#indigneous issues

With the publication of photos and video showing Justin Trudeau in blackface, his personal racism was there for the world to see – something that rightly causes many Canadians a great deal of discomfort. It might be more palatable to point to racist laws and policies as the core of the problem, but the Liberal leader’s past actions remind us of an uneasy truth: racism is perpetuated by individual human beings working within and upholding systems – people making decisions to act in a racist manner. This is hard to discuss and confront as a society, but we must. Every segment in society has had a hand in killing Indigenous peoples – from colonial governments offering scalping bounties to settlers for native scalps, to those who operated residential schools.

While governments create the conditions of life that lead to the premature deaths of Indigenous peoples, there are many in society killing Indigenous peoples today and they include police officers, corrections officers, doctors and average Canadians.

There’s a homelessness crisis in a northwestern Ontario town, and the mayor says he can’t solve it. That’s because, according to him, it takes more than local government to solve a centuries-old issue.

In Sioux Lookout, a town of 5,200 people, 10 Indigenous homeless people died in the winter of 2018. And although Indigenous people make up roughly 40 per cent of the town’s population, the Kenora District Services Board estimates that the homeless population in Sioux Lookout is more than 90 per cent Indigenous.

On May 6, Mayor Doug Lawrance sent a letter to the provincial and federal governments explaining that homelessness, addiction, and mental-health issues in his town are “a direct and consequential result” of European colonialism and are therefore beyond his abilities to handle.

“If you want to look at the roots of some of these challenges, they go back to the colonial way this country has developed with respect to Indigenous peoples,” Lawrance told TVO.org. “It started hundreds of years ago through policies in colonial times that have carried on. That’s the root. You don’t have to look too far. You don’t have to create false reasons.”

With this declaration, Lawrance became the first mayor in Ontario to frame social crises in this way. But what will it accomplish?

This will be more of a stream-of-consciousness style blog and turns into a sort-of-rant by the end (I apologize in advance). 

Now, I've grown up in a nuclear family that is extremely accepting of all people no matter their socio-economic status, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, etc; however, I have also grown up with the voice of my parent's parents and siblings as well whose ideas are less than accepting (or acceptable in my opinion). The voice from their side regarding indigenous people often sings that "they just live off of the government," "they should just get a job," "they just need to let everything go, after all, we did apologize," et cetera and beyond. I had a conversation with some members of my father's side of the family at a family reunion a few years ago on this topic and they were not apathetic or arrogant - to my surprise. They were mostly tired of their hard-earned money (they are exclusively working-class labour or service employees) being taken from them and given to a bunch of people they've never met AND the media leads them to believe that it's used for drugs and booze by "lazy indians".

The stereotype of the "lazy indian" was discussed at length in one of the classes this semester. Its origins going back to the beginnings of colonization and reeking havoc on generations of North American society indigenous and white people alike. The presence of this stream of thought in my own family - whom i love dearly - only reinforced the topic as discussed in class. Of course, I do not adhere to the recognition of this construct as truth, but my family experience only reinforced my prior thought that it was only the bigoted few that held it.

With regards to my title, I wanted to discuss a bit about how the rights of indigenous people given by treaty agreements and other government ordinances and how they may be pigeon-holding indigenous people from succeeding in the North American way. We will leave behind the question of who decided that schooling for twenty years, working for forty years, and dying bored another twenty-or-so years later was a good idea (and how ridiculous this notion is) and attack this as if it were real. Honestly, when this topic comes up I fear being conceived as racist. I have been told, "if you think you're being racist, you are!" But, that's wrong. I almost always think that I'm offending somebody, so I'm going to go right ahead knowing I am not racist. The money that reserves are given do not come from everyone's taxes, let's dispel that myth right now. This money helps a lot of people feed their children, go to post-secondary educational institutions, and make much-needed repairs to their homes among many other things. Not all indigenous people need this money and not all of them use it. Just like everyone else in the world, some use it, some abuse it, some manage it, and some mismanage it. It's called: people are FALLIBLE.

I am under the impression that indigenous people have gotten the crap end of the stick from colonization to present (duh!). Money is something we need to live, and therefore makes a great compensation technique; I'm sure, by now, you know I'm not going to stop here. My concern with (what I will call it) the indigenous "pay-off" is that it does not address any of the issues facing the communities as a whole in the 21st century. It has the potential to help by providing money for counselling, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, education (which is quite well managed and delegated in many communities across Canada already), and childcare - just to name a few; the money is being put into the hands of - I will repeat - FALLIBLE people. [Just to be clear, I had $2000 in debt when my grandmother passed and left me $1500… I took a trip to Calgary to party instead of paying off my debt. I am not talking about any of this "fallible" business without experience.] In my humble, idealistic opinion, the government could better utilize these funds for programs to help in the areas that affect indigenous people in Canada most - I think that would take away a lot of prejudice from people like my family and help a lot of indigenous people. Of course, the programs should be conceived of and created by indigenous people for indigenous people so the white government doesn't mis-use its FALLIBLE people power. [Fallibility is beginning to sound a bit like a super-power from a Marvel comic that every human possesses, eh?].