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Settlers gonna settler
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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now i am fucking mortified.
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