Entry tags:
My condolences
to Satan, Prince of Darkness and Father of Lies, on what is no doubt a difficult day.
For everyone else, post your best Kissinger memes in the comments.
For everyone else, post your best Kissinger memes in the comments.
Entry tags:
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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Probably my most unpopular opinion
World War I killed 20 million people.
The Great Influenza epidemic killed between 17 million and 100 million during and immediately after.
The odds of a soldier dying in WWII were 1 in 26.
The odds of a kidnapped Indigenous child dying in a residential school at the same time was 1 in 25.
As a culture, the choices we make around whose deaths are mourned and whose are forgotten are significant.
The Great Influenza epidemic killed between 17 million and 100 million during and immediately after.
The odds of a soldier dying in WWII were 1 in 26.
The odds of a kidnapped Indigenous child dying in a residential school at the same time was 1 in 25.
As a culture, the choices we make around whose deaths are mourned and whose are forgotten are significant.
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National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
If you're a settler on the land currently called Canada and you have never done so, I urge you to read the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 calls to action:
Here they are.
Reconciliation Is a Verb. Further reading, including the voices of survivors, courtesy of the Raven Trust.
Here they are.
Reconciliation Is a Verb. Further reading, including the voices of survivors, courtesy of the Raven Trust.
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About Kamloops
I debated whether this should go behind a cut. I feel like this story needs to be slammed in the face of every person on the land currently called Canada. You don't get to be safe from this. I don't get to be safe from this. But also I don't know who's reading, and Indigenous people are grieving right now. So I'm erring on the side of cutting it.
( TW: child murder, anti-Indigenous racism, genocide )
( TW: child murder, anti-Indigenous racism, genocide )
Entry tags:
Genocide
The final report of the Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls came out last week. It's 1200 pages and you can read it here (note: I have not). Among its conclusions and recommendations, it refers to the ongoing disinterest-to-outright-complicity of Canadians and the Canadian state in the deaths and disappearances of at least 1200 women and girls since 1980 constitutes an ongoing genocide.
This, to me, is a no-brainer. The relationship between the settler state and Indigenous peoples in general can really only be described as genocidal, to the point where Canada pushed quite heavily to redefine genocide at the UN in 1948 so that it couldn't be held accountable for trying to wipe out the vibrant cultures of Turtle Island.
For some reason, though, both Trudeau and the ambulatory bag of raw sewage threatening to ooze into Parliament after the next election have a really difficult time saying the G-word. So much for nation-to-nation and Haida tattoos in the former case; in the latter it's not exactly surprising that Yellow Vest ally Andrew Scheer is a goddamned racist. I'm nowhere near as active and involved in decolonization and Indigenous solidarity as I should be—as we all should be—but. Just. Gross.
History will judge us for this. History is already judging us for this. There was a very low bar and we as a country couldn't even stumble over it.
This, to me, is a no-brainer. The relationship between the settler state and Indigenous peoples in general can really only be described as genocidal, to the point where Canada pushed quite heavily to redefine genocide at the UN in 1948 so that it couldn't be held accountable for trying to wipe out the vibrant cultures of Turtle Island.
For some reason, though, both Trudeau and the ambulatory bag of raw sewage threatening to ooze into Parliament after the next election have a really difficult time saying the G-word. So much for nation-to-nation and Haida tattoos in the former case; in the latter it's not exactly surprising that Yellow Vest ally Andrew Scheer is a goddamned racist. I'm nowhere near as active and involved in decolonization and Indigenous solidarity as I should be—as we all should be—but. Just. Gross.
History will judge us for this. History is already judging us for this. There was a very low bar and we as a country couldn't even stumble over it.
Entry tags:
Unist’ot’en Camp
I don't think it can be stated enough how little Canadian citizens and our government have learned from history.
For all Trudeau's Haida tattoo, talk of nation-to-nation relationships, and tearful apologies for the ongoing genocidal acts committed against indigenous people on this land, when it comes down to something he (or any other politician in the pockets of oil companies) really, really wants, he's entirely happy to throw communities and their environment under the bus, whether it's legal or not. In the past, I—and no doubt many others—have likened settler governments and indigenous peoples to an abusive relationship, with the abuser consistently gaslighting his victim.
Imagine, if you will, that your neighbour wishes to take a massive poo on your floor. Like any right-thinking person, you do not want this. So you tell this person that you do not, in fact, want them to shit on your floor. And then they call you a "house cleanliness extremist." If you think this scatological allegory is absurd, remember that the TransCanada pipeline is far more of a danger—not just to the Wet’suwet’en Nation, but to every single human being on this earth—than someone crapping on your hardwood.
