Category Archives: Indigenous People After Contact

Killers of the Flower Moon

2024 Trip to South East United States, Exploitation, Indigenous People After Contact, Movies

 

Killers of the Flower Moon is an outstanding movie directed, written, and produced by Martin Scorsese.  It is part of a larger story of the Osage Indigenous people in Oklahoma forced to relocate their against their will but it turned out the rocky stony land they got, which everyone thought was worthless  had oil and the Osage became fabulously rich. The richest people on earth with white servants.

At first, the Osage people were discriminated against in Oklahoma. “When they first moved to Oklahoma territory, people put up signs…”read “NO DOGS, NO INDIANS.”   Once they were rich, of course, they were much more welcome. In fact their wealth attracted a lot of hungry predators—white men.  Amazingly, wealth became almost as big a problem as poverty because it pulls in the white predators. I listened to a fascinating interview with Martin Scorsese in which he said, “I have made films about the gangsters, Cape Fear  and things like that, but this movie was about day-to-day evil which may be part of our human nature. How much of that are we capable of?”

We see Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) an unconventional leading man. First of all, he is not that smart. In fact, often he seems pretty stupid. Goofy might be the best way to describe him.  When he arrives on the railway platform, a well-dressed person hands him a flier – he reads it: “Make it Rich.” We instantly know we have arrived in a place where the American fantasies are running amok. People are unhinged. They are living in the Fantasy Land of the American dream. We should not be surprised if reality is kept firmly at bay. We also see 4 or 5 sketchy white men standing around, looking entirely unproductive, tipping over a common misconception, and they are looking hungrily at the well-to-do and well-dressed Osage who are sitting in their beautiful cars. You can just see it, they want them.

William King Hale (Robert De Nero) Ernest’s uncle,  is seen surveying his kingdom with a knowing smile. He knows the score. Nothing can surprise him except innocence.  He greets his nephew:

Times like this people put castles in the air, held aloft by hysteria, rush blind with greed, based on fear, unfounded fear. Fear running all over the place and screaming like animals. This is a cattle ranch. There’s no oil here. So I’m settled with no fear. These Osage have had enough trouble, they’re down to not too many of them left. There’s a way that nature moves and changes direction and that’s happened upon them. Time will run out, this wealth will run dry drier than the seven years of famine that plagued the Pharaohs of old. They’re sick people. Big hearted but sickly.

 

Hale tells his nephew there is a lot of money in Oklahoma now. More than Texas. He made a fine choice coming there.   Then Ernest makes an astonishing admission: “I love money, sir.” this of course is the problem with Ernest. He is a a good man, we think, but he loves money. Like so many white men he is driven by a lust for money that corrupts him absolutely. It mixes him up. He even hurts those he loves.

 Later Ernest realizes “I just love money! It’s true. It’s true. I damn near love it as much as I love my wife! I can’t help myself once I get thinking on things .” There is the crux. Ernest loves his wife, but maybe he just loves money more!

Hale tells Ernest, “You call me Uncle or King… remember?” Ernest is quick to reply, “King.”  Hale, like so many white men, wants to be king and his nephew is very quick to oblige. 

Then Hale asks Ernest if he likes women and once more Ernest is quick to reply, not bothering to hide his sins, “Yes, King, course I do, it’s a weakness.” And that is Ernest’s problem. He is a good man, with weaknesses, who is not shy about acknowledging them When asked if he likes women red, Ernest says unabashedly, “Red and white, I don’t mind. I like all of ‘em, I’m greedy. I like heavy ones, pretty ones, soft ones, ones that smell good.” 

King Hale wants to educate his young nephew. He tells him,

 

“Osage are sharp. They don’t talk much so that might make you run your mouth to fill the space. ‘Specially if you’ve been drinkin,’ but it’s better to be quiet if you don’t have something smart to say. Don’t get caught on that – it’s just what they call “blackbird talk” (imitating) “cheep cheep”. Just because they’re not talking doesn’t mean they don’t know things about everything. Osage are the finest and most beautiful people on God’s earth.

 

This is one of the great mysteries of the film.  Hale is a predator. He is a top predator, but he respects his prey. He knows they are smart. He likes them. But he wants their money. He thinks he is entitled to their money. To us I hope this seems astonishing, but in his day, it was not surprising. It was ordinary. I was every day evil. Banal.

