Stop asking how many children have been recovered from unmarked graves and start doing something about it
White people keep asking us for an update on how many children have been recovered in unmarked graves, outside of residential 'schools' across Canada.
So let's take a second and unpack that.
What’s Happening:
In May 2021, non-Indigenous people across Canada and the world became aware of what Indigenous Peoples have been saying for hundreds of years:
Colonization has been and is killing them.
Our government, the monarchy, the British/French governments, and the churches (especially the Catholic Church) colluded together to enact systemic violence against Indigenous Peoples in hopes of eradicating them — or at the very least "killing the Indian" in them so that Indigenous Peoples would not be able to rise, unite and fight against the colonial greed that Europeans had in mind.
See our post on The Colonizer Playbook — currently pinned on our grid — for more on these violent and inhumane tactics that were used (and in many cases still are used) against the Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island (and those of us in the global majority).
Residential (& Day) "Schools" was one form of this colonial violence. Read that again. One form of this colonial violence was Residential Schools. There are many, many, many, historic and ongoing forms of violence towards Indigenous Peoples of this land, meaning that Residential Schools are just one of the many historic and ongoing human rights violations that our country continues to perpetrate against Indigenous Peoples.
Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have entire web pages dedicated to Canada's present-day violence and human rights violations against Indigenous Peoples.
This outrage about Residential 'schools' didn't come from our school systems educating us or from our government creating campaigns around Truth and Reconciliation the way they do for Remembrance Day, nor did it come from actually listening to Indigenous Peoples, – but instead this happened because we were amid an unprecedented global pandemic, and the stand-still nature of it had us as a captive audience for the first time in Canada's colonial history.
We know that this might make some of you scroll away but don't shy away from that discomfort, Canada - lean into it. We should feel uncomfortable because it is disgusting that we collectively as a nation didn't listen until there was a global pandemic, and we had finished our Wordles and ran out of things to bake.
We owe it to ourselves, today especially, to feel that we, past colonizers, have been willfully ignorant of the violence* Indigenous peoples have been experiencing at our expense.
So let's go back to why we're here. This week we've been getting emails and dm's, from predominantly white people, who keep asking us for an update on how many children have been recovered in unmarked graves, outside of residential schools across Canada.
We're all sorts of confused by this because the orange shirts we're all wearing quite literally say Every Child Matters.
So why are we forgetting about every child who went to this schools experienced unimaginable trauma and every child who survived it still suffers because of ongoing systemic violence?
Why are people so keen on what this number is? What does that number mean? The fact that one kid went to a school, was killed, and was then buried in an unmarked grave - with their families unsure about why their child never came home - isn't that bad enough?
We know that at minimum 215+ children have been recovered. We know that the number of children killed in these schools is much higher. We also know that the vast majority of the kids who survived these schools didn't go on to live healthy lives.
So it shouldn't just be about the children who have died, but also the ones who survived the trauma done to these children (which, again, is only ONE FORM of the colonial violence experienced by Indigenous Peoples).
But if you need some numbers, here are some f*cking numbers:
From 1863 to 1996, over 150 000 children were forcibly removed from their families and placed in these 'boarding schools.' That is seven generations of Indigenous people over the course of 150 years. Many children never returned home, and those who did suffer from unimaginable trauma.
The odds of a student dying at these government-funded schools were 1 in 25, which is greater than the odds of a Canadian soldier dying in WWII (1 in 26).
Further, 1 in 5 children suffered physical and sexual abuse in these 'schools'.
Nutritional experiments were conducted on these children (if you are wondering how we did the research for Canada's food guide, wonder no further). Meaning they starved and intentionally deprived these children of certain essential nutrients.
And the number that is most relevant today: only 13 of the 94 Calls to Action have been completed to date.
You can read detailed accounts of the violence experienced by the survivors of these residential 'schools' in the Truth and Reconciliation Report.
It isn't an easy document to read, but it is a preferable alternative - in our humble opinion - to ask us, or anyone, "how many kids have they recovered now?"
Remember, residential schools were just one form of colonial violence.
These are Peoples whose land we're on right now, who have experienced generations of non-Indigenous people getting all the perks of living in Canada with no regard for the real cost of our lifestyles.
Be uncomfortable Canada, because we are.
So stop asking how many children have been recovered and start asking yourself what your role is in Truth and Reconciliation.
We are all treaty partners, and yes, the government has a lot of work to do (Trudeau has done more than Harper, more doesn't mean enough), but so do we.
And it starts with being uncomfortable with Canada's Truth because without staring directly at the Truth, we cannot begin meaningful reconciliation.
And without pressure from us, our government will not move to act at the speed it needs to — because every single day, our country is violating the human rights of Indigenous Peoples, and we cannot continue to ignore this.
Talk to your employer and your schools about how they need to take an active role in Truth and Reconciliation. They probably sent you an email or a website to check out for National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, but ask them for more.
Tell them that doing more isn't doing enough. Ask them to be leaders.
Non-Indigenous, and Non-Black people of colour: We have been complicit in colonial violence in Canada, despite having lived and ancestral experiences with colonial violence ourselves. Indigenous peoples' experiences here in Canada are uncomfortably similar to our ancestors' stories, so don't shut them out.
We cannot continue to aspire to whiteness and conform to it. We have privilege that isn't afforded to Black and Indigenous peoples – so let's use it to do good.
