Here I am again talking about a subject I do not want to because it has taken up all of my attention and my emotions. I want to clarify though that the words that the words I have written here were born of thought rather than emotion. That isn't to say that emotion is not playing a part, I am furious to the point where thinking about all of this makes my throat tighten up and my shoulders feels tense. I am livid. Despite all of that I have learnt through my writing that relying on emotions to motivate writing is an easy way to burn out and lose yourself in the process. If words are my blade and emotion is a whetstone, it allows me to hone and sharpen my words towards a goal.
It might be because of how often I have seen indigenous tears and emotions used against them that I am so wary to speak in that way. So often I have seen distraught emotional women disrupting a meeting and having that be a break down of the conversation, a break down of progress. I have seen angry indigenous people at road blocks or rail blockades with the story being about disruption of trade. Indigenous emotions are always placed in the way of progress, for ourselves or others. Indigenous people are not more emotionally in touch or have some sort of mystical connection to greater compassion, it is that the scope of what has been done to us is so wide spread that it affects all of us.
We are already seeing this emotion being used against indigenous people given that the discussion has shifted to a text between ministers and whether Canada Day should be abolished. It makes sense that it happens though. People are hurting and they see a celebration of the country that was fundamentally part of a campaign to integrate and destroy your culture through denial of practices and genocide it is going to be a point of contention. They aren't wrong, it is not as aggressive in it's flag waving as 4th of July in America but it is still a subtle acceptance of the state's inherent goodness. So it makes sense and it is a fairly simple stance to make. The problem is that this stance is not inherently tied to the colonial genocide being uncovered by the residential schools. It is for indigenous people but not for the rest of Canadians if they do not want it to be, which nobody does.
This is why Indigenous people are so often making calls for healing, it is the one time that we are allowed to engage with our emotions. Well, that isn't true. It is the one time that we are allowed to engage with our emotions when it is done out of the way. We can't be constantly in a state of healing, it just doesn't work like that. It is also hard for me to not hear calls for healing and not feel like it is playing into the exact "mystical native" stereotype that treats Indigenous practices as a novelty. This is a personal thing, I know that, and traditional cultural practices are helpful to some. Hell, they are comfortable to me from time to time. It is just that burnt sage can't change a system that is built to deny and destroy.
This is not to say that every indigenous person out there is not making a proper statement. There are many indigenous activists and groups that are making strong and direct calls for action regarding the residential schools. It is just that those voices are not the ones that are chosen to be amplified. It is the emotional ones that get the microphone for just enough time to make a vague point that can be picked apart by pundits. This is the predatory nature of this sort of discussion. Why would someone choose an arguing point that they know they can't beat when they can talk about something with an obvious counter-point? Eventually discussion is going to break down due to disingenuous practices and then that forces action to take place because either the other side doesn't want to talk about it.
This is where we are right now. There are 750 bodies that were found at a Saskatchewan residential school. This is not just some mass grave, this is 750 specifically dug graves. That doesn't just happen, someone does that. Right now, the church is not wanting to get involved and moving right along happily over in Rome. The Canadian government is saying that the church did it all despite this happening over decades in Canada, so either they were willfully ignorant of the abhorrent practices taking place or they were a part of them...
I did not want this to be about me and my feelings. I mean, you have read already what my thoughts are on emotion as motivators but god this just makes me feel ancient. This is the pattern that keeps happening and it seems like it is just getting faster and faster.
I didn't really understand generational trauma until all of this new round of residential school news. I don't mean like I didn't understand that trauma can have an affect on people and then they could affect other people. I guess I just felt like it wasn't something that affected me. I have not had anyone in my known relations (that I know of) go to a residential school. I guess word got around fast to Metis or we were just used to keeping our head low when the colonists came around. Still, I keep not being surprised by the news but affected by it.
I think the best way to describe this is "emotionally alienating". It isn't alienating in the way that your emotions can't be shared, there are many willing and wonderful people out there that are willing to empathize with you. It is how those feelings seemingly have stopped mattering regarding those that are in positions that can change these things. The political smoke screens, the media diversions, the apologies without change, and the calls for action without an echo. There has never been any reason to trust in them. So you now have to live in a world where you know this emotional energy and this desire for change will not be received by the majority of the country. So the only people that can share this emotional burden are the emotionally burdened.
I'm lucky, I have a family that allows me to voice these thoughts and a mother who is also very invested in indigenous issues. I have been talking to people who don't have that ability and I can't imagine that. These sort of feelings are exactly the sort of shame and guilt that was placed on those that were placed in those residential. We should never feel guilt for our emotion and we should never feel shame for those emotions coming from something inherent to yourself. This is why I have been so adamant about indigenous groups looking build bridges between various other minority communities. We have all been hurt, in different way but from the same source. We need to share that burden and learn from each other. It is the colonial way to break down connections, now is the time to rebuild them. That is the true healing, the type of healing that makes us stronger after it is done.