Sarah Sinclair: English 385.2

I am so excited for summer! Is everyone else? I imagine that my classmates spending their week out-of-doors are wishing that summertime was already here, eh?

I am not the sort of person to make New Year’s resolutions, I tend to make my resolutions in the summer because I feel like I’ve got 4 months free time to spend working on whatever I want to. I’ve got some summertime resolutions that have arisen out of this class that I’d like to blog about.

1. Visit as many museums as I can and learn about Alberta’s heritage and her history of relations with the First Nations groups in Alberta. Of course because of my journaling and blogging my museum-viewing should be more critical than it has in the past, and I’m looking forward to asking questions of myself about what I see.

2. Visit my home reserve and talk with my family.  I’m particularly curious to see if any traditional practices are left to my family.

3.Get outside more often! Hopefully it doesn’t rain all spring…

4.Continue my projects that I’ve started in this class. I really want to document my family’s story somehow, and I want to help spread knowledge about residential schools because I think that it helps open people’s minds.

Well, those are some of my goals for the summer, and ongoing as well. I wonder how I’ll do?

There’s a new exhibit over at the Glenbow that I’m going to go see this week. I’ll probably blog about it. I’m looking forward to seeing the art, and thinking about the politics of the exhibit. It’s a Canadian artist who does Western stuff, from what I can tell.

The Glenbow, as I’ve mentioned somewhere before, will let you in for free if you self-identify as First Nations. They don’t ask for a Status card or anything like that, just your community’s name.

I was walking by the museum the other night. On Stephen Avenue the museum shop has a window facing the street, with a display of what’s on sale in the shop. I was quite surprised to see a large headdress in there, obviously brand-new and made of synthetic material. It was alongside some other ‘Indian’ souvenirs: a drum, dreamcatchers, etc.. The museum is making money off of this stuff at the same time as promoting awareness about the First Nations in Alberta. Is this exploitation?? I feel like it is!

As a final note, I’ve added a link to the Glenbow website about this exhibit. Check out the link to the store as well, apparently the shop is “Calgary’s cultural treasure”.

I’m learning about the Theatre of the Absurd in another class and I think that some of it is quite relevant to this class as well. I’m blogging here to try and sort my ideas about both classes.

What does ‘absurd’ mean? well, I’ve only read a couple things and had a couple lectures on it so far, but here’s what I understand so far: it’s a demonstration that life ultimately has no meaning, that nothing is certain except for death. Meaning is contrived; we put meaning onto things, it’s not ‘natural’ or inherent. For instance, we try and use rationality to decide things. Why do we do that? Rational explanation takes us really far…science takes us really far, but in the end, it does not have all the answers. Neither does religion. These are two of the main things that give life meaning, but they ultimately do not give any meaning, just partial answers.

I’ve learned in this class to question why I read, write, think, and talk the way I do. I’ve been looking for the ultimate meaning behind why I am the way I am.  I ask what about my culture makes me who I am, and what I don’t understand about other peoples’ cultures makes me misunderstand them. I’m trying to learn to explore the meanings of words that we take for granted; where they get their connotations, why we use them the way we do, the different meanings we put on them.

Putting the two ideas together…well, maybe it’s not so easy. I guess what I figure at the moment is that because I think we exist as individuals, we can never communicate completely. Every ‘meaning’ we put on things will be different from one person to the next. Why try?

Depressing, but Albert Camus wrote in “The Myth of Sysiphus” that even though life has no meaning, people don’t just kill themselves because of the nature of life. We have life, and life gives us experiences that we enjoy, and why not use life?

This got kind of rambly, but I guess that what blogs are for.

It’s called “Two Worlds Colliding”, it’s by a Canadian lady who’s attending the University of Calgary right now, and it’s powerful, moving, and informative. I watched this film in class today, and the filmmaker was present in class to talk about the film afterwards and do a little Q & A.

The most impressive thing about the lady who made the film was that she right off said that documentaries are not objective forms of film. I learned this some time ago, but I was so glad to hear a filmmaker reminding us of that fact. She also volunteered to talk to anyone about their thoughts about the film through email, and I thought that was so great.

Anyway, the film concerns an incident, or rather, a series of incidents, in Saskatoon. Local cops drove some Native guys out to the edge of town in the middle of winter and a few of these guys died from it.  There were inquiries, firings, and denials, but largely the conflict between the cops and the Native guys seems unresolved. Suprisingly, the film puts a super light on most of the cops, calling them simply ignorant of the issue. And there is a new police chief in Saskatoon since about 2002 who has made great strides in improving relations between the cops and the First Nations community in Saskatoon.

I’d read about this issue in a book called “Starlight Tours” and I’d recommend that book highly as well. It’s not a local issue to Saskatoon, and it deals with wider issues of racism, ignorance, and authority as well.

I’m still not exactly sure what I’m going to do for my portfolio project. I’m writing this blog to try and sort through my ideas. The things that stick out to me so far are Thomas King’s writings, my own identity, scholarly versus artistic works, this “Native quality” that I’ve come across in writings and can’t explain, and the IAP/CEP programs. None of these things seem to go together!

