The Parents Were the Children (The Indigenous Catch-22)

The reality of being Indigenous in Canada is often so confusing. For us who live that life and walk that path, explaining it to other people can be even more challenging. I'm going to take a shot at it today because there's something going on that is a scary replication of the past, even if the people involved maybe don't intend it. Trying to give benefit of the doubt here, but we need to talk about this. We need to talk about the judgment. So let's talk about it. Hi everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine River First Nation in Treaty 3 Territory in Northern Ontario. And today I want to talk about the catch 2022 that is indigenous existence within Canadian borders. So I'm going to take a shot at this and I hope it makes sense to you. And please, in the comments, let me know if I was, if I succeeded in explaining this. So way back when the settlers first arrived and they started to settle this land that they saw uninhabited or inhabited by uncivilized indigenous people, people, they decided that our way of life, our way of being, our location was not ideal for them. So they moved us out of the way. So all of you living in cities who never see Indigenous people in your day to day life know that was on purpose. Point one, they moved us out of the way. And then assimilation began. The attempt to convert us into non indigenous people, getting us to forget our culture and our worldview and our way of being and becoming white people. So, and of course the most now known and most devastating system used was the residential school system. And I have a size serious problem with anyone that goes after kids. I mean if the settler adults had tried to convince Indigenous adults, even if they had, God forbid, incarcerated us or tried, you know, to brainwash us, that would have been horrific enough. But going after four year olds, going after three year olds, going after six year olds, where's the pride in that? I could go off on that. So the residential schools lasted, that era lasted for over 100 years. That's generations of children from different first nations communities who were not taught love, who were not taught acceptance, who were not taught conflict resolution, who were not taught how to use their voice in an assertive, powerful way. They, they were taught shame and guilt, they experienced violence and judgment and in some cases a lot worse. And then those children graduated. They came out of the schools, there was no counseling like you have nowadays. No one wanted to help them overcome their traumas. No one even talked about it because they were trying their darnest not to relive it. So. And these people with all of this trauma that they're trying so desperately to hide, attempted to go on with their lives. They. They fell in love, they had partners, they had children. Some of them got lost in addictions. And I honestly believe, like, if I was one of those people, I would get lost in alcohol. I would have gotten lost in alcohol by choice, just so I could hopefully not remember what happened. So we got a whole bunch of unhealthy people becoming unhealthy parents. Fast forward to a more modern time, and our children are being taken again, again. Because we're not civilized, we're not qualified, we're not ideal parents for our own children with no one acknowledging how we got here. We were healthy parents before someone decided to change who we were. A whole bunch of people decided to try to change who we were. We didn't inflict the trauma on ourselves. We didn't choose not to have supports to deal with it when we came out. We just chose to try to go on and survive. And I'm not saying that our children don't need help. We need help, not further separation. The parents need help. The parents were the children. So before you take the next generation of children, let's help the children so we can finally fix this. Because guess what? You take the kids, you're inflicting more trauma. And we've lost way too many, especially young parents who lost their children to heartbreak and their addictions coming together to end a life that should have never been traumatized in the first place. So It's a catch 22. Our history. The history was not our choice. The chapter in Indigenous history that involves who would become Canadians was not our choice. The trauma was not our choice. And we're trying to heal. What we don't need is the judgment that has been destroying our existence since the day the settlers got here. That's the catch 22. So the next time you see an indigenous person struggling, whether it's on the news, in a video, or in your neighborhood, remember how we got here. It's not a reflection on who we are. It's a reflection on what we're trying to deal with. And maybe, just maybe, we don't have any other supports than the path we're choosing to try to deal with it. I hope that made sense. Until tomorrow. I love you. Take care of. Bye Bye.