thecolouroffeminism:

“You writers from the dominating culture have the freedom of imagination. You keep reminding us of this. Is there anyone here to dares to imagine what those children suffered at the hands of their so-called ‘guardians’ in those schools. You are writers, imagine it on yourselves and your children. Imagine you and your children and imagine how they would be treated by those who abhorred and detested you, all, as savages without any rights.

Imagine at what cost to you psychologically, to acquiesce and attempt to speak, dress, eat, and worship, like your oppressors, simply out of a need to be treated humanly. Imagine attempting to assimilate so that your children will not suffer what you have, and imagine finding that assimilationist measures are not meant to include you but to destroy all remnants of your culture. Imagine finding that even when you emulate every cultural process from customs to values you are still excluded, despised, and ridiculed because you are Native.

Imagine finding out that the dominating culture will not tolerate any real cultural participation and that cultural supremacy forms the basis of the government process and that systemic racism is a tool to maintain their kind of totalitarianism. And all the while, imagine that this is presented under the guise of ‘equal rights’ and under the banner of banishing bigotry on an individual basis through law.

Imagine yourselves in this condition and imagine the writers of that dominating culture berating you for speaking out about appropriation of cultural voice and using the words ‘freedom of speech’ to condone further systemic violence, in the form of entertainment literature about your culture and your values and all the while, yourself being disempowered and rendered voiceless through such ‘freedoms’.”

—Jeannette C. Armstrong, ‘The Disempowerment of First North American Native Peoples and Empowerment Through Their Writing’ (paper prepared for Saskatchewan Writers Guild 1990 Annual Conference)

(via thecolouroffeminism-deactivated)

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7 years ago
thepeoplesrecord: “ At least 4,000 aboriginal children died in residential schools, commission finds January 5, 2014 Thousands of Canada’s aboriginal children died in residential schools that failed to keep them safe from fires, protected from...

thepeoplesrecord:

At least 4,000 aboriginal children died in residential schools, commission finds
January 5, 2014

Thousands of Canada’s aboriginal children died in residential schools that failed to keep them safe from fires, protected from abusers, and healthy from deadly disease, a commission into the saga has found.

So far, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has determined that more than 4,000 of the school children died.

But that figure is based on partial federal government records, and commission officials expect the number to rise as its researchers get their hands in future months on much more complete files from Library and Archives Canada and elsewhere.

The disturbing discovery has cast a new light on the century-long school system that scarred the country’s First Nations peoples.

Evidence has been compiled that shows residential school children faced a grave risk of death.

“Aboriginal kids’ lives just didn’t seem as worthy as non-aboriginal kids,” Kimberly Murray, executive director of the commission, said in an interview.

“The death rate was much higher than non-indigenous kids.”

The commission has spent the last several years studying a scandal considered by many to be Canada’s greatest historical shame.

Over many decades — from the 1870s to 1996 — 150,000 aboriginal children were taken from their families and sent by the federal government to church-run schools, where many faced physical and sexual abuse.

A lawsuit against the federal government and churches resulted in a settlement that included payments to those affected and the creation in 2008 of the commission. Its job is to hold public hearings so people can tell their stories, collect records and establish a national research centre.

The commission has also established “The Missing Children Project” to assemble the names of children who died, how they died, and where they were buried.

The list of names will be contained in a registry available to the public. Murray said the exact number of deceased children will never be known, but she hopes more information will come from churches and provincial files.

“I think we’re just scratching the surface.”

Many perished in fires — despite repeated warnings in audits that called for fire escapes and sprinklers but were ignored.

“There was report after report talking about how these schools were firetraps,” said Murray.

She said it was well known that schools were “locking kids in their dormitories because they didn’t want them to escape. And if a fire were to break out they couldn’t get out.”

Full article

(via baapi-makwa)

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7 years ago