PETERS – In the midst of its grief, Tk’emlups community exemplifies compassion
Volunteers prepare food for wildfire evacuees. (Image: CFJC Today)
IT’S TIME WE SIT BACK AND CONTEMPLATE the marvel that is the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc community.
Like most Indigenous communities where a residential school operated in the past, the Tk’emlups had a knowing, passed down in the oral tradition, that there was an unmarked graveyard nearby. In those graves were students who attended that school.
The knowing was incredibly painful, but Tk’emlups pushed through that pain to begin the work necessary to provide those children with the kind of remembrances and burials they deserved in the first place.
James Peters is the radio anchor at CFJC, coming to Kamloops in 2006. He anchors the afternoon news on B-100 and 98.3 CIFM, and contributes weekly editorials to the CFJC Evening News. He tweets regularly @Jamloops.
Yes, I feel the same admiration for First Nations across Canada. After the bullying behavior, nay criminal behavior, of the genocidal policies of our past governments, and even the present one which uses words of reconciliation but does nothing to dismantle the act which still legitimizes extreme inequality if I were of their racial background I’d sharpen up my spears and arrows, not turn the left cheek and show a Christian charity to all. Their acceptance of all fellow men/women passes my understanding. But then my ancestry goes back to the highland clearances of Scotland. Perhaps that’s the reason.