King is mean, nasty, and ruthless, but he is smart. He recognizes that Osage are good people. Like Ernest, he knows Osage are good smart people but that does not mean he won’t try to cheat them to get money. He will do anything to get their money. That is a predator to be respected. And feared.

Lily Gladstone) Gladstone who plays the role of Mollie who marries Ernest  , is indigenous, though not from the Osage Nation, and she is a central character in the film. She is not just window dressing. Her role is important. Her character is important. This film is not just about white guys.

Mollie asks Ernest if he is scared of his uncle King. Ernest says no, “He’s the King of the Osage Hills. He’s the nicest man in the world but I know if you cross him what he can do. I’m my own man, I do my own work. I’m a businessman.” But Ernest is not very bright. He should be scared of his uncle King! We should be scared of any man who wants to be King.

Yet, like so many indigenous women I know, she tends to be quiet. She does not speak much but when she speaks, she makes sense. She is deeply worthy of respect. But she does not say a lot in the film. She is mainly quiet and listening.  At one point she tells Ernest, “We need to be quiet for awhile. Sit down. A storm is… well it’s powerful. So we need to be quiet now.” They need to respect the power of nature.

When Mollie arrives in town she does so with her guardian. Just like the Indian Act in Canada, the white people in Oklahoma have managed to manipulate the law so that many, but not all, Osage people need white guardians to hold their money in trust for them. When she comes for her monthly check she had to bring her guardian, who is Pitts Beaty—in his 50s, white, and a grand wizard KKK. That should be a reliable guardian!

When Hale suggests to Ernest that he should take an Osage woman for a wife, to get her money, Ernest says he has been driving Mollie around. Hale tells him she would be a good choice, “that Mollie’s easy to like and a full blood Estate at that, that’s something a man could work with…”. The fact she is full blood estate means she will get a full share of the money from her tribe.

 Ernest heeds the advice of his uncle King to read up on the Osage.  You must learn about your victims. One night after playing pool and gambling all night he reads that for the Osage “Dawn was always a sacred time for prayers…”  That explains why Mollie’s mother prays at dawn by the creek near the house.

Mollie’s mother, prays at dawn by a creek near the house. He also learns that they call the sun ‘grandfather.’ The moon ‘mother.’ Fire, ‘Father.’” He sees a sun through the clouds as they are driving. This is a crescent moon. They also see a wildfire burning the prairie. Wild fires were common on the prairies and often deliberately started because it helped new growth which in turn brough bison, a staple of their diet. A Wildfire burning the prairie they called a “flower moon.” The flowers will follow the moon. As the narrator said, “They call it the “flower moon” – when tiny flowers spread over the blackjack hills and prairies. There are so many, it’s as if a spring festival of the gods left confetti there.” As a wild flower guy myself I loved this idea. The spring flowers are like confetti spread by the gods.

Ernest also learned about the baby naming ceremony where the child is given an  “Osage name – it’s how you will be called to the next world – your Osage name can never be taken away from you.” I understand this because I have an indigenous grandson who was recently given such a name. Ernest also learns the word Wah-Kon-Tah, which means God. The special ones who went ahead in the fog to new places are called, “Travelers in the Mist.”

Unlike her husband Ernest, and even though she needs a white guardian to take care of her money, Mollie is smart.” She is smart and beautiful. Ernest tells her she has a nice color of skin and wants to know what color would she say it is?  She replies, wisely, “my color.” Mollie calls Ernest coyote, the trickster. She wants to know if he wants money. Ernest replies, “Well that money’s real nice, especially if you’re lazy like me… I want to sleep all day and make a party when it’s dark.” She also asks if he likes whiskey. He says, “I don’t like whiskey, I love whiskey.” At least Ernest does not hide his flaws from Mollie. He is completely open about them. He flaunts them.   If she is so smart, why doesn’t she run away? Is love blind?

Mollie has an interesting conversation about white men with her sisters. She tells them about Ernest: “He’s not that smart but he’s handsome.” Her sister Minnie says “he wants our money.”  One sister says that can’t be true for his uncle is rich. He doesn’t need more money. Of course, she completely misunderstands white men. They always want more money.  Mollie understands, this “Of course he wants money, but he wants to be settled. He’s not restless…”  She likes that about him. Another sister says she won’t need her guardian if she has a white husband. But that is still a problem. Even her white husband will want her money! Her sister Reta says he doesn’t want her money because he loves her. Again, that is still a big problem. Even husbands can’t be trusted.

