paperback, 291 pages
Published Sept. 9, 2016 by HighWater Press.
In Indigenous Writes, Chelsea Vowel, legal scholar, teacher, and intellectual, opens an important dialogue about the wider social beliefs associated with the relationship between Indigenous peoples and Canada. In 31 essays, Chelsea explores the Indigenous experience from the time of contact to the present, through five categories--Terminology of Relationships; Culture and Identity; Myth-Busting; State Violence; and Land, Learning, Law, and Treaties. She answers the questions that many people have on these topics to spark further conversations at home, in the classroom, and in the larger community.
Fantastic introduction to Indigenous issues in Canada, structured as 31 relatively self-contained essays, each of which has lots of endnotes/references for those who want to take it further. The author has lots more resources at apihtawikosisan.com
Every non-Indigenous Canadian should read this book.
It is written in a very chatty, easy to understand way, with no recriminations, in order to educate us on all the myths about Indigenous people that surface on Twitter and in real life every day.
Although I don't really expect all those dyed-in-the-wool racists to be persuaded of anything, there are many with misconceptions about what treaty rights actually exist, about money that Indigenous people receive from taxes and many more.
I learned a lot and the enormous amount of detail and references provided are going to be very useful in conversations with fellow white people who are so sure about our relationships with Indigenous people; sure but wrong.
1) "For the most part, when I do need to refer specifically to 'the non-Indigenous peoples living in Canada who form the European-descended sociopolitical majority,' I've decided on the term settler. I feel it is the most accurate relational term and helps to keep the conversation more focused than the term White.
[...] I pointed out that I feel settler is a relational term, rather than a racial category, which is another way in which it is more useful. Since I have chosen this term, I suppose I do need to explain what it means, or at least what I am using it to mean. For me, it is a shortened version of settler colonials. Settler colonialism is a concept that has recently begun to be explored in-depth, and it essentially refers to the deliberate physical occupation of land as a method of asserting ownership over land …
1) "For the most part, when I do need to refer specifically to 'the non-Indigenous peoples living in Canada who form the European-descended sociopolitical majority,' I've decided on the term settler. I feel it is the most accurate relational term and helps to keep the conversation more focused than the term White.
[...] I pointed out that I feel settler is a relational term, rather than a racial category, which is another way in which it is more useful. Since I have chosen this term, I suppose I do need to explain what it means, or at least what I am using it to mean. For me, it is a shortened version of settler colonials. Settler colonialism is a concept that has recently begun to be explored in-depth, and it essentially refers to the deliberate physical occupation of land as a method of asserting ownership over land and resources. The original settlers were of various European origins, and they brought with them their laws and customs, which they then applied to Indigenous peoples and later to all peoples who have come to Canada from non-settler backgrounds. This does not refer only to those European people with sociopolitical power, but also to those of lower classes who settled here to seek economic opportunity."
2) "To sum up, status is held only by Indians who are defined as such under the Indian Act. Inuit and Métis do not have status, nor do non-status Indians.
Status Indians account for less than half of all Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Status Indians can be Indigenous or not, have band membership or not, can live on-reserve or not, and can be treaty Indians or not. What you should take away from this is to not make assumptions about status, what status entails, and what rights and benefits are associated with status."
3) "[...] In acknowledging the past but cutting it off from the present, there is a strong implication that, at some point, Canada got itself sorted out and began dealing fairly with Indigenous peoples. [...] What this part of the argument always relies upon is the implicit notion that any remaining problems faced by Indigenous peoples stem from an inability for people living in Canada to commit to a standard of 'equal citizenship and equality before the law.' This charge will be levied at First Nations leadership and Canadian politicians both. There is little need then to understand how historical injustice has moulded and shaped conditions today, and continues to find structural expression within the Canadian context. There is even less need to deconstruct how ongoing injustices are inextricably rooted in that history. Instead, a bright line is drawn between the past and the present we could all be living in if only everyone embraced liberal democracy wholeheartedly."
4) In Canada, the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857 and the Gradual Enfranchisement Act of 1869 (which later became consolidated into the Indian Act) gave the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs the power to determine who was of 'good moral character,' and the consumption of alcohol figured greatly into this determination. This had immediate impact on Indigenous peoples, as this determination was directly linked to certain benefits. Widowed Indian women could even have their children taken away if they were found lacking 'good moral character.'
This is what I mean when I say that alcohol has been weaponized against Indigenous peoples."
5) "Numbers; I deal best with numbers:
150 years of operation
150 000 children who attended
6000 children (at least) who died while in the system
67 percent of schools run by the Roman Catholic Church, 20 percent by the Anglicans, 10 percent by the United Church, 3 percent by the Presbyterian Church
1996 -- the year the last school closed
7000 interviews with survivors
* 6 volumes in the final Truth and Reconciliation report
This is as dispassionate as I can get, but even broken down into numbers, this hurts.
Of all the topics I have covered in this book, none is more difficult for me to give voice to than this one. In fact, although I have tried to write about the residential-school system, I have never been able to bring myself to do more than skirt around the topic; I need to focus on what we can do to change things. I feel like someone who, after long exposure, has become so raw that the barest whisper feels like acid on my spirit. Rather than developing calluses, I am a flayed nerve."
6) "My purpose here was to introduce people to RCAP, both as a starting point for further investigation into the many issues faced by Indigenous peoples in Canada, and also as proof positive that practical solutions have been suggested. That latter part is important because peole need to stop believing there is no other way out besides just assimilating us once and for all. It might seem so much simpler to just legislate us out of existence -- make us all 'the same' to satisfy liberal notions of equality -- but it won't actually solve anything. RCAP is a good place to start if you want to know why such attempts are doomed to fail, and what alternatives have been proposed."
