Settlers gonna settler

[sabotabby]

I know everyone is all upset or amused, depending on your political persuasion, by some other big news right now, but I kinda had to share this before I forgot.

There is a thing called the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund. The name alone needs some unpacking, especially if you live somewhere other than so-called Canada. Who are these names, you might ask? Not two people who ever met, that's for sure. Gord Downie was the lead singer of the Tragically Hip, who died rather tragically from cancer. Chanie Wenjack was a young Anishinaabe boy who, like many Indigenous children of his generation, was kidnapped and sent to residential school, where he was the victim of genocidal abuse. At 12 years old, he ran away and died of starvation and exposure.

Downie, in the last years of his life, was moved and horrified by Chanie's story. He set out to do something, and that something was a concept album and graphic novel about Chanie's life and death called The Secret Path. After his death the fund was established to educate and build awareness about residential schools. I'm reasonably sure that the proceeds didn't go to benefit Downie personally.

I've listened to a number of Indigenous people talk about this, and as you can imagine there are many different opinions. Most voices I've heard think that Downie absolutely had good intentions, but many are a little suspicious of this fund and also of the idea that this boy's story should have to be told by a wealthy white man in order for anyone to feel a certain way about it. I will not weigh in on it as I'm not Indigenous but I was sort of ambivalent. I don't use these sorts of materials in my classroom because I would prefer to highlight the work of Indigenous creators, many of whom have lived experience with residential schools and generational trauma.

All of this is to say that the fund sent around educational packages to schools this week. There was some good stuff in them, actually, including David A. Robertson's On the Trapline. And then I found these:



Is it me or is it in poor taste that your branded swag for your fund that is literally named after a child who froze to death is...gloves? Kind of thin gloves???

Because I think it's gross, actually.

They say "do something" on them.

I don't blame Gord Downie for this, btw. By all accounts he was a decent guy. I want to believe he wouldn't have approved of this.

This is why the kids say reconciliation is dead.

Comments

[nostalgia]

Yeah that does seem in poor taste.

[sabotabby]

It's a big organization with a big budget I think??? and no one said "maybe this merch is a bad idea."

[nostalgia]

I feel like if someone made a list of things NOT to do then gloves would be on it.

[sabotabby]

I would personally nix any kind of branded merch?? because a child died and you shouldn't make merch about it.

[nostalgia]

Yeah IDK why I was working from "assuming they make stuff what should they not make" starting point.

[sabotabby]

The whole thing is just bizarre to me. Does everything need to be swag?

[nostalgia]

Probably someone somewhere with a marketing degree decided that it does?

[sabotabby]

I feel a certain way about marketing people being involved in charity work too. Well, as well as charity work in general. You're right that this is what it was.

[sara]

Well this seems...misguided.

[sabotabby]

L'il bit.

[dewline]

*horrified stare*

[sabotabby]

How did no one catch this??

[minoanmiss]

Oh that's just WRONG. wtf. WTFF.

[sabotabby]

Right?? why

[kore]

Ohhhhh dear.

I like the Hip a lot (I remember Canadians being amazed I knew who they were back in the mid-nineties! Import bin at the local used CD store) but that does seem very Nice Clueless White People.

I don't think that's at all unrelated to the Big News about colonialism and symbols and who gets to tell the official hiStory and so on.

[sabotabby]

Wow, I didn't think anyone had heard of the Hip outside of Canada, lol.

I'll admit that they're quite a bit more intelligent than I gave them credit for in their heyday. Their music is very much Not My Thing in a way that grates, but if I read their lyrics in isolation, it's quite good. And all of this commodification is taking place long after Downie's death, so I can't really blame him for any of it.

But yeah. There is some gross stuff with some Indigenous leaders being dragged out in public to offer condolences and talk about their respect for the Queen and it's nasty. Meanwhile all the Indigenous folks I know are getting dragged on Twitter for making very funny jokes about the whole thing.

[kore]

I very certainly was not expecting a whole lot of virtue-signalling in the form of "well I guess I'M just not one of those people who can grieve the death of another person, she was a grandmother," typical White Lady tone policing but there is sure a lot of it!

I especially love the people going "she was just a person." Nooo sorry she was a SYMBOL of an EMPIRE, people are going to have feelings about it! Just let people feel what they want to feel, for godsakes, without shaming them for it, whether it's grief anger or indifference or what. Why is that so hard for people to learn.

[sabotabby]

Yeah. I'm more or less not hopping on my friends' posts about grieving the Queen. A lot of them associate them with their moms or grandmas and I get it??? Royalists are one bad day away from wanting to gas my people so I don't personally have that association. But you know, I feel that weird kind of sentiment about, say, Bernie Sanders, so I get how we can have weird parasocial relationships with famous people. But I am reacting when people jump on my posts about how the royals are actually responsible for a lot of bad things in the world. Because that is objectively true and I think some people don't know that, maybe.

Anyway I saw a Winchester erotic incest account tone-policing Jorts the Cat on Twitter, making yesterday officially the funniest day that Twitter has ever had, including the day when it was found out that David Cameron fucked a pig.

[kore]

Yeah, I'm not being an asshole and going "SHE WAS A PARASITE!" on grief posts on Twitter or arguing with people here, and I assume people on social media know me well enough they either agree with my politics or are fine with ignoring them, lol. But tone policing and shaming people always makes me angry. I even saw some of it when people like Jerry Falwell died. (Not that the Queen was like Falwell blah blah.) I'm convinced it's a knee-jerk reaction of some kind of Presbyterian moral upbringing, idefk.

I saw a Winchester erotic incest account tone-policing Jorts the Cat on Twitter

//facedesk

I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU REMINDED ME OF DAVID CAMERON FUCKING A PIG. Jesus. What a time to be alive. Charles is what, seventy-fucking-five? Even if he lives to be his mother's age he'll "only" have been King for like two decades. LOL.

[sabotabby]

I'm convinced it's a knee-jerk reaction of some kind of Presbyterian moral upbringing, idefk.

I just don't get it, but again, my people have holidays about killing our enemies and food that makes fun of them. I feel that this is mostly healthier, though it depends on who the enemies are, of course.

Look if I serve one purpose in this world, it's to remind my friends every so often about that time David Cameron fucked a pig.

[frenzy]

OK so when I first saw this, i was like, idgi.
now i am fucking mortified.

[sabotabby]

It's pretty disgusting.

[moonblossom]

I had no idea about Chanie Wenjack. :( That's just f-ed up. :(

[sabotabby]

He was one kid out of many that happened to.

[moonblossom]

Innocents. :( :( :(

[moonblossom]

Strike that, that is FUCKING sad. :(

[sabotabby]

Also that.

[moonblossom]

I understand where Zilpah (our new resident from Nunavut) comes from now. Jeez.

[sabotabby]

Yeah. Our country is mostly horrific stuff.