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13
Jun
2021
Sunday June 6, 2021
Something snapped inside me when I heard about 215 bodies, buried in mass graves, on the grounds of the former Kamloops Residential School. The news ripped apart any veils of excuses or equivocations, revealing the residential school system as an atrocity.
I have to admit that in the past, although I considered the residential schools genocidal in intent, I have nevertheless not condemned them utterly and totally.
That’s because I have known many who served in those schools. Generally, they were dedicated, caring, self-sacrificing individuals. My church celebrated the commitment of its doctors, nurses, teachers, matrons.
Granted, some of them held colonial attitudes towards their indigenous charges. But in the 1950s, who didn’t?
I failed to recognize that good people might work within a diabolical system.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: Residential schools, Kamloops, burials, 215
16
2019
For years, I have railed against the policies of white supremacists – principally in the U.S., because of the daily deluge of news that spills north across the border, but also in New Zealand/Aotearoa, France, Germany, wherever….
But I am now forced to recognize that Canada has been, and to some extent still is, a white supremacist nation. More specifically, a male white supremacist nation.
The catalyst is the 1200-page report on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls – sanitized by abbreviating it to MMIWG – released Monday May 27.
I have long known that my province imposed discriminatory taxes and restrictions on Chinese immigrants in past years. And that Canada turned away a ship full of Jewish refugees, and forcibly relocated Japanese residents during World War II.
But the most consistent victims of Canada’s white supremacist policies have been our Indigenous peoples.
Tags: Residential schools, MMIWG, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, genocide
26
Mar
2017
As far as I know, no one ever accused Jessie Oliver of racism. Of beating helpless children. Of screaming abuse at them. Or of sexually abusing any of the children under her care. To the end of her life, her former students visited her. They were her family; she was their friend.
But Jessie Oliver worked in Indian Residential Schools along the B.C. coast. Did that make her a bad woman?
She felt as if Canada were attacking her personally.
Whenever one group of people are given absolute power over helpless victims, a few will take advantage of their power. But not everyone will. There were Arthur Plints. And there were Jessie Olivers who did their best within an unjust and iniquitous system.
Tags: Residential schools, Jessie Oliver, Lynn Beyek