#home and native land

[officialjanetweiss]

These dogs were actually watching a play! They were in the audience of Billy Elliot the Musical at Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario.

Service dogs training to sit through a movie at a theater.

[officialjanetweiss]

“In 2011, A Canadian police officer suggested to students at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto that ‘women should avoid dressing like sluts in order to not to be victimized’. These comments instigated the first ‘SlutWalk’ march, which took place in Toronto on 3 April 2011. The marches spread around the world to places such as Las Vegas, Melbourne, Bhopal, and Sao Paulo. ‘SlutWalk’ was heralded as the third wave incarnation of Take Back the Night.

A Blogger for Ms. Magazine wrote about the march that took place in Los Angeles in 2012: ‘It’s that third wave-y feel - that individualistic empowerment - that has made “SlutWalk” popular among young women’, adding that the marches were ‘less emotionally intense than anti-rape rallies such as Take Back the Night, “SlutWalk” is more for spectacle’. This is a pretty accurate assesment, but ‘popularity’ and a lighter message do not necessarily translate into ‘better’, when it comes to radical movements.”

‘I do what I want, fuck yeah!’: moving beyond ‘a woman’s choice” by Meghan Murphy for Freedom Fallacy: The Limits of Liberal Feminism

[breadball]

do you ever just see two twits weighed down by anxiety and family legacy and think "they should kiss about it" bc,,,,,,,,

[shadowkoo]

Every Child Matters

I try to share a similar post each year with the purpose of educating those who may not know about Canadian & American indigenous peoples and the struggles we have gone through generationally. But honestly, this year I am pissed off so my tone in some areas may read as such. I will not apologize for that.

I am angry that so many people don't know (not your fault, it's the media's fault and their lack of coverage up until recent years). I am angry at both countries' leaders for doing the bare minimum for many years. And I am angry that so much of my ancestor's history was removed and altered from the truth for centuries.

However, I am glad that with each passing year, more people are learning, and I truly appreciate those who care enough to show their support.

With that said, please mark your calendars and wear orange on September 30th! This is your official reminder! Please continue reading and consider sharing this post so more people are aware 🧡

September 30th is known as Orange Shirt Day, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, across Canada and North America in remembrance of those who suffered in US/Canadian Indian Residential Schools. We recognize the harm done to generations of children by the Indian Residential Schools and share our collective histories as an affirmation of our commitment to ensure that Every Child Matters! 

Remembering the 150,000+ Indigenous children who endured physical, mental, and sexual abuse at these residential schools; trauma that continues to be felt to this very day by survivors and their families.

Children were stolen around this time of year to attend these ‘schools’. Parents who fought to keep their kids would often be arrested and/or beaten, it was nearly impossible for them to keep their children once the police and school officials showed up to take them. And even once the school season was over, they were not returned to their families.

We knew many children had likely suffered and died from the abuse, but could have never guessed the atrocious number of remains that we are now finding.

As of May 2022, The remains of over 6,000 children have been recovered from unmarked graves at the locations of these former residential schools within Canada, and 500 have been discovered at 19 schools in the US. However, the Interior Department said that number could climb to the thousands or even tens of thousands.

For reference to help you digest how large the numbers will become when all schools have been properly investigated, there were approximately 139 schools in Canada and so far only (as of May 2022) 36 investigations have been completed in Canada. The US has identified more than 400 schools that were highly supported by the U.S. government during their operations, and more than 50 associated burial sites, a figure that could grow exponentially as research continues.

This wasn’t as long ago as you might think. The last residential school in Canada closed in 1998, only twenty-five years ago. As of 2020, 7 off-reservation boarding schools continue to be federally funded.

“Kill the Indian, Save the man” was a common phrase in these schools. Being Indians was savage, but we were ‘savable’ in the eyes of their Christian / Catholic God if we were stripped of the things that made us indigenous.

I am lucky enough to know survivors. I am alive because of survivors.

Survivors taught us younger generations about the horrors they dealt with in residential schools. Beaten, tortured, murdered. Watching other children die from diseases grown in their unclean living situations. ‘Forgetting’ what tribe a child is from and giving them to another reservation to care for until the following year when they’d be taken away again. Raped girls who survived traumatic births at a young age only for their babies to be thrown in the furnace. Sterilizing boys and girls so that if they were released they couldn’t create any more ‘indians’.

These children were ripped from their homes, watched their parents die if they fought to keep their children, were forced to cut their hair (our hair is as sacred as our traditional clothing), and beaten if caught speaking in their native languages. As a 'reward' for good behavior in school, certain children were sent away to live with white families as slaves to 'learn the white way' during long breaks between school periods. 

