What can I do about reconciliation?

Indigenous--Indian Residential Schools

 

For obvious reasons I have been thinking a lot about residential schools lately. I went through 4 years of a liberal arts education followed by 3 years of studying law and never once heard of residential schools. My ignorance was profound. It still runs pretty deep, but I have tried to make a small dip into it.

 

Actually, that was one of the reasons I started a blog a few years ago. I wanted to dissent from the omnipresent white supremacy in our society, even among educated people. Even among good, privileged people who were blind to the power of that privilege.

 

I remember the first time I heard of residential schools was when I heard an allegation in the news that a Catholic Priest sexually abused children at one of those schools. How horrible I thought. But I still did not get it. The issue went much beyond abuse, though that was bad. What was much worse was what these schools told us about us whites in Canadian society. What we learned about ourselves when it started to sink in was not pretty.

 

Then at a law conference I heard Justice Murray Sinclair a Manitoba Court of Queens Bench Judge and the Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission speak out about Residential Schools. Frankly, I was shocked by what I had learned.

 

Then a few years later I read the executive summary of the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Then my eyes were really opened. In that report all Canadians were urged to do their part to bring about reconciliation. Every Canadian should read that report. That should be homework for each of us who lives in Canada.

 

I don’t yet know what I can do to help bring about reconciliation. Chris and I even took a 4 session course at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights on the subject of reconciliation. Recently I heard a talk on reconciliation given by Niigaan Sinclair the son of Justice Murray Sinclair, and a professor at the University of Manitoba, at an Alumni lectures series that Chris and I have been attending for about 5 years or more (the last couple virtually).

 

I asked him what I as an old white guy from Steinbach could do to help reconciliation. His answer was that the least I could do was to speak out. He pointed out that I could talk to people he could not talk to. My friends and relatives in other words. I as a white guy might get a couple of them to listen to me. If he knew me, he would not have been so confident about that. But I think he is right. Most of my friends and relatives I suspect don’t read his regular column on indigenous issues. None of them attended this course. Few of them will have read books on indigenous issues. Even less would read the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report. But most of them are good people. I can talk to them when I get the chance. They can get it and together we can make a small difference.

 

Of course, most of them have too much good sense to listen to me either, particularly in my blog. But there are a few. That is the least I can do. I liked that answer. I won’t solve this problem, but I hope to make a slight dent in some preconceptions. Therefore, that’s what I will do. I will speak out when I can, even if that bugs some people. So be it. I’ve been a pain before.

What can we do about reconciliation.

Excitement at Home

Meanderer

Frankly, old guys, like should not have too much excitement anymore You never know what will happen. Last night in the storm we had some real excitement.  We were sitting quietly at home last night meeting with friends on Zoom. The only way we can meet these days.  We noticed the rain and wind pick up.  The wind felt like a tornado.  Then briefly this incredibly  huge tree that had been in our backyards for decades caught the wind and crashed down. A tiny box of flowers remained on the outdoor table unimpressed,  but this giant succumbed to the forces of nature.  How the mighty can fall. .

 

I say it crashed down but we never even heard it. We were extremely grateful that it very narrowly missed our house, just nicking the corner of our garage roof and gutters.  This was about the only place this tree could come down on our lot without causing major damage.  Had it crashed into the house it might even have harmed us. Too close for comfort.

 

 

Like Paul Simon said “It was the time of miracle and wonder.”

Silence can Hurt

Indigenous--Indian Residential Schools

 

This past week we had shocking news in Canada. Shocking that is to those who have never read the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Reading that report is shocking. Every Canadian should do that. This week a mass grave site or burial ground was located adjacent to what used to be Canada’s largest Residential School in Kamloops B.C.

What do we do when we learn that 215 young children died going to schools where they were compelled to go? Children were taken away from their families to strange places often far away and where they were frequently abused. Many of them died there. They died in shocking numbers. The government knew that. It had been reported to them. And their deaths were never acknowledged. Never admitted. The bodies were simply buried. Often the parents were not even told their children had died. No one bothered to tell them. This is a stain on all of Canada. The world will watch how we react.

All of this is a product of racism that has not vanished.

I believe we have a duty to speak up against racism in our society. We must not look away. We must face it. It is real and it is here. I think at the very least we whites who have benefited from a system of racism that gave us a head start over non-whites must renounce that system, clearly, once and for all. This is no time to avoid the truth. This is time to face the truth publicly to let everyone know where we stand. As the Black Lives Matter movement keeps saying: Silence is violence. I don’t know if that is true, but I do know, silence can hurt. Standing by silently while others suffer injustice, particularly massive injustice, is nothing to be proud of. Once we know about it we had a duty to speak.

