Dear Paleface,
Let’s make things right for the longstanding Indigenous inhabitants of this land.
Following the late May discovery of 215 concealed burials of First Nations children at a former residential school in Canada there was a post from a Jewish group on Facebook basically saying ‘Yes, this is an example of genocide.’
I am sure there are other Jews who would disagree.
Just as you can find people who will continue to deny that a horrific historical genocide occurred or is ongoing in a land despite numerous facts and testimonies.
Around 72 years ago, after terrible realizations about WWII came to light the newly formed United Nations defined the crime of genocide as being any one of 5 acts with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(1) Killing members of the group;
* Even if you don’t believe that Indigenous people have been systematically killed in massacres, battles, protests, on the streets, in parked cars, schools, or within their own home by our rulers and legal enforcers over the centuries please acknowledge this next fact. Scalping enemies has been done by pretty much every race over time. You’ve been tricked into believing a bit of a fable. Hundreds of years ago the English, French, and Americans introduced the concept of cash bounties for the scalps of dead Indian men, women, and children. There was blowback. There always is.
(2) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
* Canada intentionally starved or withheld basic nutrients from a thousand or so Indigenous residential school children and hundreds of other Captive Natives for long periods of time in the 1940’s and 50’s to develop our national food guide and further scientific understandings of malnutrition. The victims, who were experimented upon without consent, often experience a lifetime of adverse physical and mental repercussions.
* Inappropriate medical procedures, drug tests, and cruel experiments like the needless removal of a lung conducted by government doctors & agents on innocent Indigenous prisoners of residential schools and sanatoriums began in the 1930s continuing through to the ’70s.
* Out of a mere 127 residential school Survivors in a 2003 study only 2 were found to be free of a horde of wrenching, ongoing mental illnesses.
* PTSD and Intergenerational Trauma may be prevalent in many Indigenous communities but there has been little study.
* Currently young First Nations, Métis, and Inuit heavy drinkers outdrink young non-Indigenous heavy drinkers by 10 to 20 percent.
* In two recent Western Canada studies First Nations people were 5x more likely than their non–First Nations counterparts to experience an opioid-related overdose event and 3x more likely to die from an opioid-related overdose. In Alberta, fentanyl was involved in 18% more opioid-related deaths among First Nations people than non–First Nations.
* Indigenous people have a significantly higher likelihood of developing diabetes, heart disease, certain cancers, and stroke. Overall their heart and brain health is worse than the general Canadian population.
* If it was always this way how did the Indigenous people survive, populate, and prosper in a harsh, challenging environment before the legacy of Columbus and his ilk?
* Statistics Canada reports that suicide rates among First Nations youth are 5 to 7 times that of non-Indigenous youth.
* First Nations men die by suicide 2.4 times the national average and women 5 times.
* Inuit youths heartbreakingly die from suicide at 11 times greater the national average.
* Suicide amongst the Indigenous was virtually unheard of before the Eurovasion according to Traditional Knowledge.
* From 2001 to 2015, the homicide rate for Indigenous women in Canada was almost 6x as high as the homicide rate for other women.
* In 2021 Indigenous families and individuals continue to be horrendously hurt at a higher degree than most in the New World in so many ways.
(3) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
* Infected Blankets, Deadly Gifts, Broken Treaties, Stolen Land, Burning Villages, Buffalo Annihilation, Sled Dog Slaughter, Sanctioned Rape, Institutional Pedophilia, Infanticide, Outlawing Language, Outlawing Movement, Outlawing Traditional: Hunting; Trapping; Fishing; Foraging; Farming, Outlawing Cultural: Celebrations; Dancing; Clothing; Hair Styles; Artwork; Songs; Sports; Sacred Objects, Legalizing: Property; Jails; Banks; Poverty; Poisoning of Rivers; Clearcuts; Pipelines; Oilfields, Mines; Tailings, Ruined Territory, Forced Relocation, The Reservation System, “Abhorrent” Housing Conditions, Urban Homelessness, Long-term Drinking Water Advisories, Dismissing Intelligent Resource Management Strategies, Ignoring So Many Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Regurgitating the 1876 Indian Act in all its bureausatanic manifestations, Upheaving the Natural Balance. This is just the tip of the Tipi.
* If you have lived in the Americas your whole life or even for part of it and can’t see today the insidious destruction of the Indigenous races you are either choosing to be blind or a fucking moron. Perhaps both.
(4) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
* Canada has forced sterilization upon more than 3,000 Indigenous women starting in the early 1900’s until as recently as 2018.
(5) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
* Beginning in 1831 Canada’s government, courts, police, and many churches took a third of the Indigenous children away from their families to erase a group of people. Politicians and priests at the time proudly stated this was their goal. The lawful practice of crowding the offspring of a distinct civilization into residential schools caused the brutal deaths of an estimated 6,000 young lives from tuberculosis and deadly assaults. At least 144,000 other youth survived despite their experiences of savage physical, emotional, spiritual, and sexual abuse from authorities. Without doubt there are further victims. The Roman Catholic Church refuses to release pertinent documents or apologize for their role in this devilry to this day.
* As of June 25, 2021 1,323 hidden remains of stolen children and a few grownups have been discovered underneath the grounds of 6 Canadian residential schools with a 133 former sites still to be painstakingly explored. Many have foretold & deeply felt this grave news for a long time but were routinely ignored until now.
* We’re still taking Indigenous children away from their families and putting them in foreign care. Indigenous youth composed 52% of the displaced minors being raised in foster homes in 2016. Indigenous people made up less than 5% of Canada’s population in 2016. More than 30% of the prison inmates right now in our home and native land are Indigenous people.
* Can you explain how a massive multi-tribal society of human beings could exist together for over 12,000 years with such an apparently huge percentage of naturally born killers, thieves, fiends, and failures unable to look after their own children?
* Racism and residential schools have brought premature death and daily despair to countless people from a specific group for a very long time. Generations after generations. The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996.
This. Is. A. Real. Conspiracy.
Every one of these globally recognized criminal endeavors has been perpetrated against the original residents of this land by our nation’s laws and morals which can be perverted every now and then. It’s really getting past due to take on the wicked ignorance of this world and beat it to death.
Roughly 90% of the 60,000,000 unique human inhabitants in this part of Earth were wiped out by the arrival of disease ridden European explorers through accidental contact followed by sick intentions, military invasions, and premeditated acts of villainy against humanity.
We have to come to terms with the fact that Canadians and the Americans and our Ancestors are guilty of genocide no matter how bad that feels.
Now is the time for Truth and Reconciliation, 94 Calls of Action and The Big Payback.
* Please Google any of the appropriated facts & claims above if you’re in doubt.
And just for the record it’s not all doom and gloom. There are plenty of brilliant, humorous, talented, and accomplished Indigenous people & parents out there; some of whom I’m fortunate enough to call a good friend.
Let’s listen and do what’s right while they lead us through a great awakening.
Chi Miigwech
Mark Kirkwood Callingham is a palefaced Irish Sudburian settler who works for a homeless shelter in downtown Ottawa and is the founder of Project for a New Economic Century.
