Thousands dead in unmarked graves from Canadian Residential Schools

[RUPERTKBD]

2 hours ago, bishopshodan said:

Vogon rip off.

 

 

Sorry, I don't speak Nerd....

[Warhippy]

A lot to unpack here.  Think I'll take a moment because this hits home pretty hard.

 

I've had serious struggles with this when it came up.  We knew, we damned well knew where these sites were, we knew when Harper refused like outright REFUSED to allow searching to happen during the TRC.  We know full well residential schools STILL in fact exist in a form in the NWT only it's corporate allowance and not church oversight causing the issues.  Yes this is true and a report is being fashioned about the diavik site and how mining companies are withholding food/work etc from first nations in return for allowance of development.

 

I have so many words about this and the treatment of my people across canada.  Of the church and their treatment of the indigenous, poor, impoverished.  

 

I just don't think I am ready to put it all on paper again after making so many statements about this and my personal experiences as the son of a residential school and scoop survivor who suffered more than most at the hands of the church, rcmp and government.

[BoKnows]

5 hours ago, ChuckNORRIS4Cup said:

This is like Hitler stuff imo, taking a race and trying to eliminate them, it's bad very bad, and it's going to leave a mark on Canada for a very long time. 

Except Canada didn't try to take over the world

[Warhippy]

10 minutes ago, BoKnows said:

Except Canada didn't try to take over the world

Our world they did.

 

Lemme just say this.  Claiming this is "hitler like stuff" might be a bit out there.

 

But not for one SECOND is the treatment of our first nations over almost 200 years in canada any different than what was done to the undesireables in central Europe during the 30s and 40s.  No extermination camps, no marching kristalnacht's but the treatment was very VERY similar and there was no unified front coming to save them because the US engaged in the same practices while the church did the same to the irish and spaniards.

 

Forcing tens of thousands of plains dwellers in to random camps on muskegs or worse and shooting them if they left the reserve to hunt.  Then allowing corrupt people to hold rights to their food stores and demanding women or children for "entertainment" and men for labour is about the most common but not the worst that happened to our people.  This was something not only allowed but applauded in parliament and allowed by the monarchy.

 

The treatment of our first nations people was a genocide nothing more.  It just didn't happen in a minute, it was almost 200 years in the making.

[Kurgom]

I feel like people ignore something very important. The ratification of the constitution in 1982. In some respects, this modern multi-cultural Canada is a separate, new entity from it's British colonial past. My father, an Indian man whose ancestors struggled in famines caused by the same empire that found Canada, certainly has never harmed a native person directly in his life. I'm sure many other Asians can relate to this, as we came to Canada to run away from things LIKE the residential school system. While we've always been treated with dignity, the little black eye of the "natives" was always visible on the multicultural face of Canada. Why did my friends live in a little village outside of town, I always wondered? They took a 15 minute bus just to get to school while I walked in the light snow. I didn't really think about it as a kid, but I wonder how the immigrant population justified the stark contrast in how we were treated to how natives were treated by Canadians. It's everything our parents feared of happening and why they came here. I guess our parents didn't have power, but we certainly do.

 

So I say this, do not despair or feel as if this country is less. What it is today, the country that will gladly show how wrong the old ways of thinking were by airing its dirty laundry for all to see, should not be hated for this. Recognize there are graves of people who died horrible deaths at the hands of others across this planet, and Canada has come so far to give those who suffered such a fate from it's own policies some sort of peace while subjecting itself to (justified) rage and anger from within and abroad, in the interest of reconciliation. Canada is a country that is trying to redeem its wrongs, while most others just try to hide them (like the old Canada did).

 

People 20 years ago said racism didn't even exist in Canada. We now have an Indian leading a major party (whom I really dislike, mind you), we are finally admitting the abhorrent genocidal treatment the government of Canada was implicit in of the Natives to this land. I say we because even if I'm a 20 something brown man, Canada is why I am able to live a free, happy life. Even if it came from the same destructive empire that killed millions of my people, Canada today is an amazing place. I will apologize on behalf of my countryman's ancestors and hope we can as a people treat our native population better, and help them and their way of life thrive. Talk is cheap, but these bodies we are digging up, these children ripped from their parents and dying in a lonely hateful place, they will be the catalyst for real change with how we treat natives as a collective people, and pushing for policies that help natives and their way of life thrive. And maybe we can say &^@# off to the royals soon too.

Edited July 3, 2021 by Kurgom

[MeanSeanBean]

https://www.vicnews.com/news/fire-set-to-malahat-totem/

 

This is such a bummer.. I don't agree with the churches either, but this is just messed up... Both totems, and churches are works of art and destroying that won't help anything at all.

 

Based off the writing, gotta think it was someone younger. Incredibly disappointing.

[stawns]

1 hour ago, Warhippy said:

Our world they did.