I was originally thinking of researching Indigenous ways of teaching, and how they’ve changed because of residential schools. But my readings took me in another direction.

I was going to look at how residential schools affected identity and worldview, but my journals made me question my own identity so much. I’ve revealed through my journals this crazy internal conflict I have. I’m a Status Indian. I’m white-skinned. I was raised “Western”. I feel a stronger connection to my Native family than to my white family. I don’t know my family’s heritage language. Neither does my grandma, but she’s definitely an ‘Indian”. I have so many advantages because of my Status card, and I use those advatages, but I feel guilty every time I do! My kids won’t have Status. My Dad went to residential school.

So not only am I trying to work through this conflict, I’m also trying to broaden my understanding of why I think the way I think. The journalling is a really great tool, I’m finding, but I’m coming up with way more questions than I am answers.

So maybe one of my projects should be something personal. And maybe one can have something to do with residential schools because I have such an interest in promoting knowledge about IRSs. And maybe I can do a little project on Thomas King, or even just keep reading as much stuff of his as I can find.

This helped.

It’s been a while since our discussion in class on the use of stereotypes in our everyday life. We talked about sports teams, mostly, at least that was the part of the discussion that struck me most. I decided to look into some aboriginal perspectives on the use of these “mascots” by schools/sports teams. I came across a very interesting website that I’ve linked. The main page of the site is an index of a variety of websites about Indian Mascots. Another page I found is a paper of sorts written by a Doctor of Education about the use of stereotypes in schools.

I’ve written above that I “came across” these sites but I should write that they weren’t my own discovery but are on the syllabus for another class of mine.

One of the most interesting things I learned that was common to these 2 websites is the the American Psychological Association’s disapproval of the use of stereotypes. It makes sense of course, but I was so glad to see it said so by this scholarly association.  They use words that I really liked to describe the situation: undermining, racist, hostile, unwelcome and negative. They claim that the practice is intolerable, disrespectful, and must be eradicated.

When I was a little kid I heard this argument and agreed with the idea that it honors indigenous people. Later in my teen years I saw an image we discussed in class: a cartoon of the Cleveland Braves logo along side a Cleveland Asians mock-up logo, and a Cleveland Blacks mock-up. I realized at once my mistake and whenever I hear someone saying that it’s okay to use stereotypes to descibe peoples, this is the example I give.

Here’s a very interesting article that was a surprise to me considering its title. It’s about multiculturalism, relativism, and their failings. Here’s a couple quotes that really made the article for me:

“Religion, history, tradition, and morality have always been subjected to searching criticism in the name of rationality, truth, evidence, reason, and logic. Now reason, truth, rationality, and logic are themselves subject to these criticisms. The idea is that they’re as much a part of the dogmatic, superstitious, mystical, power-laden tradition as anything that they were used to attack.”

“all truths are ideological, and that cultures should therefore be placed on a roughly equal plane. Cultural relativism-the presumed equality of all cultures-is the intellectual foundation of contemporary multiculturalism”

“Multiculturalism is based on the relativist assumption that since all cultures are inherently equal, differences of power, wealth, and achievement between them are most likely due to oppression.”

“A sincere effort to study other cultures “from within” requires a rejection of the Western lens of cultural relativism. Multiculturalists who wish to take non-Western cultures seriously must take seriously their repudiation of relativism”

“Students do need to be exposed to the great accomplishments of other cultures, as well as their influence on the West. But when multiculturalism goes beyond this to insist that we should understand cultural differences without applying (inherently biased) standards of critical evaluation, it forbids at the outset the possibility that one culture may be in crucial respects superior to another. An initial openness to the truths of other cultures degenerates into a closed-minded denial of all transcultural standards. Seeking to avoid an acknowledgment of Western cultural superiority, relativism ends up denying the possibility of truth.”

That’s a lot of quote but these really give a good idea of the tone of this article.  I found myself both agreeing with and disgusted it. There are passages that make a lot of sense and passages that sound simply crazy to me.

I highly recommend this and some other Columbus-related readings that I’ve linked to on the side.

As part of the truth and reconciliation process the government has been running programs to basically pay people back for their experiences at residential schools.  Some of this has been briefly mentioned but I thought I would write a little more about it.

Common Experience Payment: this is a flat payment for any student who attended and lived at an IRS (Indian Residential School) in Canada. You have to have lived at the school to qualify for this payment because it is meant to compensate for “loss of language and culture”.  There are schools that aren’t on the list because the residences were billets in the commuity, like the one my dad attended. The payment is $10,000 for the first year and $3000 for every subsequent year one attended an IRS.