John Neufeld is not a terrorist

Meanderer

 

Some of you may have been alarmed yesterday when you tried to access my blog and found it was shut down. Some of you may have thought that the government has shut me down for instigating terrorist acts. I am not on the no-fly list, at least to the best of my belief. None of that is true! I am not like Tobia Tissen the local pastor of the Church of God Restoration who has gone into hiding to avoid being served with an arrest warranty.

I am happy to be back in the business of blogging again free from interference from the forces of darkness. Reports of my death have also been slightly exaggerated.

When I tried to access my blog yesterday I could not access it. I assumed of course that Canada’s security forces, or perhaps the CIA, or perhaps the forces of darkness want to shut me down.  Also not true.

It was negligence on my part in failing to renew my license. Nothing more sinister than that. Freedom lives.

Start the revolution without me.

The Blindness of Privilege

Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous--Indian Residential Schools, racism, White Supremacy

 

Recently a person I know, the daughter of a friend of mine, said that she just could not understand “Indians.”  Why didn’t they just get over it? Why didn’t they forget about past wrongs? She said, “If our family could get over being cheated by a scam artist and robbed of hundreds of thousands of dollars, why can’t they get over residential schools?” I did not hear this first hand, so unfortunately I did not have an opportunity  to challenge her statements.

First of all, I know a little bit about the losses of my friend’s family. They lost a lot of money.  No one would like to lose all that money.  But the fact is that they were still left with lots of money after it happened. The family is still wealthy. They are just a little less wealthy than they could have been and or should have been.

This is actually a common attitude among white people. I have heard similar statements many times.

Frankly, though my white friends are much better off than most indigenous families. None of them were taken away from their homes and made to live in shabby schools with predatory teachers and religious scoundrels while they ate poorly, spent half of each day working literally like slaves, and all the while were taught that their parents were worthless, their culture was worthless, and they were worthless. Then the children that survived (and thousands did not!) were robbed of the opportunity to learn how to take care of children, which they could have learned from their parents. Instead, they were dumped in schools where no one wanted to teach them things like that, they wanted to teach them religion and the benefits of the white ways. Many of those children were then physically, mentally, emotionally, and sexually abused. They grew up thinking that they and their families and their race were all worthless. This happened for generations and the effects have cascaded through the generations. Then as adults these former children were subjected to pervasive systemic racism. The trauma of losing some money hardly compares.

Who do you think was better off? Who should get over it? I think these children of wealthy whites should get over it. They should get over their privilege. They don’t even see their own privilege.  And they don’t even see the gross exploitation of others. There is nothing more blind than privilege. And nothing more ignorant. There is nothing so hard to see as one’s own privilege, because it seems so natural and right.

Good Intentions?

Indigenous--Indian Residential Schools, racism, White Supremacy

 

This week (May 2021)  the southern B.C. First Nation of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc near Kamloops B.C. announced that the remains of 215 children were found on the grounds of what used to be the site of Canada’s largest residential school. The school was closed in 1969 the year I attended first and second year university at the University of Manitoba. I just want to put this into context for me. I don’t think I am that old and this was not that long ago.

What I want to emphasize right now is that these were children taken from their homes to be “educated.”  We Canadians often think of ourselves as a kinder gentler version of our more powerful neighbours to the south. Many of us think that we took these children from their homes and into these schools to be educated for their own good. Sometimes white people say that we sent indigenous children to residential schools for good reasons. We had good intentions we say and sometimes even believe. We wanted them to get a good education. We wanted them to become like us because we were better than them. Assimilation we called it. White supremacy was what it was all about.

 

Children shouldn’t often die in schools should they? My wife Christiane had a very wise question for me when we heard this news. When we now learn that this Indian residential school had 215 bodies of children buried outside it, what possible explanation is consistent with a good intention? I could not think of one. Can you? Those who think our intentions are good must answer that.

 

Which Church is more Christ-like?

Epidemics/Pandemics, religion

 

I heard recently that the Winkler hospital was overwhelmed. Does anyone doubt that might have something to do with the number of vaccine hesitant people live in that region?

Yesterday I tried to describe what happened when a hospital is overwhelmed. It affects not just people with Covid-19, but many others who can’t get the treatment they deserve. Sometimes that can risk their lives. It is serious stuff.