 

Lemme just say this.  Claiming this is "hitler like stuff" might be a bit out there.

 

But not for one SECOND is the treatment of our first nations over almost 200 years in canada any different than what was done to the undesireables in central Europe during the 30s and 40s.  No extermination camps, no marching kristalnacht's but the treatment was very VERY similar and there was no unified front coming to save them because the US engaged in the same practices while the church did the same to the irish and spaniards.

 

Forcing tens of thousands of plains dwellers in to random camps on muskegs or worse and shooting them if they left the reserve to hunt.  Then allowing corrupt people to hold rights to their food stores and demanding women or children for "entertainment" and men for labour is about the most common but not the worst that happened to our people.  This was something not only allowed but applauded in parliament and allowed by the monarchy.

 

The treatment of our first nations people was a genocide nothing more.  It just didn't happen in a minute, it was almost 200 years in the making.

This

[stawns]

37 minutes ago, Kurgom said:

I feel like people ignore something very important. The ratification of the constitution in 1982. In some respects, this modern multi-cultural Canada is a separate, new entity from it's British colonial past. My father, an Indian man whose ancestors struggled in famines caused by the same empire that found Canada, certainly has never harmed a native person directly in his life. I'm sure many other Asians can relate to this, as we came to Canada to run away from things LIKE the residential school system. While we've always been treated with dignity, the little black eye of the "natives" was always visible on the multicultural face of Canada. Why did my friends live in a little village outside of town, I always wondered? They took a 15 minute bus just to get to school while I walked in the light snow. I didn't really think about it as a kid, but I wonder how the immigrant population justified the stark contrast in how we were treated to how natives were treated by Canadians. It's everything our parents feared of happening and why they came here. I guess our parents didn't have power, but we certainly do.

 

So I say this, do not despair or feel as if this country is less. What it is today, the country that will gladly show how wrong the old ways of thinking were by airing its dirty laundry for all to see, should not be hated for this. Recognize there are graves of people who died horrible deaths at the hands of others across this planet, and Canada has come so far to give those who suffered such a fate from it's own policies some sort of peace while subjecting itself to (justified) rage and anger from within and abroad, in the interest of reconciliation. Canada is a country that is trying to redeem its wrongs, while most others just try to hide them (like the old Canada did).

 

People 20 years ago said racism didn't even exist in Canada. We now have an Indian leading a major party (whom I really dislike, mind you), we are finally admitting the abhorrent genocidal treatment the government of Canada was implicit in of the Natives to this land. I say we because even if I'm a 20 something brown man, Canada is why I am able to live a free, happy life. Even if it came from the same destructive empire that killed millions of my people, Canada today is an amazing place. I will apologize on behalf of my countryman's ancestors and hope we can as a people treat our native population better, and help them and their way of life thrive. Talk is cheap, but these bodies we are digging up, these children ripped from their parents and dying in a lonely hateful place, they will be the catalyst for real change with how we treat natives as a collective people, and pushing for policies that help natives and their way of life thrive. And maybe we can say &^@# off to the royals soon too.

I agree and it's my feeling that the Catholic church and the UK/Royals are the true culprits and should step up and take responsibility

[Jaimito]

6 hours ago, shayster007 said:

There is a book called "They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School" that is definitely worth reading. The writer Bev Sellars attended a residential school and accounts her time there. She reffers to the residential school as the "Brown Holocaust" and says that they used to refer to is as beating the Indian out of the kids. While not a direct comparable to the scale of the Holocaust, there was a similar end goal. It was to eliminate the culture of the first people. I don't think that comparable is as crazy as people are saying it is here.

The fact that the children were not addressed by their names but were addressed using numbers like a barcode or prisoner tells you how dehumanizing it was.  Those children were not humans to their eyes. 

 

What's more shocking, that a group of one dominant ethnicity doing this to another's defenseless children, or that a group/cult that pretends it is on mission for God can have so much cruelty and sadism in them?   

 

Hitler wasn't in those camps gassing or torturing people himself.  The Germans did. The Nazis were voted democratically into power by its citizens.   Catholic church let its action in those schools happen. They allowed pedophiles, sadists, and rapists into their ranks and turned a blind eye to their crimes.  It isn't hyperbole to compare it to holocaust.  The magnitude if different, but the intent and cruelty is the same. 

[Dazzle]

24 minutes ago, Jaimito said:

The fact that the children were not addressed by their names but were addressed using numbers like a barcode or prisoner tells you how dehumanizing it was.  Those children were not humans to their eyes. 

 

What's more shocking, that a group of one dominant ethnicity doing this to another's defenseless children, or that a group/cult that pretends it is on mission for God can have so much cruelty and sadism in them?   

