At one point in my career I became an honorary member of a indigenous tribe east of Toronto. Ultimately the joint venture on the reserve failed but what I learned is the incredible divide in the community. The halves who escaped the atrocities and thrive and then the have nots who really cannot survive because of such tragic abuse with no end in sight
I write Gladue Reports for the courts. I see first hand on a regular basis the varying degrees of impact that the Residential Schools and Day Schools, and Foster Care System has on my fellow Indigenous people. My mother was a residential school survivor. I was 60's scoop. I was taken from her, and she committed suicide in 1975. I came home to my community 27 years ago and have been learning about these matters since then. In my estimation, there are no easy and quick fixes. I've seen what happens when the solution is to just hand over big sums of money. Some people did well with their settlements. In other cases, the access to all that capital simply hastened their early demise. I honestly am just horrified by what has happened this week and I'm hoping that with the strains being brought to bear on people because of sky-high inflation and other pressures... That this isn't the beginning of a spate of such events. I worry that we are on the cusp of worse things to come in this regard. I know how alarmist that sounds. I fear that because of COVID and systemtic cascading failures, decisions have been made in error to release people, who are simply (tragically) unsafe for the community to cope with.
I appreciate you taking the time to inform and educate people about the lasting and powerful impact of trauma on our society. It's a very important subject/topic to consider and discuss.
And in the US students in some states can't even discuss these kinds of issues because some might suffer stress from learning what their ancestors did. That will simply result in the fallout from unaddressed trauma.
With respect to Canada, I would ask your friend Catherine Twinn why none of those unattended (and therefore unmarked after decades of neglect - wooden markers don't last forever) gravesites have been exhumed in the interest of the families, to determine whether they do in fact contain the remains of aboriginal children, white children or adults. Until that happens, the aboriginal families cannot have closure, but the tribal elders and others can have never ending media attention and government funding for "healing".
Although short in length, the article provides a glimpse into the issue. In British Columbia, there is a great divide between those First Nations people who live in rural vs Urban environments. Their hurt runs deep. Good leaders have accomplished some good, but trying to exist and thrive in two worlds is tough. We must keep trying to help. That ‘we’ is both First Nations people and non FN people. That anger is never far from the surface.
And yet some cultures do not have such problems; but they do have strong work ethics. So perpetual welfare is not a racial issue or a class issue. It is a cultural issue. People at a young age need to learn "You Cant Party On Weekdays and Be Happy - Happiness comes from the self fulfillment of hard work"
At one point in my career I became an honorary member of a indigenous tribe east of Toronto. Ultimately the joint venture on the reserve failed but what I learned is the incredible divide in the community. The halves who escaped the atrocities and thrive and then the have nots who really cannot survive because of such tragic abuse with no end in sight
I write Gladue Reports for the courts. I see first hand on a regular basis the varying degrees of impact that the Residential Schools and Day Schools, and Foster Care System has on my fellow Indigenous people. My mother was a residential school survivor. I was 60's scoop. I was taken from her, and she committed suicide in 1975. I came home to my community 27 years ago and have been learning about these matters since then. In my estimation, there are no easy and quick fixes. I've seen what happens when the solution is to just hand over big sums of money. Some people did well with their settlements. In other cases, the access to all that capital simply hastened their early demise. I honestly am just horrified by what has happened this week and I'm hoping that with the strains being brought to bear on people because of sky-high inflation and other pressures... That this isn't the beginning of a spate of such events. I worry that we are on the cusp of worse things to come in this regard. I know how alarmist that sounds. I fear that because of COVID and systemtic cascading failures, decisions have been made in error to release people, who are simply (tragically) unsafe for the community to cope with.
I appreciate you taking the time to inform and educate people about the lasting and powerful impact of trauma on our society. It's a very important subject/topic to consider and discuss.
And in the US students in some states can't even discuss these kinds of issues because some might suffer stress from learning what their ancestors did. That will simply result in the fallout from unaddressed trauma.
With respect to Canada, I would ask your friend Catherine Twinn why none of those unattended (and therefore unmarked after decades of neglect - wooden markers don't last forever) gravesites have been exhumed in the interest of the families, to determine whether they do in fact contain the remains of aboriginal children, white children or adults. Until that happens, the aboriginal families cannot have closure, but the tribal elders and others can have never ending media attention and government funding for "healing".
Although short in length, the article provides a glimpse into the issue. In British Columbia, there is a great divide between those First Nations people who live in rural vs Urban environments. Their hurt runs deep. Good leaders have accomplished some good, but trying to exist and thrive in two worlds is tough. We must keep trying to help. That ‘we’ is both First Nations people and non FN people. That anger is never far from the surface.
And yet some cultures do not have such problems; but they do have strong work ethics. So perpetual welfare is not a racial issue or a class issue. It is a cultural issue. People at a young age need to learn "You Cant Party On Weekdays and Be Happy - Happiness comes from the self fulfillment of hard work"