ADR/IAP: this is the program for abuses recieved at an IRS. This program is a lot more complicated; the CEP is a pretty basic 4-page form whereas the IAP (Independent Assessment Process) is a 40-page form. The government suggests-and pays for-laywer assistance for folks entering this program. My uncles have a 2-man law firm that is doing about 150 files of this kind. I worked as a form-filler for them, interviewing clients and bascially filling in the forms for them. The interview process is always emotional and sometimes very difficult. Some people do experience emotional trauma after talking about their experiences in these interviews.  There is a counselling phone line set up specifically to help people through the IAP process. The whole thing takes about a year, on average, from the time that i interview the person to the time they get their money from the government. The payments are made on a point system and vary widely from several hundreds to several hundred thousands of dollars . The person gets points based on their abuse and the effects of that abuse over their lifetime.

I could go on and on about this stuff because I feel like I know quite a bit about it. The clients that I interviewed a year and a half ago are just now starting to get their money, and it’s pretty gratifying to have helped.  The government pays the laywers an amount equal to 15% of the client’s settlement, the money doesn’t actually come from the client. So if a client is awarded $5000, they get $5000 and the lawyer will get a seperate payment of $750.

GREED: there are lawyers collecting clients for this program in order to exploit them. They send out these mass letters to whole reserves and have community meetings where they tell the people that they’re in for a lot of money. The lawyers get the folks to sign with them without making sure that they understand everything-it’s very unethical. The lawyers charge people percentages of their settlements regardless of the fact that they are getting paid by the government to do this. Some firms have several hundred claims/clients and have never met their clients face-to-face.  Some people have come to my uncles’ firm to get away from lawyers like this, and I’ve heard some awful stories of people being bullied and ignored by their lawyers.  This is a terrible practice, an abuse of the system, and a propogation of the elements of our cultural relationship that the T&R Comission is trying to get rid of!

I am reading this book for two classes: this class, and my INDG 201 class. I think it acts as a great primer for someone who has no idea of what indigenous peoples are, but it has not sparked any great lines of inquiry for me.  There is one exception to this, though, because of the ethnocentrism and generalizations in this book, I have been wondering if I am careful enough when I read.

This book keeps making huge sweeping statements of the sort I was warned against if my first year. I am simply amazed that the author got away with this. The author seems to think that every indigenous group belongs to the same worldview, or perhaps she just didn’t have enough room to write properly. Anyway, here is an example of a generalization from this book: “Music is the food of life for indigenous communities…[music] often accompanies story telling, as elders gather round the fire with the younger generation after the day’s labour is done” (Hughes, 108).  From this statement am I meant to understand that every indigenous group lives in this fashion? That they all, all of them gather round the fire after working to listen to songs and stories from the elders?

I will balance this criticism by saying that the author does use many specific examples from individual indigenous groups.  These examples, while taken with a grain of salt, were the most informative part of this book for me.

When I read a textbook I am not usually shocked at the ethnocentrism in it. This book, while warning against ‘exoticization’, does just that to indigenous peoples. The book says that “indigenous peoples are not simply victims”, but also paints indigenous peoples as environmental guardians, keepers of a great spiritual wisdom that would benefit humanity if only we were to stop oppressing them (Hughes, 82). I get the feeling that the author is some kind of new traditionalist, someone who idealizes and romanticizes indigenous traditions and believes that if indigenous peoples had never come in contact with white folks, they would be living in perfect peace and harmony with nature and themselves.

I would recommend this book for someone who wants the basics about indigenous life, but not for someone who cannot read critically. The reader of this book must be careful not to be swept away in the strong current of ethnocentrism running through it, nor be taken in by the constant generalizations.

My own experience of T&R is something that I enjoy sharing, that I believe I need to share. I’ve heard hundreds of stories about the life of people at IRSs and seeing the pain that holding those stories in has taught me that part of dealing with these stories means sharing them. One person can’t be responsible for stories, they have to be spread out because in truth, they belong to humanity as a whole.

Here’s a story about my experience of the T&R Commission.

I interviewed a young man, in his early 30s. He attended the last residential school in Saskatchewan called Gordon’s Residential. He had a lot of positive things to say about his school experience: he was encouraged to play hockey and excelled at it. He received a normal education. He was generally treated well by the staff. This experience was unusual for me to hear because i only talk to people who were abused at residential schools; “where’s the abuse” I wondered, and that thought sickened me a little.

Well, there was abuse, he was so reluctant to tell me about it. And he has some pretty severe problems because of it. He repeated to me over and over that he doesn’t want to blame the system for his problems, that he has responsibilities for his actions. It was an amazing attitude to witness from a survivor of residential school, a rare one, but I think it may have been partly denial. This man’s problems had been street living and indigency in the past, and currently he’s trying to quit smoking crack.

Every time I see some skinny lady on the street, walking a crack-walk, I remember this fellow and try not to judge her. Every time I see any First Nations person on the street older than say, 40, I remember that they may have gone to residential, or a church-run day school. Or their parents went, or their grandparents. The issues stemming from the residential school policies of the government last longer than 3 generations and I consider myself very lucky that the schools my family members attended weren’t among the worst.