During the 1950s, the Canadian federal government enacted policies to relocate Inuit families from their homes in Inukjuak, located in northern Quebec, to the remote High Arctic areas of Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord. Their traditional homeland provided all they needed to sustain, including plenty of caribou and other game to hunt, which was a stark contrast from the veritable wasteland that the Inuit found themselves in when they arrived.

It became immediately clear that they had been duped by the government into accepting a barren arctic desert as their new home. The effects of the relocation were devastating. Compounding the issue of sparse hunting opportunity was the federal government’s failure to provide the people with any form of housing, leaving the Inuit to try to survive in Igloos and tents. The struggle for food and shelter in the desolate north left many dead.

On August 18, 2010—five decades after relocation—Canada’s Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development John Duncan officially apologized on behalf of the federal government. “The government of Canada deeply regrets the mistakes and broken promises of this dark chapter of our history and apologizes for the High Arctic relocation having taken place,” said Duncan as he stood before a group of Inuit residents in Inukjuak, Quebec. “They were not provided with adequate shelter and supplies. They were not properly informed of how far away and how different from Inukjuak their new homes would be, and they were not aware that they would be separated into two communities once they arrived in the High Arctic … Moreover, the government failed to act on its promise to return anyone that did not wish to stay in the High Arctic to their old homes.”

The apology appears to be widely welcomed as a step towards healing by those in the community who were affected by the relocations. But as contrite as the Indian Affairs Minister was in his apology, other events currently unfolding make it painfully obvious that the federal government has simply not learned from their many, many mistakes.

Doing right, yet getting it wrong

On February 24, 2010 the mayor of Halifax, Nova Scotia apologized for the evictions and razing of the African-Canadian community of Africville during the 1960s. At that time, I laid the charge that an apology for the “what” and the “how” that happened in the past, but which does not address the “why,” is in itself a failure. This is especially true if the same underlying “why” still persists after the apology is made. While Duncan’s apology to the Inuit has been a very long time coming and is important to the people affected by the federal government’s interference and broken promises, it still amounts to a failure because the government is doing nothing to change the underlying behavior for which it has apologized.

While Duncan was delivering his apology to the Inuit of Inukjuak, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) was going forward with the draconian act of imposing a new Chief and Council on Barriere Lake, an Algonquin band located on unceded territory in Quebec about 300 kilometers (190 miles) north of Ottawa, Ontario. The community of Barriere Lake, who have a long established traditional system of self-governing called the Mitchikanibikok Anishinabe Onakinakewin, have widely denounced the decision by INAC. Casey Ratt, who is the Band Council Chief appointed by INAC, has refused the position.

The actions of INAC are not only undemocratic, they are also a violation of section 35 of the Canadian Constitution Act which the Canadian government has affirmed protects “the inherent right of self-government as an existing Aboriginal right.” The reason that the INAC feels that they are entitled to impose their decision concerning such matters upon the Algonquins of Barriere Lake—and the reason the federal government gives INAC a pass at circumventing the Constitution—is found buried in the federal legislation concerning government policy with regards to First Nations. I am speaking specifically about section 74 of the Indian Act, which allows the Minister of Indian Affairs to impose its own electoral system and its results on a community “whenever he deems it advisable for the good government of a band.”

It is widely believed that the reasoning behind INAC invoking this obscure section of the Indian Act—a provision which has only been used three times in Canadian history, the last being in 1924 against the Haudenosaunee government—is, in the words of community spokesperson Marylynn Poucachiche, “to sever our connection to the land, which is maintained by our traditional political system. They don’t want to deal with a strong leadership and a community that demands the governments honour signed agreements regarding the exploitation of our lands and resources.” It’s an old tactic we’ve seen many times before: destabilize, install, control. In this particular case, the government’s end goal is to exploit the community’s land.

When it comes to fully understanding the many complicated issues facing the First Nations, it is almost impossible to do so without also discussing the aforementioned Indian Act and understanding its history. So let’s dive in together…

An Act Respecting… whom?