Ernest tells his uncle he really loves Mollie and loves her and thinks she is a lady. King, pleased, tells him, I think you found a wife. After they get married King Hale says,

“I’ve known Mollie and her sisters since they were little girls running around making trouble… I just want to say on behalf of my wife Myrtle and my daughter Willie, I’m just so glad a member of my family is mixin’ with the great Pahsoo-oh-leen. Mollie’s dear departed father, Nah-kah-e-se-y, was my beloved friend of the heart. He used to tell the white men to just call him Jimmy, but I called him by his proper name…”

 

And Hale is not lying. He loves the Osage. But, of course, that does not stop him from exploiting them. Hale, is a complicated man. He understands what Whites have brought to the Indians. They have brought white man diseases that destroyed them. As he tells Minnie, “So many troubles. What we’ve brought on you… I’m sorry… I hear it in the wind, it screams like a woman who has the evil spirit.” Hale even prays to the Spirits to take away her sickness. “Great Mystery Remove the sickness from her Remove the evil spirit from her You bless those who are sick I want you to bless Minnie He even prays in the language of the Osage!

Hales seems genuinely concerned but we suspect her disease is not accidental as so many diseases were brought by white men to Indigenous people. But with the Osage some were deliberate because the white men wanted the money the Osage had.

When Mollie inevitably gets sick too, Hale wants to make sure Ernest does it the right way. And Ernest listens attentively to his uncle. First, Hale asks Ernest how Mollie is feeling.  Ernest says, “Alright. She takes care of the little one…”  Hale understands, “That’s the Osage way. They’ll tolerate anybody – even whites – for their children. That’s their riches.”  Osage women don’t need money. Their riches are their children! Ernest starts to understand too.

What is clear is that the “reign of terror” has begun. That was the time when Osage died in waves and their money went  eventually to their white heirs. It was a mass killing that the FBI failed to investigate. They just blamed a few bad apples. Funny how that happens. In the movie a long list of suspicious deaths is referred to and in each case, there was “No investigation.” And many of these were young people, healthy before they contacted white people and yet they died mysteriously.

As well, some were outright shot. In those cases, no one thought it necessary to camouflage the murders. The white men were killing the flowers of the moon. In other cases, they made the murders look like suicides.

Mollie changes her legal documents so Ernest to replace her current guardian so the money stays in the family. He tells Mollie: “I love you. I love you. I’ve always loved you, Mollie.” That is probably true but did he love money more?

It is sometimes difficult to remember, when watching this film, that it is a love story. A very complex love story. It is not a Hallmark film where everything works out fine in the end. It is complex. The characters are complicated.  For one thing, it is a remarkable story about a man, Ernest, who loves his wife, but has a hard time  stopping from trying to poison her for her money. What is more powerful in him we ask—his love for her or his love for money? And how can be possibly love both?  That is the real question. How is that even possible? These are interesting questions this film addresses, even if it does not provide answers that are obvious.

 

 

Good People Can Get It wrong

Hate, Indigenous People After Contact, Moral Humility, racism

 

A lot of people—good people—are excited about Manitoba electing an indigenous person ad premier.  I admit it. I am excited about that too. I think Wab Kinew is bright, likeable, and filled with empathy. Those are good qualities  for a leader to have that will serve him well.

I just want to pour some cold water on the expectations.  Many seem to suggest that the fact that an indigenous man has been elected proves that Manitoba is not racist. I wish that were true.  But I don’t think it is that simple.

I am reminded about the election of Barack Obama to the American presidency. That also raised many hopes, not all of which were fulfilled. Many thought too that this proved America is not a racist society.  Many events since that memorable election have proved that to be wildly over optimistic.

Racism in the US, as in Canada, runs deep. Very deep.  The same goes for hate. That does not mean that racism is forever embedded in our societies. I don’t think it is in our DNA as some have suggested.  It does mean we must be modest in our expectations and humble in our assumptions. Eradicating racism will be a big job, over a long haul.

In the US after Obama was elected that supercharged the extreme racist fringes of American society. Many of them could not bear the image of a black man and his black family living in the White House. The racists found this intolerable. This was part of the reason for the amplification of the Tea Party in the US. Racism erupted. It was not pretty. I remember seeing disturbing posters and bumper stickers in the US. It was ugly.

The same thing could happen in Manitoba. Images of Wab Kinew and his family could trigger a new political faction here as well. How about the Beer Party?

