Who's Land is it
Anyways?
Deconstructing & Exposing our Frontier Myth in BC.
Myth vs. Reality
Making space
for sensitive
topics in
daily conversation
This page has been created to clear the air around common stereotypes surrounding Canadian First Nations, and to provide tips for engaging people in positive conversation around such common sense racism.
Many Canadians are simply not aware of historical and present day Euro-Canadian/Native relations. This ignorance and misrepresentation of First Nation people creates common sense racism and discrimination. Social change in Canada is a slow process, as Canadian non-Natives are culturally conditioned to accept and reaffirm colonial ‘common sense’ notions of racism towards Native people. These discriminatory myths are created and reaffirmed in society, as media and word of mouth information are accepted as fact.
We have a responsibility to break down these walls through educating ourselves and creating a space for positive, public conversation around sensitive topics, through sharing our education with others.
What encourages common sense racism?
1. Forgetting and ignorance of Canada's history of colonialism and racism towards First Nations. This unawareness leads to discrimination, racism, and furthers the othering of First Nations.
2. Media sources: Many media sources provide a severe lack of context or miswording around a subject, leading to the formation of common sense racism or wrong ideas around Canadian First
Nations
3. Accepting word of mouth or often biased information from the media as the truth.
MYTHS V.S REALITY
Forms of common sense racism:
MYTH:
"Native people get free handouts in education, housing, taxes, healthcare and land ownership."
REALITY:
During the begining of the colonization of Canada, the governenment signed legally binding contracts with First Nations, agreeing to provide them with goods and services in exchange for most of the land in the country.
The money legally owed to First Nations by the Government must be split up between First Nations, Inuit, Metis, and some ‘non status Indians’ across Canada. It is largely used to fund bureaucracy and administration at the federal level, between Provinces, Territories, and private organizations in order to carry out programs on behalf of the Federal Government. Of the amount that does go directly to First Nations, it is mostly spent to provide basic services on reserves, including a small portion towards self-governance. Any leftover money goes towards paying of the Government’s longstanding debts to First Nations. These debts may take form in claims, treaties, litigation, and so on.
It is important to keep in mind that the Federal Government created reserves as small spaces for First Nations to live during the course of their assimilation into colonial, white society. In Government and settler mentality, reserves, just as the First Nation population, were never meant to last. In this, the facilities and basic services on reserves were built by the Federal Government with an incredibly inadequate foundation that has never been restored to a livable standard.
Although First Nations receive a certain amount of legally owed monetary compensation from the Government, remember this: First Nation population in Canada is of similar size of the population of Nova Scotia. Novia Scotia's annual budget it 8 billion dollars while First Nation budget is around 7 billion dollars. On top of this, First Nation are working with inadequate infastructure, NOT the same first world standard of working infastructure as Novia Scotia has. Relay this fact to a person engaging in racist sterotypes and I wonder how much they will continue to criticized First Nations in relation to mismanaging money!
MYTH:
"First Nations are not educated"
REALITY:
To understand education in First Nation communities, you must understand the role of education forced upon First Nation by the Government.
While non-Native Canadians such as your grandparents, parents or yourselves were enjoying a nurturing and culturally supportive educational experience during the 1880’s to mid 1990’s, First Nation youth were ripped from their parents and communities and forced into Residential schools. The goal of Residential schools was to “kill the Indian in the child”, and the educational experience was one of malnutrition, sickness, rape, physical and mental abuse, and a general lack of support. During part of this time, if a First Nation person were to attain a university degree, they would lose their status as a “registered Indian”, which enhances loss of culture, or effectivly, ethnocide.
Although education has improved since 1996 (when the last residential school closed down), it is still problematic. First Nations youth often feel ostracized and pushed out of the education system, as they continue experience racism and are ‘othered’ by their peers. Little space is made for the acceptance of their culture and nourishment of self. A lack of funding is one source of such problems: provincial education funding sees an average in increase of 6% - 7% since 1998, while First Nation funding stops at 2%.
MYTH:
"Native people need to
just 'get over it"
REALITY:
Everyday, First Nation people are working towards healing and reconciliation, but it is not an overnight process. Many First Nations are feeling generational effects of abusive, oppressive, ethnocide and genocidal effects of Government enforced activities such as the Residential Schools, the 60’s scoop, the Indian Act, forced relocations, reserves systems, and intense racist discrimination from the public.
Some feel ‘over it’ while some are still working towards wellness. A common misconception with healing is that once it has occurred, the issue is over and never to be spoken of again. This is not healthy nor reality. For example, when you lose a loved one, you do not forget them. You move forwards to a point where the pain is bearable and you feel somewhat whole again, but you never forget that person. It is imperative to not forget the past; the past has lived implications for the future.
First Nation people are continually working positively through the process of embracing and healing past traumas. It is non-Native Canadians who need to get over the idea of “getting over it”.
MYTH:
"Native people don’t pay taxes"
REALITY:
First Nation people in Canada pay the same taxes as non-Native people in Canada, except certain exemptions as applied through Section 87 of the Indian Act. Under Section 87, tax is exempt on “personal property of an Indian or a band situated on a reserve”. Inuit and Métis people do not receive this exemption. These exemptions apply under very specific conditions.
Section 87 reflects the unique role that Aboriginal people have played and play in Canada. Remember that Canada was not an uninhabited land for European colonizers and Canadian settlers to claim as all their own; Aboriginal people have lived in Canada for thousands of years, and (forcibly) legally exchanged land title in return for goods and services from the government. First Nations were forced onto small spaces called reserves while settlers (perhaps your ancestors) claimed most of the land. In saying this, ‘Status Indians’ being exempt from a limited and specific amount of taxes on reserve (a system imposed upon them) is meager compensation for the land that perhaps you and the rest of Canada lives on.
Now that you know the facts...
Think twice before slandering First Nations with the
negative, racist stereotypes. Think about the role you
and your ancestors have played in perpetuating
colonial dominance and oppression over First Nations
through various government systems by either doing
nothing, remaining ignorant, or perpetuating common sense racism. These stereotypes feed into a larger discriminatory discourse that has serious and real lived implications for First Nations as they navigate their way through life. In feeding a discriminatory discourse, you are feeding the dominant, colonial language that has been oppressing and containing First Nation people for 150 years. Now is your chance to do something, so drop these stereotypes from your vocabulary and worldviews, and work towards derailing discriminatory discourse through educating your peers when they choose to engage in such common sense racism. and discriminatory discourse.
So how do I go
about confronting
these issues ?
Give yourself a pat on the back, you have taken the first step towards derailing sterotypes through educating your self. So now may be thinking, ok, what now? Get out there are work to activley connect people to the Reality versus the Myth!
This is easier said than done, as it is not easy to inform someone their reality is actually a reconstitution of a colonial myth. People may become defensive, angry, tell you you're wronge, to calm down, or get over it, or simply not understand where you are comming from because they struggle to relate to the issue. We have provided tips to derail the conversation and to connect people to reality on our 'derailing' page.
Howa' bout fashion:
Cultural reapproproation?
More information coming soon !!