For those who are not familiar, the ironically titled An Act Respecting Indians (R.S., 1985, c. I-5)—commonly known by its legal short name as the Indian Act—is a federal statute that originated in 1876. It is the legal embodiment of the government’s long standing policy to coerce the First Nations people (whom the Act identifies as “Indian”), through paternalistic and oppressive policies and practices, to assimilate into the dominant white British-Canadian culture. Historically the Indian Act has been, in effect, a blueprint for apartheid and cultural genocide.

As the legal thumb used by the federal government to systematically oppress the First Nations people, the Indian Act, at different times through different amendments, has been used to shape and control every aspect of their lives by, for example: placing bans on traditional ceremonies and dances (1885); allowing the forced removal of Indians from reserves near towns with more than 8,000 residents (1905);  allowing municipalities and companies to expropriate portions of reserves, without surrender, to be used for public works such as roads and railways (1911); requiring western Indians to obtain official permission from the government before appearing in “aboriginal costume” in any “dance, show, exhibition, stampede or pageant” (1914);  preventing anyone, whether Indian or not, from soliciting funds for First Nations legal claims without a special license from the Superintendent-General, thereby preventing First Nations people from being able to pursue land claims (1927). In 1930 an amendment was added to make it an offense for pool hall owners to allow entrance to a First Nations person who “by inordinate frequenting of a pool room either on or off an Indian reserve misspends or wastes his time or means to the detriment of himself, his family or household”; the list goes on and on.

Annihilation through assimilation

It is under this Act that native languages were at one time outlawed and the infamous residential schools — for which the Canadian government also formally apologized on June 11, 2008 — were established. Through the Indian Act, the federal government even took upon itself to dictate which individuals were and were not “status Indians.” The goal of these policies and practices was to create an environment so oppressive that the First Nations people would chose to escape by giving up their traditions, their culture and their identities and assimilate into white British-Canadian society. Assimilation has always been and remains the desired effect of the Indian Act. It is, in short, the Canadian government’s Final Solution to what is sees as its “Indian problem.”

In 1969, then Minister of Indian Affairs Jean Chretien (who would latter become Canada’s 20^thPrime Minister from 1993-2003) proposed a policy that advocated the total assimilation of the First Nations people by abolishing the Indian Act, rejecting all land claims and treaties, and striping the First Nations of their status. This document is aptly, and without any sense of irony, known as The White Paper. The following year, Harold Cardinal and Indian Chiefs of Alberta presented “Citizens Plus,” their response which became known as The Red Paper.

Made in Canada™

The policies and practices outlined by the Indian Act should sound dreadfully familiar; they were the template for some of the brutal policies of both Germany’s Nazi and South Africa’s National Party regimes. While the term “Final Solution” is infamously known as Heinrich Himmler’s plan for the total systematic extermination of the European Jewish population—the plan which Adolph Hitler referred to as “the final solution of the Jewish question”—the term was actually coined first by Duncan Campbell Scott,. Scott, who was the Superintendent of Indian Affairs from 1913-1932, coined the term in 1910 in reference to what the Canadian government called their “Indian Problem.” In his April 12, 1910 letter to B.C. Indian Agent General Major D. McKay regarding the high levels of deaths due to communicable diseases (such as tuberculosis) in the residential schools, Scott writes:

“It is readily acknowledged that Indian children lose their natural resistance to illness by habitating so closely in these schools, and that they die at a much higher rate than in their villages. But this alone does not justify a change in the policy of this Department, which is geared towards the final solution of our Indian Problem.”

The bantustans set up by the South African National Party to segregate the Black African population were modeled after the native reservation systems set-up by the governments of Canada, as well as those of Australia and the United States. Many of the apartheid laws and policies are so similar to those of the Indian Act that one would think they were penned by the same hand.

Talking out both sides

The duality of a government’s words and actions is perhaps the most common thread to exist among them at all levels, in all countries, throughout time immemorial. What makes the hypocrisy in this instance even more frustrating than usual is when it comes wrapped in contrition for deeds done in the past while simultaneously conducting the same practices and operating from the same mindset that begat those very deeds.

Since the Canadian government, despite which political party is seated, appears to be bent on continuing these policies and practices, it is up to the people to be proactive. We must voice our concerns to our elected officials and to put pressure on the Minister of Indian Affairs and the Indian Affairs Quebec Regional Director to cease their interference and to respect the First Nations’ inherent right to self-government as recognized by section 35 of the Canadian Constitution.