We must remember the obvious: Good people can get it wrong.

History of Casa Grande

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous People before Contact

 

 

Casa Grande Ruins National Monument is located in Coolidge Arizona a bit north of the current city of Casa Grand and it preserves parts of structures that were likely built by the Ancestral Sonoran Desert People during the classical period around 1150-1450 CE.

It is one of the largest prehistoric structures built in North America. Its main purpose is still a bit of a mystery. It may have been used as an administrative office to oversee the canal systems established by the Ancestral Sonoran Desert People.

Archeologists have learned that the people who built it also developed a widespread canal system to support their extensive farming and trade connections that lasted for more than a 1,000 years until the structures for some reason were abandoned 1450CE.

Archaeologists use the term “Hohokam” but that is not the accepted name of the people who lived there. Years of misunderstanding have confused the ancestors of the O’Odham, Hopi, and Zuni people with the name Hohokam, which is not a word in any of their languages nor the name of a separate people.

The ancestral Sonoran Desert people who built it did not leave a written language behind. As a result written accounts begin with the Spanish explorer Padre Eusebio Francisco Kino who visited the ruins in 1694. He was the one who first called the ruins “casa grande” (or “great house”). More became known with later Spanish expeditions to the area, as they were very impressed with the ancient civilization that was revealed by the remnants. During the 1860s and following more people started to visit the region and then vandalism began in earnest. After that Americans took more serious steps to preserve the ruins for future benefit. The roof was built by modern Americans to protect the main structure that remains.

These ancient people and their civilization deserve our respect, even though they did not always receive it.

 

The Vanguard for settler Colonialism and dispossession and erasure

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, Colonialism, Indigenous People After Contact

 

 

As historian Adam Hough said in the documentary Colonization Road, “consciously or unconsciously these settlers were the vanguard. Their names are on our streets. We revere and honour these people for their hardships.” At the same time we ignore the indigenous people who were originally the inhabitants of the land.

 

Kenora was located at an important intersection.  There was an important road that ran through it and of course, in time, the Canadian railway and the Trans-Canada highway.  Many residential schools were located in this area. The newcomers, guided by a white elite down east, wanted to exploit the timber and mineral resources nearby. As Cuyler Cotton, historian and policy analyst said, “Within a 5-mile corridor from the north end of Lake of the Woods, you find the entire infrastructure that ties this country together.”  Today within that narrow belt are the infrastructure, roads, railways, gas lines, Trans-Canada highway, electric power lines, and fibre optic cables. It is an interesting intersection, and as Cotton said, “So much can happen at an intersection, collision is what happened here in Kenora.”

I spent most of my first day on this inferior jaunt driving through that corridor.

According to Cotton,

“the greatest number of residential schools are found within this area. In the region there were policies of cultural genocide that were going on. All of this happened here in force. And very, very quickly.”

 

Teika Newton, a researcher said,

“There was a colonial agenda that was behind all of that industrial activity, and there still was a power elite that existed in the eastern parts of the country, and they saw the west as their resource bank. Colonization road is a really powerful and it’s a really powerful physical force that was very, very deliberate and very, very strategic. They wanted the land. We were on the land, and so dispossession and then erasure became the primary way over and over again, through policy, through informal relationship, through violence every mechanism possible, really”

 

This was the Canadian system of dominance and extraction that now goes by the name of settler colonialism.

Do deny that it existed as Stephen Harper and Brian Pallister did, is just plain wrong.

 

Ousting Inhabitants

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, Colonialism, Exploitation, Indigenous People After Contact, Mennonites

 

 

 

The newcomers to Canada had a different attitude to the land than the indigenous people they met had.

As Doug Williams, elder and former Chief of Kitiga Migisi, saidimn the documentary Spirit to Soar, “I think the early, early settlers had a real difficult time  with what they called the wilderness. Of course, we did not have a wilderness. We had a home.” The newcomers needed the Indigenous people to survive. Doug Williams put it this way in the film Colonization Road:

 

“When the land grants were starting to happen, they were giving away our old camps, and our shorelines, and our islands, and the river mouths, and all of this. We had to move. In fact, we were being shot at. It’s a history which started with conflict, so we had to move.”

