Thread by @KikkiPlanet

This is an aspect of privilege I hadn’t understood until a few months ago. If you’re a Canadian who can trace your family genealogy back several generations, you’re white. 1/ #ableg #cdnpoli

https://twitter.com/pullmygoalies/status/1399881346546163714

FN’s persons, Black persons who descended from slaves, some immigrants & most refugees do no have this luxury. Their ancestors were abducted, murdered, driven from their homelands... & those who survived often had their names stolen/anglicized. 2/

For FNs, much of their history was an oral tradition, handed down in stories told by their elders, & other leaders & guides. All of that was stolen from them when colonizers invaded, engaged in genocide, & destroyed FNs culture.

We stole their future AND their history. 3/

Really think about that for a moment: we didn’t just steal their land - we stole their entire history on this land. We took away their ancestors. We took away their stories. And for far too many, those stories and ancestors are lost to them forever. 4/

I grew up in a church culture that places a high emphasis on family genealogy. My maternal father’s family records go all the way back to the 1500’s, prior to the family arrival in Virginia, USA, in the late 1600’s. 500 years of family genealogy. 5/

It never occurred to me what an astounding level of privilege that was, until a dear friend explained to me how my government stole his ancestors from him, and he will never know their stories.

The heartbreaking loneliness in his voice when he said that hit me hard. 6/

When we talk about removing statues and changing school names, we are talking about acknowledging not just the obvious horrors & atrocities this country has committed against FN’s persons for hundreds of years, we are talking about giving FNs persons back their history. 7/

This country will never pay the debt it owes to FNs persons because what colonizers stole from them was priceless.

But we’ve got to try. We must. And if it starts with statues... well, maybe it’s time we gave back their history by telling the true story. 8/8

#ableg #cdnpoli

Footnote: to the white people whining at me about how saying all white people can trace their genealogy is an overstatement - nowhere did I say that. I said IF YOU CAN TRACE IT you are white. IF. IF.

Stop. Making. Everything. About. You. And take a comprehension course.