a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment
lil  ·  2088 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Current Thoughts

My schooling was the same. We learned that there were these people: Plains Indians for example. But were never encouraged to ask, "Where are they now?" What happened to them?" The consciousness is slowly changing but it's a long road.

I saw a film recently called 13th showing how blacks were characterized as criminals throughout the US. It made me think about how natives in Canada are characterized as drunks and Palestineans are characterized as terrorists. A convenient binary, us-them, blame-the-victim approach to justify racism.

My first teaching job was in BC, north of Whistler, in a First Nations community. Even then, numbed into accepting what I was told as justified, I had no rage, even though in the early 1900s, white people had taken the rich farm land in the Pemberton Valley and moved the native community five miles down the road. Yet, the community themselves had taken control of their school away from the church.