Thread by @sunnshiiny

Today I am sad. Very sad.

It’s the first time I have felt defeated and awash in grief for reconciliation.

I’m certain many other indigenous people feel similarly.

What was once a dream of equal personhood has been replaced with fear and woe for what’s to come.

I see people criticizing the new proposed curriculum. Strong, well thought out arguments why this curriculum is so troublesome and devastating for BIPOC, LGBTQ and Women in general.

But my tears and sorrow know this is where it will end.

I’ve watched for the last few years how so many good intentioned people accept the policies of governments that cause great harm and actually kill innocent vulnerable people (spiritually, emotionally and physically).

There has been outrage. Pushback verbally. But that’s where the outrage ends. Yes there have been organized resistance demonstrations here and there. But the public has not sustained their outrage. Within a week, another crisis situation prevails and their outrage is forgotten.

Running from fire to fire. Special interest to special interest.

This will continue for the entire term conservatives are in office. It’s a strategy to keep people from realizing what is happening and to keep them divided.

Teachers will be expected to fight the curriculum, nurse and doctors to fight for universal healthcare, union workers to fight for fair working conditions, seniors to fight for access to vaccines to save their life, advocates and those with disabilities to fight for AISH.

It will never end.

Brannon described this strategy and “flooding the zone with shit.”

What the knee jerk reactions conceal is the root cause of every crises is far right ideology.

Not one Canadian pundit comments on the common factor in every crises that emerges.

I don’t find this odd. My experience has been that Eurocentric cultures often function in smokestack mode. Everyone has their favoured issue & never the twain shall meet.

Indigenous people are often puzzled by this approach. It’s so disjointed and awkward.

It’s indigenous peoples throughout the globe that look at issues with a wholistic lens. All the smoke stacks are lined up in a row. Various special interests jousting with individual stacks. Knock one down and another three replace it in short measure.

The smoke stacks become a symbol for how divided the population is.

Multiple attacks on all fronts and small special interests fighting to maintain their policy gains amid a sea of ideological bulldozing of human rights and social progress.

People who only support one issue or only those that impact them directly have blinders to the other issues. Assuming other special interests are taking care of those issues. They don’t take the time to see the big picture. It’s the same attacker in every attack. Autocracy.

Indigenous worldview is completely different. We are taught that everything is interconnected. Every issue impacts the whole.

Eurocentric culture knows this as systems theory.

Indigenous people know it as traditional worldview. Every issue is evaluated through every vantage point because it impacts the individual, community & nation. Every member is valued, so an attack on one is an attack on all.

There are various ways of expressing this visually.

That perspective is completely eliminated in the new proposed curriculum. Because the curriculum teaches that we are not equal members. It teaches that males, white Eurocentric culture, and social status are the measuring sticks of society. And if you don’t measure up, 🤷🏻‍♀️.

I grew up with this being drilled into my head all through K-12 education. So I made it my mission to understand Eurocentric culture so I could move beyond it and relate it to what I had learned within my family and community.

In school I learned Louis Riel was a traitor. At home I learned he was a founding father of Canada. Negotiating the first indigenous agreement to join confederation. He was thereafter labeled a traitor for assuming his birth place & Montreal education meant anything to whites.

As an indigenous person imbued with intellect I could square that circle. But it still had an impact on my self confidence and self image. I knew the truth, but no one outside of my cultural community acknowledged the truth. We were just half breeds.

It took me decades to feel competent to operate within white society, even though my skin colour hid my origins. Because of my completely different worldview. I had to translate between cultures. Immigrants call this culture shock.

Many believe it to be a function of the colour of their skin being incapable of “fitting in.”

But it’s a common experience among any new comer, regardless of the colour of their skin. The norms, mores and social expectations are different.

Until you incorporate those differences, navigating life can be difficult.

The containment of indigenous culture to past experiences assumes indigenous people want to assimilate and lose their differences. We don’t. No one wants to abandon or devalue their cultural identity.

But that’s what this curriculum will do. Erase us. We will disappear and be devalued once again.

I’m afraid mainstream Alberta will permit this to happen. Because the genocidal nature of this curriculum is left to those who it impacts most to address.

But we can’t do anything, really. It took us 150 years to get to this point. It will take that long or longer this time if the scattered pushback pattern of behaviour continues.

I don’t see one article or ambition to stop this beyond teachers and parents.

And so it means my dream of moving towards reconciliation is over. Indigenous people will not be given power to stop this curriculum. There is already misrepresentation of a FN chief’s opinion.

We are now being directly targeted by the UCP government.

Just like nurses and doctors, teachers, public servants, seniors, people with disabilities, LGBTQ, immigrants, and other groups.

These attacks will never stop. The zone is certainly flooded. We are all running in different directions. We are all so easy to manipulate.

I feel manipulated & jerked around by mainstream Albertans and Canadians who continue to fall for this tactic.

This sums my current mood up. I’m forlorn.

A wave of hopelessness is settling in.

Bannon *

Because I feel the need to use a two by four to get this narrative across, I’m going to put these lyrics into straight forward language so it’s easy to understand how I’m feeling. Multiply this feeling by the thousands of indigenous people feeling similarly.

Long left without support in society to sink or swim.

I did my best to cope with the loneliness of being indigenous and devalued.

Until a nation said they wanted change. I believed them with love in my heart.

With open arms many welcomed indigenous people. Beckoning us to join society as equals.

Did I imagine the wellspring of support for reconciliation? Did I want it too much and projected my feelings into mainstream Albertans and Canadians?

Now we are being devalued again. Where are the efforts to stop this government. It’s all words with no action.

I’m heartbroken.

The public are fighting for their own causes. They don’t see it’s all the same cause.

I feel broken inside and afraid of what will become of my community. Inconsolable.

I’m confused and don’t know what to do to move forward. I’m troubled and feel like giving up.

Should I keep asking for us to work together or just accept my fate? Knowing it means death of my culture and worldview.

I wrote this thread as a last ditched plea for the public to stop focussing on their own special interests and see that UCP are attacking all of us. Keeping us divided. Creating chaos.

Please hear me & this narrative. We stand together or fall divided. I want to stand together.

I wait knowing there is only so long before we reach the point of no return and my people’s opportunity for reconciliation is destroyed.

I’m profoundly sad. And beckoning for the public to see the big picture.

I wait feeling increasing hopelessness enveloping me, because this is just another special interest to most. And I am familiar with human nature.

I’ve studied it for the last 35 years.

I tried to make a difference. But I’m just one person alone waiting for my fate.

I’ve been feeling this since after the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Because I know what comes next. But no one wants to hear it.

Everyday the far right consolidates more power, influences more to hate and abandon democracy.

And I see the public territorially (tribally) defending their individual rights and privileges and ignoring the death of democracy and the elimination of my and many others humanity.