When the government wants to wreck havoc on aboriginal sovereignty, it typically goes something like this:
Government: Hey, sorry about residential schools, that really sucked, we super respect our indigenous peoples now! Can I put a pipeline through your territory?
Indigenous people: How about no?
Government: Cool, courts. Can we put a pipeline through that nation's land over there?
Courts: No, that's actually illegal (well, sometimes, anyway).
Government: Okay, rad, we're going to do it anyway.
Indigenous people: *blockade*
Government: RCMP!! HALP!
RCMP: SMASHITY SMASH
This is currently happening, with the RCMP massing to attack people who are not just defending their homes, but the planet we all need to share. Including Elders and children. They have asked for help, whether it be financial, donations of items, or people to help defend them and shine a light on all the dirty tricks the government is getting up to there.
If the plight of humans or the threat of climate apocalypse isn't enough to move you, here is an adorable pupper who is doing her part:
Ratchet is protecting traditional territories from unscrupulous oil companies and the government they own. What are you doing?
For all Trudeau's Haida tattoo, talk of nation-to-nation relationships, and tearful apologies for the ongoing genocidal acts committed against indigenous people on this land, when it comes down to something he (or any other politician in the pockets of oil companies) really, really wants, he's entirely happy to throw communities and their environment under the bus, whether it's legal or not. In the past, I—and no doubt many others—have likened settler governments and indigenous peoples to an abusive relationship, with the abuser consistently gaslighting his victim.
Imagine, if you will, that your neighbour wishes to take a massive poo on your floor. Like any right-thinking person, you do not want this. So you tell this person that you do not, in fact, want them to shit on your floor. And then they call you a "house cleanliness extremist." If you think this scatological allegory is absurd, remember that the TransCanada pipeline is far more of a danger—not just to the Wet’suwet’en Nation, but to every single human being on this earth—than someone crapping on your hardwood.
When the government wants to wreck havoc on aboriginal sovereignty, it typically goes something like this:
Government: Hey, sorry about residential schools, that really sucked, we super respect our indigenous peoples now! Can I put a pipeline through your territory?
Indigenous people: How about no?
Government: Cool, courts. Can we put a pipeline through that nation's land over there?
Courts: No, that's actually illegal (well, sometimes, anyway).
Government: Okay, rad, we're going to do it anyway.
Indigenous people: *blockade*
Government: RCMP!! HALP!
RCMP: SMASHITY SMASH
This is currently happening, with the RCMP massing to attack people who are not just defending their homes, but the planet we all need to share. Including Elders and children. They have asked for help, whether it be financial, donations of items, or people to help defend them and shine a light on all the dirty tricks the government is getting up to there.
If the plight of humans or the threat of climate apocalypse isn't enough to move you, here is an adorable pupper who is doing her part:
Ratchet is protecting traditional territories from unscrupulous oil companies and the government they own. What are you doing?
Entry tags:
My second hot take of the day
Apparently 40% of Millennials don't know that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust but I'd wager 90% of Boomers don't know that the death toll in the Holocaust was actually 12.5 million.
Kaunas
I meant for this to be two separate posts: one for the fun stuff, one for the Ninth Fort, which is the most harrowing, emotionally devastating place I have visited since Buchenwald. But of course image hosting isn't cooperating, so unfortunately at the moment, if you want to see the fun pictures, you will also have to see the depressing pictures (which I promise aren't actually that bad, as I only really took exterior shots that are only disturbing if you know the context). This said, here is the gallery, and content/trigger warning for some of the photos being of a place where 30,000-50,000 people were murdered.
(Of course, I have no idea if you can even view the photos. I really need to work out my image hosting issues. Flickr is an impossibility at the moment while I'm out of Canada.)
Anyway! I'm sure somewhere in your mind, you were wondering about the fact that I keep posting pictures of pretty buildings and lovely, walkable cities. Admit it--you expected a bit more Soviet brutalist and you were wondering where it was. The answer is that it's all in Kaunas. Kaunas does have a cute Old Town but the stuff we wanted to see wasn't there, and where we're staying is pure 1960s poured cement. I will admit a slight fondness for it, though I wouldn't want to live there.
Our first stop was the Devil's Museum, which is exactly what it says on the tin. It's an excellent collection of devils of all sorts. Our one criticism is that the gift shop was missing some obvious opportunities as it practically didn't exist.
