously, enough with “Happy Canada Day”. Are people idiots? Can’t this just be a day off work and that’s the end of it?
Canada is a shameful country, with a shameful history and present, and there’s nothing to celebrate.
Two reasons why:
1.
Anti-Canada Day Solidarity Statement with Akwesasne July 1, 2009 – Montreal To the members of the community of Akwesasne – To all members of the Haudenosaunee – We write to publicly express our respect, solidarity and support with the continued struggles for sovereignty and self-determination by Haudonausanee peoples. In particular, we highlight our admiration for the courageous and ongoing community resistance to armed border agents at Kahwehnoke in Akwesasne. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is an occupier on Kanionke:haka lands, and we unequivocally support the demand of the people’s movement at Akwesasne to refuse the arming of any border agents. We also support the demand for free movement for all members of the Akwesasne community. Read the rest of this entry »
Anti-Canada Day Solidarity Statement with Akwesasne
July 1, 2009 – Montreal
To the members of the community of Akwesasne – To all members of the Haudenosaunee –
We write to publicly express our respect, solidarity and support with the continued struggles for sovereignty and self-determination by Haudonausanee peoples.
In particular, we highlight our admiration for the courageous and ongoing community resistance to armed border agents at Kahwehnoke in Akwesasne. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is an occupier on Kanionke:haka lands, and we unequivocally support the demand of the people’s movement at Akwesasne to refuse the arming of any border agents. We also support the demand for free movement for all members of the Akwesasne community.
I was just in the Thunder Bay area, this week and last week, so I saw first hand how ugly some of the racist white folks are towards Aboriginal people.
The story:
A Thunder Bay woman is demanding an explanation after a teacher’s aide at her son’s school cut his long hair — an action her lawyer says is clearly assault while the Crown insists there are no grounds for charges. The seven-year-old boy had chin-length hair before the incident last month. His mother said staff at McKellar Park Central Public School were aware her son was letting his hair grow so that he could take part in traditional First Nations dancing. The mother told CBC News she was stunned when her son told her it was a teacher’s assistant who lopped off 10 centimetres of his hair. “I said, ‘Why did she do this? Did she say anything?’” said the mother. “And he said, ‘No, and after she cut my hair, she took me by the shoulders and forced me to stand in front of the mirror. She made me stand there and said look at you now.’“
A Thunder Bay woman is demanding an explanation after a teacher’s aide at her son’s school cut his long hair — an action her lawyer says is clearly assault while the Crown insists there are no grounds for charges.
The seven-year-old boy had chin-length hair before the incident last month. His mother said staff at McKellar Park Central Public School were aware her son was letting his hair grow so that he could take part in traditional First Nations dancing.
The mother told CBC News she was stunned when her son told her it was a teacher’s assistant who lopped off 10 centimetres of his hair.
“I said, ‘Why did she do this? Did she say anything?’” said the mother. “And he said, ‘No, and after she cut my hair, she took me by the shoulders and forced me to stand in front of the mirror. She made me stand there and said look at you now.’“
Reading this story, as I sit in my apartment in Toronto, I’m reflecting on the realities that I barely know and understand of what it can possibly be like for Aboriginal communities in the near- and far-North, in dealing with the white population, and having vile ugly racism at every turn.
Hearing this story now, allows me to understand to a bit of a greater extent the levels to which white folks disrespect, disregard, invisibilize and render person-less, anyone who is Aboriginal.
They have to.
Settler discomfort is so great, as well as “family secrets” of Aboriginal relatives and ancestors, that vile hatred is the only response, all the while claiming friendship and caring. As long as it’s done by white rules and on white terms. I’m truly not sure what can be done to begin to touch on this level of racism, as it’s not only imbedded in the society, laws and culture (as it is everywhere in Canada) but exists as a tangible reminder of white superiority. No generation shift will change this, as I saw this level of racism in white women under 30. Unlike the ways in which progressive values can begin to take over in larger centres, there is no possibility for that kind of change in smaller more remote centres.
Full story here.
