When we talk about colonization and genocide in the Americas, we are often met with the same statement:Ā
āThis happened hundreds of years ago, get over itā.
Sure, it started centuries ago. But it didnāt end hundreds of years ago, or one hundred, or even 50.Ā
When we talk about these issues, we donāt just mean small pox-infected blankets, or forced migration. We donāt just mean settlements, bounties on our heads, the physical attacks on our villages. We donāt just mean the residential schools, or the laws that banned our traditional languages and practices.Ā
We mean:Ā
- The Sixties Scoop, when Indigenous children were ripped from their communities to be placed with white families.
- Residential schools, the last of which only closed in 1996, where children were forced to give up their languages, culture, identity, and were abused horribly.
- The Millennium Scoop. The child welfare system in Canada is still ripping children from Indigenous communities. Despite only making up about 8% of the age demographic, Indigenous youths under 14 account for more than half of the foster system. (x)
- 80% of reserves in Canada have median incomes that fall below the poverty line (x)
- A vast number of reserves in Canada do not have clean drinking water (x)
- Indigenous rights and land titles are routinely ignored in order to create pipelines and sell off resources. (x)
- According to Indigenous womenās groups, there are approximately 4,000 cases of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. The RCMP only acknowledge about 1200 of these. (x)
-Ā āBetween 1997 and 2000, the homicide rate for Indigenous women was nearly seven times higher than the rate for non-Indigenous women.ā (x)
- A man literally confessed to the murder of Tina Fontaine, a 15 year old Indigenous girl, and he was acquitted. (x)
- Colten Boushie, a Cree man, was shot multiple times by a Saskatchewan farmer. A jury featuring no Indigenous people declared his murderer not guilty. (x)
- The Starlight Tours. Saskatoon Police routinely took intoxicated Indigenous men outside of the city in sub-zero temperatures and left them to find their way back. Several froze to death. The Saskatoon Police were caught deleting the article about this from Wikipedia. (x)
- Suicide and self injury are the leading cause of death for Indigenous men under 44. In addition, the rate of suicide in Indigenous women is seven times higher than that of non-Indigenous women, and the rate of suicide among Indigenous men is 5.25 times higher than that of non-Indigenous men.Ā Suicide rates for Inuit youth are among the highest in the world, at 11 times the national average. (x) In certain communities, like Attawapiskat, suicides reach epidemic levels. (x)
These are just a few of the many legacies of colonization that impact us today.Ā
This is colonialism. This is genocide.Ā
It never stopped.
(please add more to this list)
Update:
- Starlight Tours have been recorded in Calgary as recently as mid-October 2018. Facebook posts about it have been vanishing from accounts soon after reposting.
Also: Indigenous women have come forward with their experiences of forced sterilization. Not just 50 years ago but 2017. And not just one or two. There are 60 women part of a recent class action lawsuit against Saskatoonās Health Region.
Another update for those not following recent events:
- The Canadian government and RCMP carried out a heavily militarized attack on Wetāsuwetāen people defending their unceded territory from an illegal pipeline this week.
This is land that does not belong to the goverment. It is land that according to the governmentās own laws, and more importantly Wetāsuwetāen laws, canāt be taken by Canada.
This is colonization in action.
I get this is cool info and all, and āletās help the native Americansā but as a Navajo boy living on the Rez, this donāt mean shit. Like okay??? And???? Still gotta haul that water from a town thatās an hour away. You know what I mean, like itās just info that doesnāt change anything
Itās info people arenāt taught, and itās important. The fact that you have to haul water so far is another example of this. It āmeans shitā if it makes people actually think about what theyāre doing to us.
What Iām trying to say is that itās just a reblog. Unless it reaches someone with absolute power to change the fact. Iām not trying to get deep with this, Iām just also not in the mood to stay patient.
Right but no one is saying reblogging is all that needs to be done or that itās enough. Reading the notes is enough to tell you that people didnāt know a lot of this stuff, and bringing awareness, even just through a post like this, is important.