Then we went across the street to the museum of M. K. Ciurlionis, a Symbolist artist and composer. Cool, not the most exciting, but some lovely work.
We also rode a funicular, which is kind of like an amusement ride except not very good. But it's one of my favourite words now.
The main event was going about a half-hour outside town to the Ninth Fort. It's an early 20th century fort that became a hard labour camp, then a transfer point for deportations to Siberia during the first Soviet occupation of Lithuania, then basically a killing field under the Nazis. The second time the Soviets occupied the country, they turned it into a vast and ghastly monument to the victims of fascism, which subsequently was expanded to include evidence of their own crimes after Lithuania's independence.
I can't really describe it to you properly. Unless you've been in the remnants of a concentration camp or similar, you won't be able to get what it's like to stand in a place that is well and truly haunted by the unquiet dead. The museum consists of one building that's an overview of the atrocities committed on the premises, but focusing mainly on the Soviet occupation, several vast, giant sculptures and plaques describing the Nazi massacres, and the fort itself, which shows prison cells, interrogation rooms, a recreation of a Kaunas Ghetto house, and informational rooms with the requisite belongings of the victims. It's cold, and damp, and good luck ever not feeling that bone-deep chill again. Also, this is why we don't fucking compromise with fascists, okay?
Anyway we coped really well after, which is to say I had 1/3 of a bottle of wine and I'm just about shaking history from my head. Tomorrow it's back to Kiev, and then home.
(Of course, I have no idea if you can even view the photos. I really need to work out my image hosting issues. Flickr is an impossibility at the moment while I'm out of Canada.)
Anyway! I'm sure somewhere in your mind, you were wondering about the fact that I keep posting pictures of pretty buildings and lovely, walkable cities. Admit it--you expected a bit more Soviet brutalist and you were wondering where it was. The answer is that it's all in Kaunas. Kaunas does have a cute Old Town but the stuff we wanted to see wasn't there, and where we're staying is pure 1960s poured cement. I will admit a slight fondness for it, though I wouldn't want to live there.
Our first stop was the Devil's Museum, which is exactly what it says on the tin. It's an excellent collection of devils of all sorts. Our one criticism is that the gift shop was missing some obvious opportunities as it practically didn't exist.
Then we went across the street to the museum of M. K. Ciurlionis, a Symbolist artist and composer. Cool, not the most exciting, but some lovely work.
We also rode a funicular, which is kind of like an amusement ride except not very good. But it's one of my favourite words now.
The main event was going about a half-hour outside town to the Ninth Fort. It's an early 20th century fort that became a hard labour camp, then a transfer point for deportations to Siberia during the first Soviet occupation of Lithuania, then basically a killing field under the Nazis. The second time the Soviets occupied the country, they turned it into a vast and ghastly monument to the victims of fascism, which subsequently was expanded to include evidence of their own crimes after Lithuania's independence.
I can't really describe it to you properly. Unless you've been in the remnants of a concentration camp or similar, you won't be able to get what it's like to stand in a place that is well and truly haunted by the unquiet dead. The museum consists of one building that's an overview of the atrocities committed on the premises, but focusing mainly on the Soviet occupation, several vast, giant sculptures and plaques describing the Nazi massacres, and the fort itself, which shows prison cells, interrogation rooms, a recreation of a Kaunas Ghetto house, and informational rooms with the requisite belongings of the victims. It's cold, and damp, and good luck ever not feeling that bone-deep chill again. Also, this is why we don't fucking compromise with fascists, okay?
Anyway we coped really well after, which is to say I had 1/3 of a bottle of wine and I'm just about shaking history from my head. Tomorrow it's back to Kiev, and then home.
Entry tags:
Covering up genocide is now totes legal
Lost amongst the much bigger (but also, of course, disturbing) Panama Papers story is this article, about the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeals that records from the testimony of residential school survivors can be destroyed in 15 years.
Wait, what?
This fills me with so much rage I'm shaking almost too much to type.
I grew up knowing about residential schools. It wasn't exactly a secret, and it ended within my lifetime. I knew they were rape, torture, and death camps from a very early age. I've known about the FUCKING MASS GRAVES FULL OF CHILDREN'S CORPSES for at least a decade. I only recently found out that most settler Canadians claim to have only found out about it with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission findings, which I don't really believe because I tend to attribute to malice what I can't believe is stupidity.
So, of course, we're going to destroy the records. Thousands of people were brave enough to testify to the rape, torture, destruction of their language and culture, and horrific abuse they suffered at the hands of the state and church, and the state has decide this isn't worth keeping. Probably in another ten years, it can be entirely forgotten. If there's one thing settler Canadians are great at, it's forgetting.