 

Hitler wasn't in those camps gassing or torturing people himself.  The Germans did. The Nazis were voted democratically into power by its citizens.   Catholic church let its action in those schools happen. They allowed pedophiles, sadists, and rapists into their ranks and turned a blind eye to their crimes.  It isn't hyperbole to compare it to holocaust.  The magnitude if different, but the intent and cruelty is the same. 

Not really.

 

Hitler went to great lengths in pursuing blood purity. Jews were not part of this equation. Canada, on the other hand, did not base their policies like that. Furthermore, concentration camps were designed for one purpose - to kill and torture Jews to death. There was no 'reformation' phase. Jews/cripples and Communists were not welcome in Hitler's society. There was no reforming them. We also are ignoring the gypsies and the Poles.

 

All of this is where the Hitler comparison absolutely falls apart, but there's other factors.

 

Hitler had the secret police. Canada didn't have that for the indigenous. They also didn't have rogue agents pursuing the country's agenda as dictated by the respective leaders. The people in charge of the residential schools, though, were racist. The goal wasn't to murder the indigenous, but to reform them. In this process, they did kill them. Cruel, sure. Intent, no. See above.

 

They fed them, but they didn't feed them well. In addition, the residential schools did not lead to mass graves. Hitler, on the other hand, had entire villages cleared.

 

Hitler didn't have to gas or torture people himself - his agents did. Canada did not have agents gassing Indian people, thus a poor comparison. I'm not saying Canada is great at treating them. Make no mistake. You just can't make the comparison. You can't make a square peg fit a circle hole. But in making these comparisons, that's what people are doing. They are willingly ignoring historical evidence, and extrapolating them when necessary to fit a political one. That's dishonest discussion.

Edited July 3, 2021 by Dazzle

[McBackup]

4 minutes ago, Dazzle said:

Not really.

 

Hitler went to great lengths in pursuing blood purity. Jews were not part of this equation. Canada, on the other hand, did not base their policies like that. Furthermore, concentration camps were designed for one purpose - to kill and torture Jews to death. There was no 'reformation' phase. Jews/cripples and Communists were not welcome in Hitler's society. There was no reforming them.

 

That in itself is where the Hitler comparison falls apart, but there's other factors.

 

Hitler had the secret police. Canada didn't have that for the indigenous. They also didn't have rogue agents pursuing the country's agenda as dictated by the respective leaders. The people in charge of the residential schools, though, were racist. The goal wasn't to "kill" (murder) the indigenous, but to reform them. In this process, they did kill them. Cruel, sure. Intent, no. See above.

 

Hitler didn't have to gas or torture people himself - his agents did. Canada did not have agents gassing Indian people, thus a poor comparison. I'm not saying Canada is great at treating them. Make no mistake. You just can't make the comparison. You can't make a square peg fit a circle hole. But in making these comparisons, that's what people are doing. They are willingly ignoring evidence and extrapolating historical narratives to fit a political one.

Godwin's law is powerful.

[Dazzle]

Just now, McBackup said:

Godwin's law is powerful.

Sigh, yeah.

[McBackup]

The thing I don't understand is the reaction. Don't get me wrong, what happened was absolutely horrific. But I graduated from high school 10 years ago and even back then they stressed in our social studies courses how horrible the residential school system was. When the news broke about the graves being found, I was disgusted, but I wasn't surprised. Yet the shock and outcry from so many people, including my peers who are the same age as me or younger and thus should have theoretically received the exact same educational syllabus, really came out of left field for me. Why was this a surprise? Its like (to avoid invoking Godwin's law again in this thread) if a bunch of mass graves were discovered outside a former soviet gulag. Horrific, absolutely. But surprising? You'd have to deliberately have your head in the sand to be surprised.

[Kurgom]

1 minute ago, McBackup said:

The thing I don't understand is the reaction. Don't get me wrong, what happened was absolutely horrific. But I graduated from high school 10 years ago and even back then they stressed in our social studies courses how horrible the residential school system was. When the news broke about the graves being found, I was disgusted, but I wasn't surprised. Yet the shock and outcry from so many people, including my peers who are the same age as me or younger and thus should have theoretically received the exact same educational syllabus, really came out of left field for me. Why was this a surprise? Its like (to avoid invoking Godwin's law again in this thread) if a bunch of mass graves were discovered outside a former soviet gulag. Horrific, absolutely. But surprising? You'd have to deliberately have your head in the sand to be surprised.

I might be crazy but I think it's an effort from a foreign body that wants to make Canada look hypocritical when calling out human rights abuses. When I talk to people about this, almost everyone knew how bad these schools were.

Edited July 3, 2021 by Kurgom

[Ilunga]

This is not just your countries shame but European settled countries shared shame.

 

I have an " old western movie" on in the background,Sitting Bull.

The white settlers murdered women and children,the politicians and military leaders broke treaties.

Millions of first nations people killed and many of the remaining living on " reservations".

