As fucked up as this sounds, beating their culture out of them was one of the more mundane things that went on in these awful places. I'm not sure who will read this so I'm uncomfortable going into much detail, but if you do some digging, you'll find stories so horrific that you may find yourself thinking "I wish they had stopped at beating the culture out of them."
These are some of the most horrible stories that I've ever heard. It's too horrific to even be believable fiction- the fact that it all happened and that I have graves of Indigenous children all around me is just about too terrible to think about. :(
I live in Canada as an immigrant and I am constantly ashamed of this history, and how indigenous people get treated to this day. RCMP often regard indigenous people as 3rd class citizens, like full on treating folk as criminals all the time. We have all this dialog about black lives matter and the disgusting reality is no one gives a single fuck about the most beaten down minority in Canada. I live in a very white province and work with many people of colour, but not one single native Canadian. All this HR drive to up our diversity but no one gives any thought, at all, to hiring indigenous people. I don't actually agree with hiring singularly for diversity, I believe in equal opportunity though. Even so, HR is up its own ass about driving diversity but this does not encompass native ethnicities. That conversation just does not happen at any level anywhere.
This all makes me so angry. Native Canadians had their children stolen, murdered, and buried in unmarked graves and there are people on this forum excusing it as being "best intentions". Can you imagine the reaction to this if the story was of African Slaves in the 1800s? These kids were murdered as late as the 1960s. And let's not forget the land that was stolen, the culture that was all but annihilated, the lives being ripped apart to this day through drugs and alcohol which is largely seen as a criminal nuisance rather than an epidemic that continues to marginalize and shun.
I could go on. The story is so sad, so dark, and still going on and covered up to this day. And we all gloss over it and pay lip service on CBC. Where is the criminal investigation? Where are the task forces looking for all the other mass graves?
I'm so saddened and ashamed by all of this. I've often thought of leaving Canada due to this shit, I live on unceded native territory for fuck's sake.
Hey friend, if you are ever going to be in Saskatchewan, my email address is in my profile. Let me know when you'll be here - I'd love to take you around, introduce you to some people including some survivors, show you some graves right in my city and maybe get you out into the country for a Pow Wow or something similar.
You seem like a great person, you'd fit right in and I think you would be as drawn to these amazing people as I am. Last summer, I got to attend a really beautiful rally in front of our Legislature. The feeling there, of unity, love and craving justice was beyond almost anything I have ever experienced. Indigenous cultures are absolutely beautiful and incredibly strong, so strong that our country's system of evil couldn't wipe it out. There's something beautiful and inspiring in that.
I agree with absolutely everything you say and reading this has been an absolute privilege. Like you, I'm saddened and ashamed and I've had my own thoughts of leaving Canada. My privilege is 100% because of white supremacy. I am literally on Hacker News now because of white supremacy. That is so embarrassing and shameful that I don't know what to do other than fight or flee.
If you're interested in quite the read, read about the time the TRC requested $1.5 million from the Canadian government to search for graves. $1.5 million isn't even a rounding error in the Canadian budget - it's so insignificant it doesn't even exist. But they were denied that money. The TRC was an explicit agreement to find our missing Kookums and Mooshums (the words translate best as Grandmas/Grandpas but in a really strong Indigenous context).
Talking to people like you fills me with a tremendous amount of hope. Goodness can overcome.
Take good care and thank you. I just watched the press conference where they announced 751 bodies and I've never needed this level of positivity more. I owe you. Thank you. Honestly thank you.
There are likely thousands of buried children yet to be found. This is not news, people have known about this for decades but it took a privately funded search to break the ground. Government has essentially brushed this under the rug until private citizens took it upon themselves and paid GPR specialists to search for the graves that everyone knew were to be found somewhere.
There is no statute of limitations on murder so why is there no criminal investigation? Someone is responsible for all these deaths.
When this is all said and done, I hope that the number is less than 25,000 but I think it will be much higher. We're at 1,000 kids in the last couple of weeks and that's two residential schools. There is another graveyard a 10 minute drive from where I live and that Regina Indian Industrial Residential School was a complete shit hole, even by the low standards set by the other schools. Add in schools in Lebret (they used to torture kids by making them crawl up a 78m hill to say the Stations of the Cross) and Prince Albert and I bet we'll be at over 4,500. This number is going to be huge...
As for criminal charges, go grab a beverage of your choice then come back and sit down.
Did you know that we located 5,300 abusers during the TRC? And in all these years, Canada has laid charges against less than 50 people. The 5,300 people who we found were invited to testify at a compensation hearing- most refused and their records are being kept private from the police.
People say that apologizing is the Canadian trait. I think it's passing the buck. When you ask police why there haven't been charges, they blame the victims for not coming forward. But bud, put yourself in their shoes. A cop rounded you up, took you away from your parents and sent you to a residential school. How much do you trust police??? It's fucking asinine to expect that...
The TRC even operated under weird rules. If individual A accused individual B of abusing them, individual B would get to read the allegations and get individual A's name. Individual A can't get any information about their abuser.
So, I guess the answer to your question is 'we are a really shitty country'.
Where would I go? I have relatives living in France.
Hyperbolic? I used to live in Australia and how they treated indigenous people was partly a motivation for me to leave. The racism is open and unapologetic there.
"Given every country has a history..." This is not a history, there are survivors living today. This is an issue happening right now. Children as late as the 60s were stolen, abused, and murdered. I live on unceded territory, my house is literally on stolen land. Leaving would be a monumental part of my life, I'm not going to lie, and I'd like to try and make a difference before going down that road. But it does feel rather hypocritical for me to feel this way and not stand by my principles.
This whole "it's history" argument really makes me sad. The amount of people that feel ok with this being a reason to just brush off what is happening today is a little sickening.
"I feel like declaring your intention to leave is hyperbolic" You say this as if what you "feel" has some deep insight into how I actually feel. I feel very emotional about this stuff, and I "feel" like you don't have any useful introspection into my character.
My homeland has absolutely no bearing on this conversation, I think you just want to know so you can go and unearth some sort of horror in my home nation. For the record I don't have any desire to return to where I grew up, nor do I think it's necessarily better there. However, I can guarantee that my home country does not have a suppressed indigenous population, no children buried in unmarked graves, and the land is not disputed.