Oh yes, they're claiming that they're going to contact the survivors and ask if they want their records archived rather than shredded (obviously they do, though, or they wouldn't have fucking testified in the first place, would they?) but since a lot of them are dead and they're aging in general and we're not exactly talking about a stable population, I'm guessing they'll say, "oh, we tried to call them but the phone was out of service, into the shredder with the testimony."
And then Canada can go back to pretending its a shining example of human rights when it instituted genocide on a mass scale and there are dead children buried in unmarked graves.
Wait, what?
This fills me with so much rage I'm shaking almost too much to type.
I grew up knowing about residential schools. It wasn't exactly a secret, and it ended within my lifetime. I knew they were rape, torture, and death camps from a very early age. I've known about the FUCKING MASS GRAVES FULL OF CHILDREN'S CORPSES for at least a decade. I only recently found out that most settler Canadians claim to have only found out about it with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission findings, which I don't really believe because I tend to attribute to malice what I can't believe is stupidity.
So, of course, we're going to destroy the records. Thousands of people were brave enough to testify to the rape, torture, destruction of their language and culture, and horrific abuse they suffered at the hands of the state and church, and the state has decide this isn't worth keeping. Probably in another ten years, it can be entirely forgotten. If there's one thing settler Canadians are great at, it's forgetting.
Oh yes, they're claiming that they're going to contact the survivors and ask if they want their records archived rather than shredded (obviously they do, though, or they wouldn't have fucking testified in the first place, would they?) but since a lot of them are dead and they're aging in general and we're not exactly talking about a stable population, I'm guessing they'll say, "oh, we tried to call them but the phone was out of service, into the shredder with the testimony."
And then Canada can go back to pretending its a shining example of human rights when it instituted genocide on a mass scale and there are dead children buried in unmarked graves.
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Happy flag-waving day!
As you wave your flags, change your FB icons, set off your fireworks, and proclaim your love for this strong and free country of ours*, please remember that tens of thousands of First Nations children died in residential schools and the vast majority of people here truly don't give a shit.
* General "you," not specific "you my readers who know better." Sheesh.
* General "you," not specific "you my readers who know better." Sheesh.
Entry tags:
Truth and Reconciliation and Appalling Ignorance
Here is a thing that happened:
The government of Canada, in collusion with various churches, kidnapped, tortured, starved, neglected, raped, and in many cases murdered aboriginal children. They robbed them of their families and culture. They beat them for speaking their own languages. When they died—and per capita, more of them died than Canadian soldiers in WWII—they were not returned to their families but buried in mass graves that were abandoned once the "schools" were closed. This fucking abomination, our own Holocaust, committed on Canadian soil with the full blessing of the law and with willful, savage brutality, took place from 1869 to 1996, involved 150,000 innocent children, and dealt a blow to indigenous communities that still echoes today. How can it not? 1996. Do you understand how recent this is, how raw this wound remains?
And it's not a secret. It hasn't been a secret as long as I can remember. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee's report on it was released today, but the information contained therein has been in the news for years. I looked back in my "first nations" tag and found a post I made about Kevin Annett, who did extensive research that revealed estimated death tolls and some of the mass grave locations, in 2008. I remember watching "Where the Spirit Lives," which depicts rape, torture, and murder in a residential school, in 1989. We had like five channels back then, but it was on CBC, which you could get even if you just had a coat hanger wired to the back of your TV. My whitebread honky school showed the movie to us in class (different times; these days it would be too graphic to show to children). Even my shitty Canadian history textbooks, which existed to spread a false image of Canada as a multicultural, democratic, benevolent paradise, had a little paragraph noting that this was a thing that happened. (Minus the mass graves and the death toll, which may not have been that well known back in the 80s and regardless is not a thing that instills national pride.)
I don't pretend to be particularly knowledgable about indigenous issues. I'm white as the driven snow. I know some First Nations people, though not many. I've been vaguely involved in some solidarity activism. But I didn't have to go out of my way to learn that my government kidnapped and murdered children.
Like any decent human being, the fact that this was done enrages me. (Decent human beings, judging by some of the comments to today's Star articles, are at a premium in Canada. But if you are not outraged by genocide there's something wrong with you and you are #gulagbait.) But what also enrages me is the number of people who are acting like they had no idea this happened.
"We didn't study it in school."
"I had no idea it was that bad, though."
