Words without Meaning
I’ve not a lot of faith in the Ministers of the Crown when it comes to Indigenous children in care. They often speak out of both sides of their mouths, the sincerity nothing more than a shade they’ve spit out to distract us from their acts of assimilation and oppression (mixed metaphor, sorry).
How many times have we said, “Poverty is not a good reason to take First Nations kids,” only to be completely and utterly discounted? How often have I tried to comfort a child in tears who was told that he or she would be going to a “new” home if their parents didn’t clean their house by such and such date? I’m poor and not the tidiest person you’ve ever met but I don’t think that would be cause to have my children apprehended, were I to ever have children.
The fact that we have so many battles going on right now, in so many jurisdictions, seems to indicate that their words are just that: words. As meaningless as Canadian apologies and “reconciliation” have become. If only because we have heard them so often from so many governments and so many Indigenous “leaders.”
Changing who runs the system and the rules of the system will not change the system because it is the system that needs to be torn down and rebuilt completely.
This is my commentary on the article linked below. As always, I welcome your comments and thoughts on the matter.
Poverty not a good reason to take Indigenous kids from parents: Bennett https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/poverty-not-a-good-reason-to-take-indigenous-kids-from-parents-bennett-1.3776993
-photo via the above link.
Good article on a crucial issue. I have a similar viewpoint to you although from an Australian Indigenous perspective.
Where my view differs to yours on this issue is How Australia and the indigenous communities themselves are trying to deal with nearly identical issues that Canadian indigenous populations face.
To put it simply, they are not .