On residential schools…
TW/CW: Residential schools, child abuse, racism.
Like so much of the world I’ve had a million feelings about last week’s discovery. You may already know that I grew up in Lillooet, but you might not know that it was a feeder community for the Kamloops school. This piece wasn’t easy to write and it won’t be easy to read. If you do take the time to read this, please also listen to the voices who have first hand experience in this, not just the white girl you happen to know. ;) In the aftermath of this, I’ll be donating to Indian Residential School Survivors Society. If you’re able, please also donate yourself - and please use the resources I’ve shared to continue to educate yourself.
Action & education. Both are necessary and both can be done, right now.
I was 6.
I had her explain it again and again. I just couldn’t understand it. She used so many words I didn’t yet know, and the ones I did know didn’t seem to go together the way she was using them. Swallow? Sperm? Your uncle?
Later, in my teens, I finally knew and understood the things she was saying. I was horrified. I should have told someone, I should have done more. Could I have kept her safe?
She was 6.
I was 12.
He was my best friend’s boyfriend, and we were giddy at the idea of a BOY coming to her birthday. Secretly, I hoped he would bring his friend - we were at a campsite with only minor parental supervision and what’s more exciting when you’re 12 than that?
He didn’t bring his friend.
He did bring what was left of a 40oz of cheap vodka.
I learned what the phrase “blackout drunk” meant that weekend.
I watched my tiny friend try and hold up his bulk when he couldn’t walk or even stand.
I heard the adults around us.
“Another drunk Indian”
“Deadbeat parents, never around, of course he’s like that”
“Someone should just leave him to die”
He was 11.
When you grow up in small town Canada, when you grow up white in a town where 50% of the population is indigenous, when casual racism is as normal as church on Sunday… there are a lot of lessons you learn before you understand them.
You learn that some people’s parents never come to parent teacher interviews. You learn what fetal alcohol syndrome means at eight. You learn that there is an “us” and a “them” and by the time you’re 10 there’s been caution by teachers or other adults – to you or other white kids – about spending too much time with “dirty Indians”.
And just because your parents and their friends worked so hard to teach you inclusion, and the humanity and equality of each person - well, it doesn’t change much. Not in the ways that matter. As I got older, I realized it wasn’t just “those racist people”, but so ingrained that it was nearly impossible to see, never mind root out. Indigenous friends’ were wary of (or in the case of not friends, outright hostile to) me, rightfully so – both my parents worked in the education system. My family was an extension of the trauma that had never been healed. We were dangerous; we viewed ourselves as “not racist”. We couldn’t see what was right in front of us.
Lillooet had no residential schools. It was simply too small – even with such a huge population of Stʼatʼimc people. The closest, the one that everyone from not just Lillooet but the surrounding areas – Shalalth, Gold Bridge, Seton, Bridge River, Fountain, Pavilion – would have attended, was Kamloops. The unearthing last week will include family of people I went to school with, who I know or knew. Families who were never given answers when their children didn’t come home. I’ve seen firsthand what generations of trauma, of families being ripped apart, of entire generations not being raised by their parents, of decades (centuries, the first residential school opened in 1831 - almost 200 years ago) of physical, spiritual, and sexual abuse does to communities. When you start to really understand the extent of the cultural genocide, the question becomes not “why are these communities dealing with so many issues”, but why not? How on earth could we be anywhere else right now?
I wish I could say when the news broke last week that I was surprised. I want to be able to say I was shocked, that I didn’t understand how this could have happened. That “this isn’t my Canada”. I wish I could say that I hadn’t known or fall back on “it must just be an isolated incident”. But none of those responses really help anyway, do they?
It’s overwhelming, the horror – but it isn’t surprising. And so our job, especially as white people, is to learn and understand, and teach our children. If we had the privilege of not knowing about this until now (or if like me, you did already know about this but likely weren’t really doing enough/anything), it’s our job to know, and to use of voices and dollars to demand change.
I’ve included a link to list of resources at the bottom of this post, so that you can take action, right now. So that you don’t have to say “I don’t know what to do” or even “I’ll do it later”.
I was 38.
My daughter said, “why did they do it, mama?”
We read through the books, and I share the stories of survivors with her. I continue to teach her what it means to stand up when you see something that feels wrong, when we need to use our voices and our privilege to help others.
She was 6.
I’ve included all the links you’ll need to both reference and act on the things above (writing your MP, an example of a letter, more resources on this issue) here. Thank you for doing the work to learn about this, and helping make change.
