Hi!
There are so many platitudes and cliches about light and dark. Practical, existential, figurative, and literal.
There are poems, plays, movies, and books that have this very concept as a central theme. Through the ages, this particular well of inspiration has been tapped countless times. Everyone from Shakespeare to Tarantino has drawn from it.
Why? One reason, I think, is as a simple reminder.
A reminder that no matter what you are going through, everything is temporary. A reminder that life is a series of ebbs and flows, and that is one of the rare constants in life. A reminder that we all have sunshine and storms. A reminder that although we all weather storms, our shelters vary greatly.
Some sit in brick and mortar, solid, unyielding, basking in the benefit of generations of upkeep and care. They walk with a confidence they don't even know was a gift from where their family tree took root.
Others scramble into doorways, do their best to shield themselves in unanchored, leaky tents, the product of damaged and traumatized generations made unable to lay the simplest of foundations, leaving those who need it most, vulnerable to every element.
As I write this, on this 30th day of September, it is, in Canada, our National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Every Indigenous person in our Country is either a residential school survivor, the child of a survivor, or the grandchild of one. This remains, in my mind, the most shameful part of our history as a nation. The incredible cruelty, the abuse, the murder, the evil that drove the whole concept, all of it.
I wish I could sit here and say that yes, it was horrible, but it's all better now. I wish I could, but that's not even remotely close to the truth. Our systems, our governments, are still slanted to heavily favour nonindigenous peoples. If you look at the way our education systems, our judicial systems, our welfare, our foster care, all the systems, if not completely broken are twisted, stretched and distorted to the point that they don't come close to providing the safety nets they were designed for.
Their designs, from the beginning, were put in place to control, contain, and make sure colonists could monitor, and maintain authority over a people who didn't ask for it, need it, or want anything to do with it.
The narrative has been rewritten over the generations, trying desperately to make it seem like charitable kindness, like, somehow indigenous people in our country get a free ride, when we all know the truth is that we are just trying to ease our own guilt, putting bandaids on the bullet holes we inflicted.
We need to do better. We need to rethink, revamp, and restructure our systems so that they can work for everyone. We need all people to be at the table where decisions are made with equal representation.
This is our Country, Canada. This is our mess. We made it.
We not only showed up uninvited and claimed land that was not ours even a little bit,we then decided that taking land wasn't enough, no, we then felt compelledto force the people we pushed from their homes into permanent interment camps we so fondly named "reservations", like they should be honoured, in some twisted way. Then that wasn't enough either, we had to rip their kids from their arms in the name of the Church and government, saving children that only needed saving from us. They were fine before we came along.
Before we got here, they were fine. They had struggles, of course, but every tribe had their own way of thriving. They had been doing it for centuries without any interference from us. But somehow, we, wearing our superiority complex like a badge of honour, thought we knew better, that we were better... yeah, that was a load of crap.
So, that was truth, but what does reconciliation even look like?
- 1.the restoration of friendly relations.
You can't unring a bell, especially one dripping, drenched in blood and trauma
Where do we even begin to repair all of the damage we have done?
We have proven ourselves over and over again to be completely untrustworthy. We have renigged on virtually every "deal" we've ever made.
How do you rebuild a foundation from the bloody bones of stolen children?
Trust. Through consistent actions that prove we are worthy of that trust. Not words. Actions.
I think it's the only way, and it's going to take at least as long as it took to do the damage. People don't just "get over" generational, horrific trauma. They can't, they shouldn't. We should be held accountable for all of it. It's up to us to prove ourselves.
Everyone needs to be at the table.
The thing is, it's their table, we took it, burned it, built another from their bones, and now want to make them beg for a seat.
The dark and the light. Without the dark, the light seems not to shine as brightly.
With a lot of work, and I do mean a LOT, maybe, just maybe, we can all walk side by side in the sun, leaving shadows of the past in the distance.
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May we all recognize how we came to be here.
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