Thread by @sunnshiiny

What I find interesting and suspect is the fact that the total number of unmarked graves is not being kept track of by media.

Why is that?

I took a quick peek and there are numbers ranging from 1700 to 5000+. But I’ve seen numbers over 7000 on indigenous Twitter.

https://twitter.com/erinotoole/status/1455653869892083719

Is the media complicit in white washing once again the genocide on indigenous people?

Did conservatives wait the required number of news cycles for this issue to fade from top of mind to them demand the flag be raised?

How long is an appropriate time frame for grieving genocide?

I imagine it is uncomfortable for some who venerate JAM and the founding of Canada to keep this truth at the forefront of people’s consciousness. So discomforting they want to move along.

But perpetrators and their descendants do NOT get to determine the appropriate mourning period for Canadians and most especially for people who lost a child in an unmarked grave.

Raw unmitigated grief does not have a time limit. We don’t ask Jews to get over the Holocaust.

We don’t ask Rwandans to make us comfortable because grief and the accompanying stages of grieving (denial, anger, bargaining, depression & acceptance) are difficult for those responsible and their descendants.

What those demanding the flag be raised need to acknowledge is that they are not in control of determining the length of grieving of an entire nation. Your discomfort pales in comparison to the shock and grief being processed by Canadians.

How dare you @erinotoole suggest we move on?! What gall and impudence you display to suggest it’s been long enough to acknowledge the systematic annihilation of the original residents of Northern North America.

You have children. Would limit your grief for one of them?

Your extreme hubris to believe you actually have some influence in determining how people of this nation process this information, that you have permission to guide the response and herd people away from acknowledgement and understanding is characteristic of how this began.

Europeans, devout Christian sects and merchants descended on this nation and attempted to remove the original inhabitants to make it easier to assume control of land and resources; hiding the public from the reality indigenous people endured. For centuries.

Who do you think you are? The top of the hierarchy? Like those who came before you believed in their superiority to indigenous people? Destroying their economy, removing their freedom, stealing their children and imposing restrictions that destroyed communities from within.

Reconciliation is about acknowledging that behaviour and making amends for the damage it’s done.

A lowered flag is not hurting anyone. It’s a constant reminder that much injustice laid the foundations of Canada. Many profited from death, destruction and imperialist worldview.

So sit down Mr. O’Toole. It’s not appropriate for you to interject your demands to hasten the grieving process or rush past the phase where we talk about what that means and how we can reconcile. If we can reconcile. It’s behaviour like this that makes reconciliation doubtful.

You have concerns about veterans not getting their due respect? Be a leader and explain to them that the freedom they fought for was not extended to FNIM citizens during the entire history of this nation. The evil they brought down in Europe is alive and well here today.

And if they can’t extend the courtesy and respect for the lives of lost children, please ask them to explain what exactly did they fight for?

White supremacy? Freedom to annihilate? Suppression of original land possessors? Assimilation demands?

Isn’t that what WW2 was about?

German, Italian and Japanese leaders claimed parts of the globe that already had vast populations and set about removing those citizens they deemed unworthy of inclusion in their “ideal” versions of society?

Isn’t imperialism just a sanitized moniker for fascism?

We aren’t unsophisticated anymore. Many understand the legislation used to steal our land and try to destroy our communities and ways of life. We’ve survived every attempt to exterminate & assimilate us as inferior members of a white patriarchal hierarchy.

Our tenacity knows no bounds. We will survive and prosper. We will reclaim what’s ours. Our dignity, integrity and community strength has never been broken. Sure there are a few you’ve managed to tempt with promises of wealth and power. That is the whole strategy of imperialism.

Offer a few extraordinary benefits to betray the rest of their community. That is how your system works. Wealth and power go hand in hand in conservative capitalist systems.

But many of us aren’t tempted by your offer.

We want no more than we require to live a full life. That’s one of the major differences between Eurocentric and indigenous value systems. We learn that excess is disrespectful to Mother Earth and our circle of family and friends.

We learn about sharing and enduring every member has enough to thrive, not just subsist. We learn about taking care of one another improves cohesion and increases our mutual survival.

So kindly, back off. You don’t get to interject and assert dominance.

There are a majority of people in Canada who are actively seeking to eliminate unjust domination. Meaning, your time as “masters of the universe” is in the process of sunsetting. Just like fossil fuels is also sunsetting.

Go home, hug your children. Be thankful that indigenous people aren’t seeking to indoctrinate them with noble lies and falsehoods. Be glad indigenous people would never attack your children.

What we’re trying to do is stop you from indoctrinating & taking ours.

We have no idea how many children were lost. Until we do, show some respect, deference to those who grieve, and some humility to wait until that process concludes.

Indigenous people are accused of savagery and uncouth behaviour. But take a look in the mirror Mr. O’Toole.

You’re suggesting we just “get over” the forced removal of our children and the loss of thousands of them to abuse, illness and neglect. Then their corpses were buried in unmarked graves, and forgotten by the church, the government & the mainstream community.

But those children were never forgotten by the mother’s who birthed them, the grandparents who cared for them or their siblings and community members who managed to survive.

We won’t move on until we are ready. Mind your place. Your disrespect is unwelcome.