Kirk Cameron’s—wait, no—James Cameron’s latest epic Avatar is now playing, and if you’re like me, you’re thinking to yourself “big fucking deal.” I can’t see myself watching it anytime soon. Cameron’s work generally bores me to tears, and Avatar looks like no exception. I don’t care about his fancy-pants VFX; the trailer simply bored me. People I know who have seen it in 3D rave about its epic visuals, but from what I hear about the basic storyline my initial reaction to the trailer is being confirmed.

When I watch the trailer, I see absolutely no emotion in the CGI characters’ face. None, and that’s the dealbreaker. Looking into the CG characters’ eyes, I see the same dull expressionlessness I saw in the characters of

Robert Zemeckis’ 2007 atrocity Beowulf (which had to be stopped less than 20 minutes in). In 2009, if you spend 10 years making a film and you can’t even match the emotional quality of Gollum in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), then you did something horribly wrong.

Other than the ostensible style-over-substance quality of the film, something about the story itself makes me loath to give both time and money to this movie. One review online has convinced me that I am right to not waste either: When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like “Avatar”? by Annalee Newitz. Newitz sums up Avatar as a film where “a white man who was one of the oppressors [of those fancy blue creatures that are thinly veiled stand-ins for North American indigenous people] switches sides at the last minute, assimilating into the alien culture and becoming its savior.” In other words, it’s Dances with Wolves, but in space!

Avatar is a fantasy about ceasing to be white, giving up the old human meatsack to join the blue people, but never losing white privilege. Jake never really knows what it’s like to be a Na’vi because he always has the option to switch back into human mode.

Sound a little heavy for an analysis of a sci-fi movie? If you think that movies are just movies and that their sole contribution to our social schema is entertainment and therefor critiquing their treatment of race is absurd, then I’m guessing you are both white and really need to read this from the comment section to Newitz’s piece (comment posted by Moff):

Of all the varieties of irritating comment out there, the absolute most annoying has to be “Why can’t you just watch the movie for what it is??? Why can’t you just enjoy it? Why do you have to analyze it???”

If you have posted such a comment, or if you are about to post such a comment, here or anywhere else, let me just advise you: Shut up. Shut the fuck up. Shut your goddamn fucking mouth. SHUT. UP.

First of all, when we analyze art, when we look for deeper meaning in it, we are enjoying it for what it is. Because that is one of the things about art, be it highbrow, lowbrow, mainstream, or avant-garde: Some sort of thought went into its making — even if the thought was, “I’m going to do this as thoughtlessly as possible”! — and as a result, some sort of thought can be gotten from its reception. That is why, among other things, artists (including, for instance, James Cameron) really like to talk about their work.

Now, that doesn’t mean you have to think about a work of art. I don’t know anyone who thinks every work they encounter ought to only be enjoyed through conscious, active analysis — or if I do, they’re pretty annoying themselves. And I know many people who prefer not to think about much of what they consume, and with them I have no argument. I also have no argument with people who disagree with another person’s thoughts about a work of art. That should go without saying. Finally, this should also go without saying, but since it apparently doesn’t: Believe me, the person who is annoying you so much by thinking about the art? They have already considered your revolutionary “just enjoy it” strategy, because it is not actually revolutionary at all. It is the default state for most of humanity.

So when you go out of your way to suggest that people should be thinking less — that not using one’s capacity for reason is an admirable position to take, and one that should be actively advocated — you are not saying anything particularly intelligent. And unless you live on a parallel version of Earth where too manypeople are thinking too deeply and critically about the world around them and what’s going on in their own heads, you’re not helping anything; on the contrary, you’re acting as an advocate for entropy.

And most annoyingly of all, you’re contributing to the fucking conversation yourselves when you make your stupid, stupid comments. You are basically saying, “I think people shouldn’t think so much and share their thoughts, that’s my thought that I have to share.” If you really think people should just enjoy the movie without thinking about it, then why the fuck did you (1) click on the post in the first place, and (2) bother to leave a comment? If it bugs you so much, GO WATCH A GODDAMN FUNNY CAT VIDEO

Don’t be passive. Go tell McDonald’s what you think of this ignorance.

