For something like 100 years, generation after generation of indigenous children in Canada were rounded up at age five and taken away from their families and communities and placed in residential schools, where they were taught English, taught western values and Christianized. This was commonly a brutal experience, full of physical abuse, exploitation, sexual abuse and the express purpose of eliminating the Indian in the child. Some of the abuse took the forms of rape, sexual molestation, physical beatings, deprivation of food or warmth, children being forced to work in kitchens or laundries or on farms or in stores for …
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Over the past 15 years First Nations artists in Canada have taken to hip hop as a powerful storytelling method. First Nations hip hop is an incredible blend of traditional art forms, evocative imagery and raw and real exerpience relayed with a beat. It’s as if hip hop was built for indigenous expression – being story based, status informed, poetic and underscored with a heartbeat. I have a bunch of friends in this field including Skeena Reece, Jerrilynn Webster, Manik1derful, Rachel Oki, Wasaskwun Wuttunee and others. Beat Nation was an exhibition of indigenous hip hop artists that closed in …
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Yes. A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog post advocating that newspapers should close their comments sections. In the days since then I have heard from many people agreeing with me, and no one has disagreed. I have had a twitter conversation with a National Post reporter whose piece about the breaking of a copper on the steps of the Victoria Legislature was – as is typical – hijacked by racist comments. In that Twitter conversation, Tristin Hooper, the reporter stated that there is nothing he can do to influence this conversation and that “freedom can be …
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Imagine you are stuck in traffic. By the side of a road is a billboard that changes it’s message every five minutes. You glance over at it and read this: “Some claim. One race in Canada should not have to work for a living. That this race should receive millions in funding without accountability. That the elite of this race should be allowed to defraud their regular people. How can anyone support this? How can anyone slam Conservatives for not supporting this like the NDP/Liberals?” How would you feel? Would it make you angry? Would it make you happy? Would …
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I have a confession. I advise people never to read the comments on newspaper websites. But I do read them. I can’t take my eyes off them. They are a train wreck of logic and hate and contemptuous entitlement. Lately however, especially the comments on stories about First Nations, they seem entirely predictable. In fact they seem almost too predictable. Every article on the Globe and Mail website for example contains hundreds of comments, a huge majority of which repeat some basic themes: Nothing should change until First Nations are accountable for their money First Nations get a free ride …