It would be absolutely wonderful if Canadians, particularly those living in the Prairies, would stop trying to mimic every moronic tactic being used by the American right to discredit so-called “leftist” or “progressive” organizations, especially by those who believe that their “worth” as a human being is being “marginalized” by Black Lives Matter or an affiliate group protesting police shootings of non-white victims under questionable circumstances.

I suspect that there are few within our Indigenous communities who haven’t heard some idiot mouth the words “White lives matter, too”, or worse, “White lives matter more”, which seems to have been the intent of message sent by the Birch Hills resident who defaced the Muskoday bridge two weeks ago – shortly after Chief Ava Bear hung (with the province’s “permission”, no less) 215 pairs of shoes to show solidarity with relatives of the children whose graves were discovered near a former residential school in Kamloops.

What in God’s name do these children’s deaths have to do with the heightened sense of denial being felt by persons whose skin pigmentation is “white” whenever the topic of racial intolerance is broached? Did any of these kids walk in protest past your place of business and throw a Molotov Cocktail through your storefront window? Did any three-year-old occupy a government building in your community? Did any child of any age hang posters on lamp posts protesting the fleas in the straw beds at their residential school?

No?

Then why do you insist on mouthing words that make you sound like an idiot?

It’s time Canadians came to terms with our country’s history when it deals with our Indigenous brothers and sisters. This nation wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for their support of the British side during the War of 1812. Untold thousands have since served in our armed forces, fighting alongside Prairie-born men in some of the fiercest battles of World Wars I, II, and Korea, without even them even having the right to vote, and in some cases prior to the Korean outbreak, not even being considered as citizens of Canada.

And how did our government and religious institutions treat their ancestors? For just over 120 years, by forcefully “removing” their children from their homes, sticking them in regimented schools administered by allegedly “Christian” churches, and subjected many to brutal discipline, including isolation, beating and deprivation of food or companionship were they to in any way, shape or form “stray” from the “curriculum” of European “cultural supremacy” (brainwashing).

Isn’t God – and democracy – just “great”?

Yes, I’ve heard all of the excuses people start to bleat the moment it is pointed out that we may not yet be as civilized as we think we are: “We” didn’t do that, so why are we now having to “pay” for the abuses of the past?

Well, for starters, there are thousands of residential school “survivors” still walking within our midst, not to mention the many children whose lives they have damaged as a result of not being even familiar with the natural concept of being a loving parent to their own offspring, and having to learn such necessary parenting life skills from the pages of a book. It’s called recompense for suffering, and it’s supposed to be one of the first steps in implementing the “truth” aspect of such sufferings, as recommended by the creators of the Murdered and Missing Women task force in their report to Parliament.

The point is, we’re all suffering for the lack of our ability to learn the lessons of history, so that we never have to repeat them. Sir John A. MacDonald, most likely in a drunken state, and with the overwhelming support of his Tory brethren and “faith leaders”, created a policy regarding the “schooling” of Indigenous children that reflects our Eurocentric “colonial” mentality being combined with eugenic reasoning. Missing from this reactionary impulse is the historical reality that Canada had already “been there, done that”.

In the 17th Century the French tried to establish residential schools for “their” Indigenous populations, only to realize fairly rapidly its debilitating results. Americans also experimented with the idea, but found little support for its continuation as a government-sanctioned program.

So, does this mean that we as a nation are “slow learners” just because it only took us 120 years to realize that we were making a big mistake in creating these residential schools? Not really; we’ve known about this lesson of history for a long time, but have been embarrassed and ashamed that this abuse of our Indigenous people IS accurate; in that sense, its memory is in confrontation with our own propensity as a nation to reflect upon the “goodness” in all of us. In effect, we want to simply blot these memories out, thus cleansing our collective consciousness.

We could, of course, ease our sense of guilt by addressing the recommendations of the MMW inquiry as did the German people after WW-II; instead we go into denial, acting as though the problem of historical memory, much in the manner in which the American right is directing its attention. There we have the fanatical example of Missouri Republican representative Jason Smith offering up his “Love America Act”, which essentially would “prohibit Federal funding for educational agencies and schools whose students do not read certain foundational texts of the United States and are not able to recite those texts or that teach that those texts are products of white supremacy or racism.”

And if you think this guy is alone in his thoughts, think again. Thus, if passed, Americans are going to have to realize that the Civil War was simply “dispute” over property rights that erupted into fighting words, which in turn lead to public protest, with “leftists” suddenly taking up arms with the result that over 600,000 American citizens died, whereas John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln because he was recommending too many “leftist” policies in Congress – or was it Lincoln’s insistence that the American people all be vaccinated against smallpox?

And here I thought that the term “historical revisionism” only applied to Communist nations…