UPDATE (9/12/09): I have asked McDonald’s UK corporate office to comment on the policy outlined in the above notice. I’ll post their response when/if they issue one.

UPDATE (9/13/09): I’m starting to wonder if this is actually a clever hoax. First, there is no date on the document. Second, is a the use of the word “decent” when they really mean “descent”. Possibly just a typo, either way it is worth noting.

When we hear stories about it in the media, it is usually surrounding the issues of women suffering eating disorders vis-a-vis the daily bombardment of images and messages in the media and popular culture espousing a certain aesthetic standard for women. The message they receive is that “beauty looks like this; and if you don’t look like this, then you are not beautiful.”

North American culture being predominantly white-oriented, the stories we hear in the media are typically about young white women who believe they are overweight, that their breasts are too small, that their lips are too thin, etc. This distorted self view is so deeply ingrained that it drives them to obsessively work to alter (or “correct”) their appearance, sometimes putting their health at risk.

There is another dimension to the issue that often does not come up in mainstream discussion, and that is race. This heartbreaking—if not eye opening, at the very least—montage popped up on my radar today by way of Twitter thanks to Kwame Zulu Shabazz and his blog, Thoughts of a Ghetto Intellectual, where he brings up yet another often overlooked dimension.

For a great read on the subject of internalized racism, head on over to Alas, a blog to read Karynthia’s post. If you have any personal stories on the subject of internalized racism, please share in the comments below!

Eric Schweig talks to CTV News. August 15, 2009. (CTV)

Erick Schweig told CTV News that when the first responders arrived, the firefighters started making racist comments. According to Schweig, one firefighter said “That’s what you get for drinking Lysol all day.” A paramedic on the scene pointed to a crowed of aboriginal children that had gather and told Schweig to get “his children out of the way.” Needless to say, it was a stunning display of the opposite values one would want in a first responder. Here we have a firefighter who jumps to a conclusion based on racist stereotypical (that Aboriginal people are all lazy drunks) and a paramedic that in a group of Aboriginal people either a) they all know each other or b) they’re all related. No need to make inquiry, no need to bother with finding out the facts. These two sure don’t have time to waste empathy on some drunken indian. Fuck you Ira Hayes, we’ve got white people to save.

Anthony O'Brien "Dudley" George (March 17, 1957 – September 7, 1995)

You know who else was overheard making racist comments about Aboriginal people before one died? The OPP at Ipperwash, and by “one” I mean an unarmed Dudley George, and by “died” I mean shot by police, while unarmed. The exchange of the two OPP officers went a little something like this:

Cop #1:  Is there still a lot of press down there?

Cop #2:  No, there’s no one down there. Just a great big fat fuck Indian

Cop #1: The camera’s rolling, eh?

Cop #2: Yeah.

Cop #1: We had this plan, you know. We thought if we could get five or six cases of Labatt’s 50, we could bait them.

Cop #2: Yeah.

Cop #1: Then we’d have this big net at a pit.

Cop #2: Creative thinking

Cop #1: Works in the (U.S.) South with watermelon.

(You see, all them injuns loooove beer and all them negros loooove watermelon… get it?)

Racism in this line of work is, unfortunatly, not that uncommon. A quick Google search will easily bring you stories of racist attitudes and incidents found among nurses, firefighters, and police. And until the people involved in overseeing these public services gets serious and treats it as the systematic problem that it is, we will continue to hear the same stories of the same bullshit for a long, long time.

Qasimali Baig, a 59 year-old journalist who has lived in Vancouver for 22 years, was returning from evening prayer at his mosque. He had just boarded the bus in East Vancouver when a white man at the back of the bus got up, raced towards Baig yelling “Bin Laden is coming. All these Muslims are bad people,” before landing a blow just above Baig’s left eye.

The bus driver stopped the bus and called for police, who responded quickly. What Baig’s fellow passengers did was run away. That not one person stood up and took any sort of action against what was an overtly racist attack speaks louder than the idiocy of the attacker’s motives or his preceding declaration that all Muslims “are bad people.”

Being witness to a sudden outburst of violence, regardless of the motivation behind it, is an unnerving experience. I understand how the first thought, or rather instinctual reaction, of the bystanders was to make sure they were themselves out of harms way but that after that first blink wouldn’t you think someone—at least one person—would have snapped out of it, regaining function of the rational part of their brain and leap into action? If you were in Mr. Baig’s situation, wouldn’t you want or hope that one of your fellow human beings would come to your aid?