 

Premier Brian Pallister of Manitoba was wrong. The settlers were not only builders. They built alright, but first they also  pushed out the inhabitants. Sometimes not directly, but through the governments that represented them and did not represent the indigenous people, the indigenous people were ousted. Settlers accepted this. They did not question their privilege. They saw it as natural. They thought they were entitled to this privilege.  That is the way privilege works. It sees anything that undermines that privilege as irrational.

I recently watched a limited television series call The English. It is well worth seeing.  It dealt with the settlement of North America by Europeans.  In it I was struck by a group of Mennonites who had come to Kansas to settle the land. The English woman in the series came up to the Mennonites and challenged them. “What are you doing here,” she asked. “Why are you here? Don’t you know people live here? Why don’t you go home?”  The Mennonites were dumb struck by these perplexing questions.  They seemed to never have thought of this. After all, the reason they were there, they said, was that God had called them to come. How could they possibly question that?  In a sense, the Mennonites were villains of the series [along with a wide assortment of other villains].  I had never before seen Mennonites painted as villains. Is this an unfair portraiture? I wonder what my friends think?

Recently, a friend of mine, told me about a Canadian farmer who is a descendant of settlers. He felt the injustice of this ouster so keenly, that he met with his family and together they decided to give the land back to indigenous people! Just like that after a few generations of farming the land they gave it back while acknowledging the injustice of the original displacement of the indigenous people.  That is an impressive expression of conscience and, I dare say, in this case, true Christian spirit.

That settler demonstrated a new attitude to the land and its inhabitants.

 

Through Quetico Region and Rainy River

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, autumn, Colonialism, Indigenous People After Contact

 

Larch or Tamarack

The road from Thunder Bay to Fort Frances was an absolute delight.  There was very little traffic and I could stop to photograph the countryside as often as I wanted. this is a photograph of one of the grandest sights of autumn–the larch or tamarack. This is a coniferous tree that does not stay green. I think it is the only tree in Canada that does that. There were plenty of them in the Thunder bay area.

“There used to be 7 Anishinaabe First Nation communities along the Rainy River. In the early 1900s, after the Metis resistance, the province of Ontario forced the amalgamation of some of them to form Manitou Rapids First Nation. According to the Ryan McMahon of the Couchiching First Nation in north-west Ontario, this was an illegal amalgamation, by the province of Ontario because they wanted the land for settlers and then they gave them our land for free.”

 

Here was an ad produced by the Canadian government:

 

By order of Parliament: Land Grants are to be given for the purpose of settlement in Somerville Township.

 

The governments (federal and provincial) spread such posters far and wide in many countries. They offered irrigated land with lots of nearby lumber with lots of potential farm land with access to markets and roads.  They did not tell too many people about the winters in Canada. But people did get land with documents on plans that showed road allowances. The Ontario government in 1853 invited “Capitalists, Tenant farmers, agricultural labourers, mechanics, Day labourers, and all parties desirous of improving their circumstances to immigrate to a new country.” Earlier people had been given parcels of land in the middle of nowhere. They had road allowances but often no road. So, the governments started a road system to attract settlers and facilitate enterprise.

 

Of course, the governments that did this never asked their partners—those nations that entered into treaties with the federal government—what they thought about what they were doing. The first nations never thought they were ceding the land to the European newcomers. They thought they made deals to share the land with the newcomers. But that is not how it worked out. The newcomers took over—everything.

Pam Palmater, an indigenous Canadian lawyer and professor of law,  had an entirely different view of these enterprises. As she said,

To me these roads, railways, they’re like an infection. Not just metaphorically, but actually. It was  a way of invading our territories, without legal authority, without consent. And what are roads used for now? They literally bleed our territories dry of people, of resources, of everything that matters and they pose a hazard.

 

This was how colonialism started in Canada, with a fundamental disagreement about what the parties had agreed to.

Through Quetico Region and Rainy River

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, Colonialism, Indigenous People After Contact

 

 

I wanted to post photos of Kakabeka Falls in Ontario, but sadly I have left home on my way to Arizona and left those photos behind. I will have to do that when I get back in the spring.

The road from Thunder Bay to Fort Frances was an absolute delight.  There was very little traffic and I could stop to photograph the countryside as often as I wanted.

There used to be 7 Anishinaabe First Nation communities along the Rainy River. In the early 1900s, after the Metis resistance, the province of Ontario forced the amalgamation of some of them to form Manitou Rapids First Nation. According to the Ryan McMahon of the Couchiching First Nation in north-west Ontario, this was an illegal amalgamation. By the province of Ontario because they wanted the land for settlers and they gave them our land for free.”

