Thread by @hayatsgan

A list of a few things that Indig ppl have every right to be outraged over:

• all of the genocide
• removal from homelands by RCMP
• assimilation
• residential schools
• potlatch ban
• theft&selling of our ceremonial items which still sit in museums around the world

• reserve system(which we needed passes from Indian Agents to leave/visit with family in other communities.) thank you Canada for letting us leave the reserves when we want now.
• diseases that colonizers brought with them that damn near wiped us all out
• smallpox blankets

• the kidnapping of our children, by RCMP & Indian agents, forced into residential schools, if children weren’t given up, parents were jailed.

My grandmother. My grandfather. My uncles. My aunties. All survivors. All lived their lives carrying this trauma/pain/shame.

• racism & discrimination within the education system
•racism & discrimination with the health care system
•extreme racism and discrimination and dehumanization within the justice system.
•racism & discrimination walking down the street
•racism & discrimination on SM

• Colton Boushie - 20 year old Indigenous youth murdered by Gerald Stanley, shot him in the back of the head. Acquitted.

•Tina Fontaine - murdered by Raymond Cormier, who wrapped her tiny 15 yo body in a blanket, weighted it with rocks and tossed her in the river. Acquitted.

• the number of Missing and Murdered Indigenous women can never be totalled. 6,000+, It’s rising every day. As quickly as violent man camps are forced onto these lands.
•6,000 children laid to rest in unmarked graves beside residential schools.

• the theft of hunting and fishing tools by Canada. Then making it illegal for us to hunt and fish in our hereditary lands and waters. Patrolling DFO agents arresting Indigenous people fishing from their own waters. To this day.

•”seizing” boats, fishing nets
• CN blasting through our hereditary lands, occupied or not.
• Indian Act controlled funds to communities, with the swipe of a pen, can decide to discontinue funds if they do wish.
• Contaminated waters.

•lack of infrastructure
• forced poverty
•forced starvation
• no housing
• no healthcare
• limited, select few post secondary education opportunities.

That’s just a small list.

Canada tells us to be civil.

Canada is mad at what? What are you mad at?

Canada tells us to be peaceful.

Canada tells us anger isn’t the way.

Oh. I’m angry all right. But I carry strength, I’m stronger than you. I carry my grandmothers teachings. I carry the strength that she carried from her grandmother, that she carried from her grandmother, that she carried from her grandmother...

I don’t carry the viciousness in my heart that it takes to commit these crimes, the hate that it takes to ignore these crimes. the racism or discrimination that it takes to allow this to happen.

I carry forgiveness.

Not for Canada.

Not while they continue to commit the same crimes as their forefathers.

I can spare it for the people who do not know, who didn’t know, but who do now and want to do better. Be better.

Don’t be mad at me, or the Indigenous people of these lands for speaking their truths.

Be mad at your governments. Be mad at the systems that withheld the truth from you for so long. You deserve to be educated, so proper discourse can be had.