During the summer of 2003 I was one of the performing artists employed by the City of Hamilton, Ontario to perform on the sidewalks in the downtown core as part of a cultural program. One sunny afternoon—it was either a Saturday or Sunday, I can’t recall which one—I was one my way to perform at the intersection of King and James. This intersection is arguably the busiest intersection in the entire city (population > 680,600). It is where Hamilton is divided east/west and north/south, it is the main entrance to the Jackson Square mall, it is where nearly a dozen public transit routes converge—it is the heart of the city. In other words, on a sunny weekend afternoon in the summer, you will find no shortage of people there.

On this particular afternoon I was about 60 meters (65 yards) from the intersection when I noticed across the street, right at the north-east corner of King and James, two men beating another man. They had him pinned, bent over backwards on a fire hydrant; one holding him down while the other punched him repeatedly in the face. From where I was—60 meters away, and across the street with cars driving by—I could hear the victim moaning in pain as he received blows to the body and face. I also happened to noticed that there was a crowd of at least two dozen people—some waiting for a bus, some waiting to cross the street—that were less than 5 meters from the assault happening in broad daylight, and that they were doing nothing to intervene.

I spotted a man talking on his cell phone heading into the mall and interrupted him, pointing to the attack across the street and asking him to call the police. I then turned and darted across the street (carrying the heavy wooden box in which I carried my musical instrument—it was a sitar, in case you were wondering) to help the man.The time from when I first noticed the happening assault to the time I arrived at his side was probably less than five minutes, and by that time the two attackers had already started to head north on James street. Their victim rolled from his position bent over the hydrant to fall on the pavement below, face down.

When I got to him, he was barely conscious—that was the first thing I noticed about him. The second thing was that he was aboriginal. His two assailants, of whom I did get a good look and was able to positively ID to the police, were white. All three appeared to be of the same age, somewhere likely around 40 to 45 years old. Those are all the facts about the three that I know. Whether or not the victim and the attackers knew each other is unknown to me. What the motivation behind the assault was—whether it was motivated by racial hatred, or something completely unrelated to race—is unknown to me. The crowd of bystanders that either ignored or failed to notice the mid-day assault was mostly composed of people who, like me, were white.

Two white men beat an aboriginal man to the point that he lost consciousness in the middle of the day while an audience did nothing. It can’t be said if the attack was motivated by race or not; but what about the motives of the inaction by the predominately white bystanders?

If all three men were aboriginal, would someone have stepped in? Likely not. What about if all three were white? Impossible to say for sure, but quite possible to imagine someone acting to stop the assault or at least come to the aide of the victim afterwards.

What if the victim was white and the attackers were aboriginal? In a blue-collar industrial city like Hamilton, Ontario (think of the town the TV show “Roseanne” took place in), it’s likely the aboriginal two would have ended up in the hospital.*

By looking at the different likely outcomes of the situation based on simply reversing the racial identities of attackers and victim and we can reasonably assess the bystanders’ attitudes and extrapolate their motivation for not acting in any way, shape or form.

(As an aside, the fact that the victim was aboriginal—as opposed to belonging to any other visible minority—is especially significant. In both Canada and the US, I have been shocked by the utter lack of any basic empathy for the aboriginal people of North America that has been expressed by some individuals who I would otherwise describe as being very progressive thinkers. Why we can so easily feel shame and sometimes even guilt over what our ancestors did to the people of Africa, yet have little or no empathy for aboriginal people who are still fighting oppressive policies and living conditions today, is a bit bewildering.)

So we have two instants to compare of white-on-non-white violence. Set aside whatever motive there is behind the attack and focus on the motives of the people witnessing the violence and ask yourself, are they not coming to the victim’s defence because they are reluctant to get involved at all? Or are they not coming to the victim’s defence because he is not white?

* Hamilton, Ontario gained dubious notoriety on the world stage back in September of 2001 when, less than a week after the September 11, 2001 attack on the US by Muslim extremists, a Hindu temple was burned to the ground by arsonists who couldn’t tell the difference between Hindus and Muslims.