All you naysayers who disagree with this Supreme Court Ruling,you may rant all you want about negatively disagreeing with the ruling and calling it racist. But this country was built by racists, ruled by racists, and developed by racist settlers alike. Systemic racism on all levels of societal construction from birth, infancy, childhood, adolescent, and adulthood, purely due to the racist colonial history we all share. To vehemently deny societal status and place for this ruling shows that Canada will always remain a racist country. Ideas and thoughts perpetuated through capitalist and economic differentiation of communities, choice and style of clothing, timing of mosaic cultural celebrations, and the educational positioning of class relations and economically defined demographics. Would the rich build their homes by the refinieries and industrail areas?
Take a first nations community's, language, culture and land away, give them nothing but small parcels of land removed from dominant society and expect them to live there and not bother us, started this racist existence consciously and subconsciously for all of us living under the North American dome of societal upbringing, popular culture history, modernist story creations and the syndication of these low art and high art signifiers through dime novels, newspapers, the newly invented film camera. Soon the new settlers of this new land wanted to remove the “Indians” from the land allocated to them through the treaties, and the people are moved again. All the new comers who came from Ireland (The potato famine and death ships), England and others of the old world wanted to start a new life; Developers again removed the “Indians from their allocated smaller parcels of land further away from development. And so on and so on, the relocation continues till we are where we are today, where as one commenter put its “...our society rejects and demotes aboriginals...”
While I sympathize for the victims of all abusers and initiators of violence, far too often alcohol is the demonizing factor, and as one of my later foster mother said, It takes two to tangle..” and far too often the victim is just as much the transgressor which helped initiate the aggression between the two parties. If not my apologies for any offence. I do not promote violence, but when these societal conditions help creat ones sense of worth and knowledge, communcation tools became dangerous. Through the abuse of alcohol and drugs, it was devastating, one case involved Uncles screwing niece after a drunked and anger filled gathering. One situation, brothers beating their own for their mistakes and screw ups during drinking parties; another case grandparents smoking crack with grandkids? Hearing and experiencing this self abuse I had been forelorn and suicidal, but the Great Spirit is with me. Some judges and jurers don't symthpatize for their own reasons; (All affected by the ruling ideology) But nevertheless, for the first people the systemic racism was devastating and genocidal. Worthlessness became the predominant value of the self. From birth, infancy, childhood, and adulthood. Where the after effects of this unnecessary evil killed the Indian in the child and instead of giving them the tools to survive in a Christian oriented educational and class defined workforce, the caregivers of this racist system give them physcial and sexual abuse, children were told that they were worthless, and unworthy of being. When you feel unworthy of being, the only options was rebellion, anger, hate, self abuse, denial and suicide. People say it's all about choices. yes I agree, I choose to live and trust the Great Spirit completely after all, I am a survivor of that genocidal anger, hate, self abuse and worthlessness after my experience with this racist country. A survivor because of my experience with physical and sexual abuse. From the foster homes to being on the street or in the building of Canadian socicety, I have been sucker punched more than once for being an Indian; from behind more than often than in front. Hearing the words fucken Indian behind your back before the fall, you know it is a matter of survival. As I got older, I was able to utilize my sixth sense in some sense of self defense. Even targeted because of my sense of worth today, more vocal, more social activism, stand up for injustice and the dispossessed. After work one day and more work searchs, I left the Vancouver Aboriginal Employment centre and woke up in the hospital two days later, a large swelling on my left side fo the head, and no memory of what happened. Money was still in my wallet, so it was not a robbery. I thank my brother for coming out and help me recover after that assault. In Edmonton, I was chased by people in vehicles to go back to the reserve, drink your lysol; I was on my way to Vancouver wearing a business suit. In all this one native man had the choice to take programs, improve on ones self before sentencing, he assaulted a person, and at sentencing , he talk for a half an hour, cried, sobbed and shared his personal story of all that I write about regarding the the failed assimilation of Canada's First People. One person in court room was not sympathetic and yes, the victim has a right to see justice served. The guy should have taken steps in self improvement, anger management to improve his chances in the sentencing factor. Why didn't he? He even admitted that he should have taken these course. Instead he choosed to give his reasons for his actions in court, and well in a conservation hard nosed province like Alberta, the judges expects the native person to act like the rich white girl, the successful white man or cultural diversed person, not like the Indian that is defined in North American culture! Am I a successful assimilated "white" Indian who survived this failed assimilation period of Canadian History? Failed because the the government admitted complicity by the residential buyoff, with strings attached, and now the building of super jails for the incarcarated, no physical contact, everything communicative is digital? No human contact? Sterile genocidal practice?
In closing, after this Supreme court ruling, the provinces have to take in consideration the racist colonial history of Canada and how that embedded racism is still in society, its education, political, and cultural apparatuses, its leaders, judges, prosecutors, police, and teachers; all who have abused their public responsibilities and societal trust by positioning the native child, man and woman in lower social and economic definitions of class and political statute. Unworthiness of “being” purely because of the colour of their skin, because of the inter-generation pattering of ideology between euro-centric grandparents, parents and children, and how the position of native people are defined around the dinner table and on TV. Catch phrase from popular culture has been the definitive signifier that signified the lower status (caste) principles that shaped the conscious and subconscious of today’s societal relationship with North America’s first people. Until we remove the notion of us versus them mentality between the indigenous people of this continent and the descendants of our colonial history we share, nothing will ever change when it comes to how the pre-dominant mass consciousness sees the first people of this continent as a people of being unequal in educational, political and cultural status. So all you naysayer, I would sooner drop a wagon of dung in your back yard than listen to your vehemently racist rejects of this national court ruling. Here in redneck racist Alberta, we need this reading so that all those redneck racists running the justice system and jail system understand their racial historical upbringing, get their head out of their ass and paint a truer picture of justice and restitution. Instead of regurgitating the lecturing Canada’s first people to be like all the other euro Canadians because we all make choices and have to live together responsible. If you have not walked in the moccasins of Canada’s first people, then keep your racist close minded mouth shut. Hy hy, Miigweech, all my relations