JESUS FUCK, people, what did you think happened? Why Oka? Why Caledonia? Why Attawapiskat? Why Bill C-51? Don't you live here?
Like, I get how someone brand new to the country might not have heard about it, as the fact that we fucking slaughtered large swaths of the indigenous population is not something that Canada advertises to new immigrants. But do people just never read the news? Is everyone just relying on Grade 10 Canadian history to be an honest and truthful representation of the European conquest of Canada? I'm actually raging here at how willfully oblivious so many whites must be to have made it to adulthood without having any inkling of the blood that permeates the land they've stolen. It's a testament to the brilliance of our national propaganda machine that it can convince so large a percentage of the population that this is not information worth investigating. And it's a testament to the sheer ignorance and racism of settler culture that, proportionally, more children died in residential schools than in Auschwitz or of the Black Plague, and until today few were willing to call it genocide.
Fuck off. If you were born here and didn't know, it's because you didn't care to find out.
P.S. We also enslaved black people. That's not in the history textbooks, but now you can't not know that either.
The government of Canada, in collusion with various churches, kidnapped, tortured, starved, neglected, raped, and in many cases murdered aboriginal children. They robbed them of their families and culture. They beat them for speaking their own languages. When they died—and per capita, more of them died than Canadian soldiers in WWII—they were not returned to their families but buried in mass graves that were abandoned once the "schools" were closed. This fucking abomination, our own Holocaust, committed on Canadian soil with the full blessing of the law and with willful, savage brutality, took place from 1869 to 1996, involved 150,000 innocent children, and dealt a blow to indigenous communities that still echoes today. How can it not? 1996. Do you understand how recent this is, how raw this wound remains?
And it's not a secret. It hasn't been a secret as long as I can remember. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee's report on it was released today, but the information contained therein has been in the news for years. I looked back in my "first nations" tag and found a post I made about Kevin Annett, who did extensive research that revealed estimated death tolls and some of the mass grave locations, in 2008. I remember watching "Where the Spirit Lives," which depicts rape, torture, and murder in a residential school, in 1989. We had like five channels back then, but it was on CBC, which you could get even if you just had a coat hanger wired to the back of your TV. My whitebread honky school showed the movie to us in class (different times; these days it would be too graphic to show to children). Even my shitty Canadian history textbooks, which existed to spread a false image of Canada as a multicultural, democratic, benevolent paradise, had a little paragraph noting that this was a thing that happened. (Minus the mass graves and the death toll, which may not have been that well known back in the 80s and regardless is not a thing that instills national pride.)
I don't pretend to be particularly knowledgable about indigenous issues. I'm white as the driven snow. I know some First Nations people, though not many. I've been vaguely involved in some solidarity activism. But I didn't have to go out of my way to learn that my government kidnapped and murdered children.
Like any decent human being, the fact that this was done enrages me. (Decent human beings, judging by some of the comments to today's Star articles, are at a premium in Canada. But if you are not outraged by genocide there's something wrong with you and you are #gulagbait.) But what also enrages me is the number of people who are acting like they had no idea this happened.
"We didn't study it in school."
"I had no idea it was that bad, though."
JESUS FUCK, people, what did you think happened? Why Oka? Why Caledonia? Why Attawapiskat? Why Bill C-51? Don't you live here?
Like, I get how someone brand new to the country might not have heard about it, as the fact that we fucking slaughtered large swaths of the indigenous population is not something that Canada advertises to new immigrants. But do people just never read the news? Is everyone just relying on Grade 10 Canadian history to be an honest and truthful representation of the European conquest of Canada? I'm actually raging here at how willfully oblivious so many whites must be to have made it to adulthood without having any inkling of the blood that permeates the land they've stolen. It's a testament to the brilliance of our national propaganda machine that it can convince so large a percentage of the population that this is not information worth investigating. And it's a testament to the sheer ignorance and racism of settler culture that, proportionally, more children died in residential schools than in Auschwitz or of the Black Plague, and until today few were willing to call it genocide.
Fuck off. If you were born here and didn't know, it's because you didn't care to find out.
P.S. We also enslaved black people. That's not in the history textbooks, but now you can't not know that either.
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But there is happy news
I've been spamming FB about this but I'm going to spam here too because it's important. Former Guatemalan dictator José Efraín Rios Montt was found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 80 years in prison. Fucker's going to rot in jail, and if I'm wrong about the whole atheism thing, he's going to rot in hell before the sentence is up. I'd like to see him hanged from a lamp post but this is pretty great too.