We have also heard how Manitoba is considering sending Intensive Care Unit patients to the United States. Many have already gone to Ontario. This is serious stuff.

Now think about what some of the churches are doing. First there, are churches like Church of God Restoration near Steinbach,  and others that continue to disobey health orders, refusing to take Covid-19 seriously. They  have continued to have indoor services for at least 3 Sundays in a row, contrary to health orders because they demand the freedom to assemble to worship. They can worship from anywhere they choose of course.  Frankly, I think they are being selfish.

Then there are the people of Emmanuel Mennonite Church in Winkler, also part of the Bible belt, in a region that has the lowest rates of vaccination take up in Manitoba. Yet this church, according to Brenda Suderman of the Winnipeg Free Press, unlike the Church of God Restoration,  “has consistently walked the straight and narrow path.” This church appreciates religious freedom too, but has instead “committed to keeping their southern Manitoba community of 13,000 as safe as possible.”

The pastor of family ministries of this church, Corey Hildebrandt, has said, “We’d like to follow the spirit of the law, not simply the letter of the law, so we’re not trying to find loopholes and backdoor ways of gathering…We’re trying to keep us safe versus restrictions telling us what to do.”

In the early days of the pandemic the Winkler church consulted some of the congregation’s 25 or so medical professionals, including 5 doctors , asking their opinion as scientists on how to deal with Covid-19 and got advice on what was the safest way to proceed. As a result, they quickly shifted to online worship as early as March 20, 2020 when Manitobans were just starting to see early effects of the pandemic. Since then, they only met in person a few times when that was permitted by provincial health restrictions being eased. As Suderman reported,

“After a second consultation with medical professionals, Hildebrant said the congregation decided to continue live streaming instead of reopening when religious institutions were allowed to have smaller gatherings earlier this year, fearing case numbers would rise again with the projected third wave.

“We took a fair bit of heat for that,” said Hildebrant, recalling talk on the streets his congregation was afraid.

“We were not afraid actually; We were trying to be good neighbours.”

 

This church, unlike the Church of God Restoration, realized that safety precautions, such as keeping a safe distance, wearing masks, and obeying health orders were not just about keeping themselves safe; it was about keeping their neighbours safe too. They have tried to help Manitoba’s hospitals from being overwhelmed. The Church of God restoration instead spends its time challenging laws designed to protect the public while Manitoba has had the highest rates of Covid-19 in all of North America.

Who is the good neighbour? Which church is behaving more Christ-like?

 

What does an overwhelmed health care system look like?

Epidemics/Pandemics

 

In Manitoba Today recently, we have learned the hard way what it means for a health care system to be overwhelmed. Our Premier and Chief Medical Officer of health have been warning about it. Now we know.

Manitoba, a small province, recently had 8 deaths from Covid-19 one day. 28 Covid-19 patients from Intensive Care Units in Manitoba have been transferred out of Manitoba for health care, because our health care system can’t care for all Manitoban’s needing health care. 1 Covid-19 patient died while being transferred to Ontario.

The Winnipeg Free Press reported about a young woman who had lump detected on her lung in March, but she has not been able to arrange for surgery because the medical staff and facilities are too busy to handle her case. My wife Christiane has a brain aneurism which was detected in January and it is urgent that she get surgery because it could burst at any time, but  so far she has not been able to arrange a date for surgery.  As the Winnipeg Free Press said, “thousands of Manitobans are waiting on procedures for conditions that aren’t currently life-threatening, but are significantly affecting quality of life.”

A cardiac surgeon recently said a cardiac patient died waiting for surgery that was delayed on account of Covid-19 issues. He said 5 other patients died under similar conditions.

According to Dylan Robertson of the Winnipeg Free Press, “In the first wave, Manitoba delayed at least 5,300 surgeries, though some estimates have the figure closer to 12,000.” Manitoba has already been postponing elective surgeries for quite some time. As Robertson added,

“Doctors across Canada have warned that delaying care is causing mental health issues, putting people on painkillers that could breed addiction and risking children outgrowing the period for surgeries needed to prevent life- long problems.”

 

Imagine the horror you would feel if you brought a loved one to the hospital and saw her or him flown out of province for care.

Think about the pain and suffering of people who don’t die or perhaps are not even in the hospital yet suffer from the effects of Covid-19. I know people in that situation.

Yes, I think we have learned what an overwhelmed health care system looks like.

In my next post I will explain how different churches are dealing with it.