#canamerica

[this-is-my-main-i-follow-from]

Yeah yeah pride month, & in catholic circles I see month of the sacred heart of Jesus, but

WHAT ABOUT INDIGENOUS HISTORY MONTH? MEN'S MENTAL HEALTH MONTH?

[racismfreeontario]

Lee Maracle is a celebrated author, poet, educator, storyteller and performing artist. She’s a member of the Stó:lo Nation of British Columbia, and is a descendant of Mary Agnes Joe Capilano, known as the Princess of Peace of Capilano Reserve. Maracle is also the granddaughter of the renowned Chief Dan George, and two of her four children are performers, Sid Bobb and daughter Columpa, a multi-disciplinary artist, who is also a playwright, songwriter and Artisitc Director of the largest Aboriginal Theatre school in Canada.

Lee is one of the country’s most prolific First Nations’ writers, and was first published in the early 1970s. She is a member of the Red Power Movement and Liberation Support Movement. Maracle has been the Traditional Cultural Director of The Centre for Indigenous Theatre and has worked as an instructor of dramatic composition and theatrical representation. Maracle’s works reflect her antipathy toward racism, sexism, and white cultural domination.Among her novels are Ravensong, Bobbi Lee: Indian Rebel and Daughters Are Forever.

She is one of the founders of the En’owkin International School of Writing in Penticton, BC, and Cultural Director of the Centre for Indigenous Theatre in Toronto. She mentors young people on personal and cultural healing and reclamation. Her own difficult youth left indelible marks, she says. “I got beat up at school everyday because they didn’t want Indians.”

In Maracle’s world view, intimate and integral connections bind women and the environment.  “Feminism begins with considering the earth our Mother.  All violence against earth is violence to us.”  The passing on of “women’s knowledge” is essential to the healing of people and the environment, she believes.

Maracle sees “reclaiming ourselves” as the central project for Aboriginal peoples in the twenty-first century.  “I think we have to find a way to live as Aboriginal people and as Canadians, which means dealing with patriarchy and misogyny at the personal level.”  In this process of cultural reclamation, addressing such issues as violence against women and children and the rape of the environment are essential.  Maracle describes the understanding of the interdependence of gender, environment and race as “the gift of Aboriginal people in this time.”

In 2001, Maracle was appointed Distinguished Visiting Professor of Canadian Culture at Western Washington University to engage in activities focused on promoting Canadian culture and awareness.

She is currently the Aboriginal Writer-in-Residence for First Nations House, and an Instructor in the Aboriginal Studies Dept. at University of Toronto.

Watch 8th Fire: 8TH Fire draws from an Anishinaabe prophecy that declares now is the time for Aboriginal peoples and the settler community to come together and build the ’8TH Fire’ of justice and harmony.

Day 41 of Racism Free Ontario’s 100 People of Colour Spotlight.

Follow our facebook fanpage , tumblr, twitter and website for daily updates.

(Videos and quotes @ Lee Maracle)

[racismfreeontario]

Embodied in my truth is the brilliance of hundreds of Native women who faced the worst that CanAmerica had to offer and dealt with it. Embodied in my brilliance is the great sea of knowledge that it took to overcome the paralysis of the colonized mind. I did not come to this clearing alone. Hundreds walked alongside me – Black, Asian and Native women whose tide of knowledge was bestowed upon me are the key to every CanAmerican’s emancipation.” “Sojourner Truth told you already, ‘Ain’t I a woman?’ She asked the white feminist movement on our behalf, a hundred years ago, and the white women of North America have yet to face the answer. She served up the question; we need do no more.

Lee Maracle – Racism Free Ontario Initiative