 

Here in Aus we have our share of guilt as well.

 

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/catholic-church-apologises-for-aborigines-stolen-generation-1.69113 

 

 

 

 

This is what happened to women like my biological mother 

 

 

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/white-mothers-of-stolen-children-also-deserve-an-apology-20101207-18o7t.html

 

Skin colour made no difference to those religious freaks.

Their motivations for separations might have been different however the end result is the same.

 

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2021-06-04/canada-recognizes-genocide-except-against-its-own-indigenous-peoples

 

I note that in that article the United nations genocide convention 2e " which prohibits forcibly transferring children of one group to another group".

 

By doing this both of our societies have commited genocide.

 

[stawns]

8 hours ago, Dazzle said:

Not really.

 

Hitler went to great lengths in pursuing blood purity. Jews were not part of this equation. Canada, on the other hand, did not base their policies like that. Furthermore, concentration camps were designed for one purpose - to kill and torture Jews to death. There was no 'reformation' phase. Jews/cripples and Communists were not welcome in Hitler's society. There was no reforming them. We also are ignoring the gypsies and the Poles.

 

All of this is where the Hitler comparison absolutely falls apart, but there's other factors.

 

Hitler had the secret police. Canada didn't have that for the indigenous. They also didn't have rogue agents pursuing the country's agenda as dictated by the respective leaders. The people in charge of the residential schools, though, were racist. The goal wasn't to murder the indigenous, but to reform them. In this process, they did kill them. Cruel, sure. Intent, no. See above.

 

They fed them, but they didn't feed them well. In addition, the residential schools did not lead to mass graves. Hitler, on the other hand, had entire villages cleared.

 

Hitler didn't have to gas or torture people himself - his agents did. Canada did not have agents gassing Indian people, thus a poor comparison. I'm not saying Canada is great at treating them. Make no mistake. You just can't make the comparison. You can't make a square peg fit a circle hole. But in making these comparisons, that's what people are doing. They are willingly ignoring historical evidence, and extrapolating them when necessary to fit a political one. That's dishonest discussion.

They didn't have secret police..........they had the RCMP.

[stawns]

8 hours ago, McBackup said:

The thing I don't understand is the reaction. Don't get me wrong, what happened was absolutely horrific. But I graduated from high school 10 years ago and even back then they stressed in our social studies courses how horrible the residential school system was. When the news broke about the graves being found, I was disgusted, but I wasn't surprised. Yet the shock and outcry from so many people, including my peers who are the same age as me or younger and thus should have theoretically received the exact same educational syllabus, really came out of left field for me. Why was this a surprise? Its like (to avoid invoking Godwin's law again in this thread) if a bunch of mass graves were discovered outside a former soviet gulag. Horrific, absolutely. But surprising? You'd have to deliberately have your head in the sand to be surprised.

Because to most people it's an "abstract" thing, not something visceral.  Therefore, it's easy to put into a box of things that happened in the distant past, not something to concern ourselves with now.

 

I know many people who knew about residential schools, but who felt indigenous people should just get over it, but have changed their tunes after this started coming out.

[BPA]

Every county has its warts and skeletons in the closet.  My hope is that there be some resolution (grants, funding, etc) to the atrocities that occurred.  Roll up the sleeves and make it better.  Not just lip service. Record this in history and make sure its taught in the schools. We need to learn from this so history will not repeat itself.  Move forward and heal together. 

 

Unlike the USA who is trying to bar teaching that slavery was a thing in the USA.

 

PS.  Think the church sucks.  Still haven't apologized (as far as I'm aware).

[Dazzle]

1 hour ago, stawns said:

They didn't have secret police..........they had the RCMP.

Not the same thing, at all.

 

But that's all you got out of my post, just the one detail and ignoring the rest?

 

The comparison between Hitler and residential schools is a poor one, period. You'd have to extrapolate certain details to fit the mould, and by that point, the history is not there anymore.

 

Let's just end that comparison here. It's not helpful at all for understanding stuff. But I get the feeling people want to make these broad comparisons because of emotion.

 

Residential schools will always be a dark aspect of Canada, but healing will happen. Canada just needs to actually address it. Germany actually doesn't hide its past. It's one of the few countries that talks about Nazism very openly. The purpose is to never have that happen again.

[Dazzle]

1 hour ago, stawns said:

Because to most people it's an "abstract" thing, not something visceral.  Therefore, it's easy to put into a box of things that happened in the distant past, not something to concern ourselves with now.

 

I know many people who knew about residential schools, but who felt indigenous people should just get over it, but have changed their tunes after this started coming out.

No one should be telling anyone to "get over it"

 

That being said, the media's obsession over this is disingenuous. Where was this level of coverage before the graves? There was plenty of academic and historical evidence for them to do research. Now these journalists think they're historians.