Keep the families of those who lost loved ones who never returned and the survivors who lived through unimaginable trauma in your hearts. On September 30th wear orange. Join a protest. Support indigenous peoples every day, but especially on September 30th (National Day for Truth and Reconciliation), June 21st (Canadian National Indigenous Peoples Day), and October 8th (American Indigenous Peoples Day). Share our stories. Educate yourself on our history, not the false history written in books by white men, churches, and governments that supported and endorsed these institutions.

Because Every Child Matters.

Resources where you can learn more:

Orange Shirt Society

CBC News - scroll to find the map

NPR

CBS News

CNN News

The Indigenous Foundation

[allthecanadianpolitics]

"Jully Black says the subtle change she made to the lyrics of O Canada at Sunday's NBA All-Star game was the result of a long reflection.

"I sang the facts. We are walking, breathing, living, experiencing life on native land. On Indigenous land," the Juno award-winning R&B singer told The National on Monday.

Black performed the national anthem before the game in Salt Lake City, Utah, and altered one line to recognize the Indigenous peoples who lived on the land before European settlers.

Black swapped out the anthem's usual opening line "O Canada, our home and native land," with "O Canada, our home on native land," adding a slight emphasis to the word "on" when she sang."

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[pro-prin-prinny]

Hate how many people buy into the idea that if Kamala loses it'll somehow be the left's fault. She's a politician it's HER job to get elected. If your stances don't get you there YOU are doing a bad job, CHANGE. For all the meeting in the middle Democrats promise it's never meeting in the middle with the left.

[dinosaurwithablog]

Give me you're tired, you're poor, your huddled mass yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless. tempest tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

These are the values and the tenets on which America was built. How are we now denying access to our country for immigrants searching for a better life. People who are being treated poorly, who are tired, huddled, yearning to breathe free. I take this personally. My grandmother was one of those people. I remember her telling me how she passed the great statue and how she cried because she finally came to a land where freedom and possibilities were endless. She was going to have a great life here, and she did. And I thank God she came here. Now, I'm embarrassed of my countrymen. They are filled with hate and intolerance. That's beyond wrong. This evil man who is running for president would build a wall to keep my grandma out of this country. He would rip me from her side and separate us in cages. He is a scared little man trying to grasp power one more time before he dies in prison. Let's make things great again. Let's make America what it used to be... A great place to live for everyone searching for a better life, freedom, and justice. The only choice we have is Harris 2024

[butchsaint]

smoked our weed right before we hit the border crossing and saw this bear !!!!! and a porcupine. canada win on the books

[rat-kingster]

So I was chatting to my dad about maybe going to Dashcon 2.

I suggested for money reasons that maybe I could stay with my aunt who lives somewhere in BC (British Colombia), but then I realized it's probably pretty far away from Toronto and my dad went "??? No, Toronto's pretty close to BC."

And now it's like 1 am and I just looked it up and like??? No tf it's not??

It's literally on the other side of the country

Me and my stupid American dad we're both so dumb I love him

[goldiipond]

maybe this is me having too much faith in the people calling for the extermination of an entire ethnic group but idk. i feel like the fact that israel has the most powerful settler colony on the fucking planet bending over backwards to defend them from literally every other country should be enough to make at least some zionists realize that they are not the good guys

[jomnki]

time is a flat circle where we watch a country go to another country and randomly will civilians because "what if they're the enemies haha we totally aren't clearing people out to steal their land" etc and we all go "wow thats fucking messed up, good thing it won't happen again!" and then the exact same thing happens right now and the same people somehow are just incapable of accepting that fact that we are living through history and letting the thing we said wont happen again fucking happen again.

[ahaura]

stealing library books because the connection between native americans and palestinians makes people "uncomfortable"...

[petoskeystones]

guy who might be going to college in canada. lmao. lol.

[sexi-lou]

I love writing out Salish names and then having spellcheck tell me I’m wrong. Hey little guy, you don’t even know Puyallup or Suquamish okay? Don’t make me second guess the spelling of words I’ve seen and used my entire life.

[loud-italian-fangirl]

Sometimes I forget that non-Canadians can be fans of Canadian things/people/places and I make a Canadian joke and it doesn’t land online and I get sad………… *sighs in canadian*

[teledyn]

Honest Government Ad | Canada 🇨🇦

I knew we'd make the grade sooner or later! Thank you juicemedia for doing our troubled news agencies' work for them so they don't have to feel they've been impolite!

See also…