Here was an ad produced by the Canadian government:

“By order of Parliament: Land Grants are to be given for the purpose of settlement in Somerville Township.”

 

The governments (federal and provincial) spread such posters far and wide in many countries. They offered irrigated land with lots of nearby lumber with lots of potential farm land with access to markets and roads.  They did not tell too many people about the winters in Canada. But people did get land with documents on plans that showed road allowances. The Ontario government in 1853 invited “Capitalists, Tenant farmers, agricultural labourers, mechanics, Day labourers, and all parties desirous of improving their circumstances to immigrate to a new country.” Earlier people had been given parcels of land in the middle of nowhere. They had road allowances but often no road. So, the governments started a road system to attract settlers and facilitate enterprise.

 

Of course, the governments that did this never asked their partners—those nations that entered into treaties with the federal government—what they thought about what they were doing. The first nations never thought they were ceding the land to the European newcomers. They thought they made deals to share the land with the newcomers. But that is not how it worked out. The newcomers took over—everything.

 

Pam Palmater, an indigenous Canadian lawyer and professor of law,  had an entirely different view of these enterprises. As she said,

 

“To me these roads, railways, they’re like an infection. Not just metaphorically, but actually. It was a way of invading our territories, without legal authority, without consent. And what are roads used for now? They literally bleed our territories dry of people, of resources, of everything that matters and they pose a hazard.”

 

The Canadian government saw these roads as a way to open up the west. The indigenous people saw them as the imposition of colonialism without their consent. Who was right?

We arm the Reasonable

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, Affinity, Indigenous People After Contact, New Attitude to Nature

 

in the documentary film Spirt to Soar, Tanya Talaga’s mother asked her to stop at a place where she had lived. It was devastating to see the clear cut there. The loss of forest was visceral.

Jody Porter spent a lot of time in Thunder Bay. She knew it intimately. She knew its secrets. Even the dirty ones.  She described it there as follows:

 

“We don’t know how to put into context what we are doing here. And again if you want to talk about how Thunder Bay is unique it’s because we are at the raw edge of that existential angst of what it is to be a Canadian. When your presence is deadly to the people whose land you live on.”

 Tanya Talaga drove by the same place I drove by on my home from Thunder Bay, namely, the place where the watersheds split. Some water flows north from their to the Arctic ocean. Other waterways flow south to the Great Lakes from where it flows to the cities of North  America and ultimately to the Atlantic ocean. Talaga said, “the water makes a choice.”

Talaga went on a trip into the forest organized by the elders. The purpose was to take the youth on a hunting trip. And to learn about the land. Talaga said, “I didn’t realize why I was going back to the land. that took me a long time and all the pieces of my life came into focus…I began to understand my deep feelings of dispossession, of the pain of separation from the land, and what it means to reclaim and what it means to belong.”  Non-indigenous people often do not understand the deep attachment indigenous people feel to the land and how it pains them to see it desecrated.

 

Jody Porter said this:

“We need to sit with who we are and what we’ve done here. And in that space there could be room to flip that narrative. To hear stories and to tell stories that belong here. And are from people who belong here. And tell us a story of what’s possible. The kinds of relationships that would make us all healthy.”

 

Senator Murray Sinclair said this,

“My success would be on whether I can be the best human I can be based on my teachings. That’s my success and that will be our successes as well, because if we try to create structures today that are simply copies of what Canada’s governing structures are, then we will fail.”

 

Talaga also said the 7 fallen feathers–the 7 indigenous youth who lost their lives:

 “they are now part of us. They are part of the land. And the water. And our existence. They are part of creation. We need to listen to the voices of our ancestors to tell us which way to turn, which way to flow with river. By telling our stories, the stories of who we are, how we live and how we die, we arm the reasonable. Once our voices are heard, once our truths are spoken, Canada you can’t say you didn’t know. You can no longer look away.  You see all my relations. We have fought to overcome the realities of our past and now we must turn to the possibilities of our future. We were always here. We are not going anywhere. This is where we belong.”

 

That is what it means to live on Turtle Island–together. Where we are one.

Unworthy Victims

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, Indigenous People After Contact, racism, White Supremacy

 

There is a lot to like about the Thunder Bay Area.

Driving through the city of Thunder Bay it looked like a fine community. On the surface it was a fine community. I have been there many times and never saw anything to disturb me. I wasn’t looking closely enough. When you dug a little deeper you saw more.

