Originally Posted By Dr.DawgThey were intended to assimilate Native people–to accomplish the task of ethnocide. There are people who might see this sort of thing as “well-intentioned,” but Godwin forbids me from being more specific.

Well put, Doctor. The residential school system was government-sponsored systemic racism. Anyone claiming that they were created for any other purpose than to eradicate Aboriginal culture ought to take a closer look at the historical record.

I daresay that the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and Ang Lee are “well-intentioned”, at least in their own minds. Are we to forgive them for their attrocities?

Originally Posted By Dr.DawgThey were intended to assimilate Native people–to accomplish the task of ethnocide. There are people who might see this sort of thing as “well-intentioned,” but Godwin forbids me from being more specific.

I would argue that applying today’s standards, understandings and expectations to a policy written 100 or so years ago is Monday morning quarterbacking to the extreme. Other countries were behaving in similar (or in the case of South Africa, worse) fashions up until what, the 1960/70/80s?

That being said, it was a brutal policy and truly indefensible.

What Dawg said was that the purpose of the schools was ethnocide - the killing of a culture. And he is quite correct. That goal was explicitly stated again and again, usually phrased more positively - “introducing young Indian and Inuit children to Western culture to help them assure their future”, “rescuing poor natives from a life of squalor and poverty”, and so on.

I don’t doubt that many of the bureaucrats and priests and teachers were decent folks who thought they were doing the right thing. But they weren’t.

Every era incorporates unexamined wrongs that most of its residents don’t notice. MOST slaveowners at the height of slavery didn’t walk around burdened by a secret sense of guilt. Most nineteenth century males didn’t think there was anything odd about the fact that their wives couldn’t vote. To us the injustice inherent in those situations is obvious; to them, it was wallpaper.

I wonder what transparently obvious social evil future generations will be shaking their head about when they look back at us.

I’m guessing the prison system, but we’ll have to wait and see. Did you have plans for your next life?

what transparently obvious social evil…

Whooee! Child welfare, the prison system, the separate school system, homage to car culture, bottled water, controlled immigration, circumcision, who knows?

I reckon our biggest failure (the human race’s, that is) is worldwide poverty and starvation. We’re on the cusp of an even bigger disaster than we’re already in and yet, millions live like kings while millions starve. With all of our resources, we will look back in shame at the 24,000 people who starved to death every day in 2008, so far. That’s eight times the 9/11 death toll — every single day.

JB

Child welfare was Wideye’s suggestion. I suspect he’s talking about the abuses of various social service agencies like Children’s Aid Society. The tip of that iceberg shows up every so often with some horrific tale of child abuse under the negligent eye of some social service bureaucracy. But that’s just what i suspect Wideye might have been referring to.

JB

Its my personal and humble opinion that the Child Welfare Legislation is old and so broken that is SHOULD be the next obvious evil . It may have started with (again) the best of intentions to protect children…who would disagree from such a lofty goal….but in fact only removes children from one harm leaving them exposed to a myriad of others.

I am an older child of the “sixities scoop”. The five children removed from my mother were not taken because of abuse or neglect. We were removed because she worked and left the children in the care of her mother, our Grandmother. How shocking that it was considered neglect for an Aboriginal woman to work and support her family. How shocking it was for her to come home to find her children gone - without a trace.

So un-clean water, circumcision, car culture…yup bad. The reason I say Child Welfare policies is because after all this education about the impacts from the residential school, we can say today with knowledge - that there are more Aboriginal children in institutional care today than at the height of residential schools. And still there are precious few programs geared towards the family and supporting the needs of families to say together. And that’s why it is the most obviously shocking and transparent evil…but if it doesn’t impact you directly, why would you think of it?

This is not a knock to the families that foster or adopt - more power to those who care and give of themselves but I am referring to legislation that needs to be revised. If not Child Welfare legislation as a whole - then certainly the Aboriginal Child Welfare policy…as a policy analyst/researcher my passion has been and always will be the well being of Aboriginal children but I am prepared to accept that this legislation does no one any favours.

Balbulican…I’m open to possibilities for my next life. I guess I don’t care much so much as I have an easier time. I like being a woman - it has its struggles but I think being a man has it’s own set of challenges. I’m kinda just getting the hang of being woman so another go next time around should help…what about you?

Agga. Itkiliq. ;)

@Shmohawk Hey, dude, it’s not MY language. Besides, wasn’t it YOU guys who came up with “Eskimo”?

Inuktitut names for other ethnic groupings are pretty weird/cool.

White folks, generally, as referred to as “kabloonaq” (spelled any of a zillion ways, so don’t jump down my throat, Throbbin’). It’s also been translated a zillion ways, but my favourite rendering is Minnie Aodla Freeman’s translation, “People who pamper their eyebrows”.

Blacks are “Portugee”.