Xeni Jardin at BoingBoing has provided excellent blow-by-blow coverage of the trial, so you can read that if you're interested in the details and why this verdict is so important for the indigenous people of Guatemala. If you have more time, you should also read I, Rigoberta Menchu.
Speaking of Rigoberta Menchu, here she is reacting to the verdict.
Two of my friends lived in Guatemala for a number of years and are re-tweeting play-by-plays from the courtroom. Apparently, there are cheering crowds, singing this song, which has for years been one of my favourite songs of all time:
Xeni Jardin at BoingBoing has provided excellent blow-by-blow coverage of the trial, so you can read that if you're interested in the details and why this verdict is so important for the indigenous people of Guatemala. If you have more time, you should also read I, Rigoberta Menchu.
Speaking of Rigoberta Menchu, here she is reacting to the verdict.
Two of my friends lived in Guatemala for a number of years and are re-tweeting play-by-plays from the courtroom. Apparently, there are cheering crowds, singing this song, which has for years been one of my favourite songs of all time:
Art Spiegelman
I went to see Art Spiegelman speak. I wish I had more time to tell you about it, but in the meantime, because of his talk I am now aware of this:
Did everyone else know and just not tell me?
P.S. Art Spiegelman is awesome.
P.P.S. So are my new thigh-high green-on-green striped kneesocks. They match my "Ceci n'est pas un pipe" t-shirt perfectly and I basically looked like a cartoon character today. (Appropriate, since I just drew four cartoons of myself because I'm an egomaniac.) I should have taken a picture.
Did everyone else know and just not tell me?
P.S. Art Spiegelman is awesome.
P.P.S. So are my new thigh-high green-on-green striped kneesocks. They match my "Ceci n'est pas un pipe" t-shirt perfectly and I basically looked like a cartoon character today. (Appropriate, since I just drew four cartoons of myself because I'm an egomaniac.) I should have taken a picture.
Art Spiegelman
I went to see Art Spiegelman speak. I wish I had more time to tell you about it, but in the meantime, because of his talk I am now aware of this:
Did everyone else know and just not tell me?
P.S. Art Spiegelman is awesome.
P.P.S. So are my new thigh-high green-on-green striped kneesocks. They match my "Ceci n'est pas un pipe" t-shirt perfectly and I basically looked like a cartoon character today. (Appropriate, since I just drew four cartoons of myself because I'm an egomaniac.) I should have taken a picture.
Did everyone else know and just not tell me?
P.S. Art Spiegelman is awesome.
P.P.S. So are my new thigh-high green-on-green striped kneesocks. They match my "Ceci n'est pas un pipe" t-shirt perfectly and I basically looked like a cartoon character today. (Appropriate, since I just drew four cartoons of myself because I'm an egomaniac.) I should have taken a picture.
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Today's discussion questions
It's another one of those long days at school and I won't be around, so here are two discussion questions for you. Fight talk amongst yourselves.
1. What do we think of this news story? There's a lot in there, so let's pick it to pieces.
2. Speaking of genocide, the Toronto District School Board has a new history course dealing with the subject. It officially recognizes three genocides: Armenia, the Holocaust, and Rwanda. What's missing, and why do you think they chose to exclude the genocide that happened in the country where the course will be taught.
Have a happy Friday!
1. What do we think of this news story? There's a lot in there, so let's pick it to pieces.
2. Speaking of genocide, the Toronto District School Board has a new history course dealing with the subject. It officially recognizes three genocides: Armenia, the Holocaust, and Rwanda. What's missing, and why do you think they chose to exclude the genocide that happened in the country where the course will be taught.
Have a happy Friday!
Entry tags:
Today's discussion questions
It's another one of those long days at school and I won't be around, so here are two discussion questions for you. Fight talk amongst yourselves.
1. What do we think of this news story? There's a lot in there, so let's pick it to pieces.
2. Speaking of genocide, the Toronto District School Board has a new history course dealing with the subject. It officially recognizes three genocides: Armenia, the Holocaust, and Rwanda. What's missing, and why do you think they chose to exclude the genocide that happened in the country where the course will be taught.
Have a happy Friday!
1. What do we think of this news story? There's a lot in there, so let's pick it to pieces.
2. Speaking of genocide, the Toronto District School Board has a new history course dealing with the subject. It officially recognizes three genocides: Armenia, the Holocaust, and Rwanda. What's missing, and why do you think they chose to exclude the genocide that happened in the country where the course will be taught.
Have a happy Friday!
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It's not a long weekend here anyway
You've all got the William S. Burroughs Thanksgiving thing memorized by now, right?