Everyone from Thunder Bay was convinced there was no racism in the Thunder Bay police force. Independent evaluators were convinced of the opposite. It is always difficult to see your own bias.

The Thunder Bay police were investigated by the Office of the Independent Police Review Directorate, who concluded “Overall I found that systemic racism exists in Thunder Bay police service at an institutional level.”  The Ontario police watch dog found the problem runs right through the ranks. Directly after that, Senator Murray Sinclair released his investigation into the Thunder Bay police board and found they were also guilty of systemic racism.

9 cases were re-opened as a result of the investigations and 4 of those were of the 7 fallen feathers. Justice Sinclair said he did not have faith in that system however:

“that is because the resistance level is so unspoken and so present. The impetus to blame the indigenous victim was huge. It still is. I would be surprised if it changed so quickly. I’m sure that they say it’s changed but I would be surprised if there had been any significant change in that attitude because that is an ingrained attitude. And that attitude was allowed to permeate the system within the Thunder Bay police force and the board was primarily responsible for trying to change it and doing something about it and they didn’t. They didn’t even see it as a problem.”

 

That is like racism itself.  Over and over again I have heard non-indigenous people decline to accept that systemic racism exists, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Resistance to uncomfortable truths runs deep in Canada, just as it does in the United States. People don’t want to accept the fact that our societies are deeply racist. That is exactly how institutional or systemic racism works and why it is so difficult to uproot.

Lawyer Julian Falconer put it well:

“what racism is about is less than worthy victims. Their deaths were not worthwhile enough to make it worthy of a competent professional investigation. That is the message. Its what they do when the investigate another dead drunk Indian!”

 

Jody Porter also put it well: “How many times do you have to rediscover the same problems, the same racism within the institutions that are supposed to be helping before you say, ‘It’s not them; it’s us?

The fundamental problem is indifference. As Porter added,

“Indifference can kill people especially when it is young people asking for help. Seeking a better life. If you are indifferent to that as a community, then death seems like a natural consequence.”

Too many of us are indifferent to what happened there. It is not our business. We are busy with our own business. I am no better than anyone else about this. I wish I was.

 

Gruelling Inquest and the Quest for Truth

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, Colonialism, Indigenous People After Contact

 

Sometimes truth does not come in clear images.  The impressionist painters of the late 19th century realized that and I found their images mesmerizing.  Some of you may have noticed that some of my photos are not clear either. That is not an accident.  I have been using a technique called “the Orton effect” after the man who invented it. The technique involves combining 2 identical images into one. The first image is clear and in focus, but over exposed. So it is very light. Then I take a second image of the same subject and blur it deliberately. Why would I do that? When combined the images sometimes are stunning. Sometimes you have no idea what the result will be when the images are combined. When combined it sometimes seems magical what comes together in the computer.

 

A few years ago, I was at photographer workshop in Saskatchewan, with a photographer by the name of Andre Gallant who produced a book called Dream Scapes. He is a master of the technique.  I am a poor elementary student.  His images were deeply compelling to me, but he admitted, as must, I that the technique is not for everyone. After all, why would one deliberately blur a sharp image? That is a good question? Why did the impressionists do that? Sometimes, an ambiguous image can bring its own clarity.

 

Julian Falconer, in the film Spirit to Soar,  together with the Grand Chief Nishnawbe Aski Nation, Alvin Fiddler fought for years for an inquest into the deaths of the 7 young indigenous people in Thunder Bay for years.  Finally one was announced in 2008, but only for one of the 7 students.  The inquest was for Reggie Bushie and it was finally called in 2015. According to CBC reporter Jodi Porter,

“there was a roomful of lawyers there and their only job was to protect and cover-up and they were the ones who got to call [witnesses]…There wasn’t healing in it. It was traumatizing. It was awful to sit there every day. And no one from Thunder Bay bothered to show up.”

 

While the Inquest was being held another indigenous body was pulled from the river. “The gruelling inquest”, according to Talaga, “lasted for 9 months and came up with 145 recommendations including building high schools for every community that needs one. And improving safety for Thunder Bay rivers.

 

I wonder if anyone cared about that. The film did not say. It left a lot of questions unanswered.

In the same way, combining images can leave a lot of questions unanswered. But aren’t questions more important than answers? I don’t want to give up on truth, but sometimes I want to experience it from a fresh perspective.