FEATURED COMMENT – Why the double standard based on ethnic background?
Kamloops Indian Residential School. m(Image: File photo)
We understand clearly the injustices and inhumane treatment done to First Nations at the hands of the Crown. We treated these people terribly. We owe them the dignity and respect of closing the loop and making amends. We do not owe them the lowering of basic standards like evidence, facts and truth.
Demanding proof and transparency does not undermine our understanding of our cruel history. Recall the claimed goals of Truth and Reconciliation? Truth isn’t a one-way street. But in this case it’s a one-way conversation from a party that clearly knows they severely overstepped on this issue and listened to a reconciliation industry far more concerned about narratives than rigorous evidence.
I am concerned with the truth and facts above everything else. Full stop. Nothing can ever be above that. The mental gymnastics being performed to give a pass on this simple concept central to democracies to a particular ethnic group is frankly disgusting. No one is above the truth. No one is about the facts. The same people railing against Trump’s lies are the same ones willing to accept untruths provided they come from someone or some group aligned with their tribal worldview. Anyone claiming you’re a racist denialist for asking questions and demanding truth is a bigger threat to our way of life than anything in generations.
How does history excuse the deflection, obfuscation, millions of taxpayer funds issued for one purpose that is not being fulfilled, and the substantial public interest of understand the facts after claims of mass child graves sent shockwaves around the world? All of this doesn’t discount or somehow absolve the individuals making these claims from proving them. If your standard of evidence is “just trust me”, you have no business being critical of this council. We live in a rules-based society. People died for that. For the very things and principles some people are attempting to take from us. In this country, we don’t just take claims of atrocities based on flimsy evidence and PR stunts to conform to a narrative. This claim demands evidence to either confirm or deny. We should all be seeking the proof that this did or did not happen.
You would hold Kamloops council responsible for irresponsible spending and undemocratic spending of tax dollars. You would hold council accountable for telling you to “just trust us” when you submit a FOI. You demand a say over AAPs. You are demanding truth (a public mandate for those spends) yet impose no demand for the 215.
Why the double standard based only on ethnic background? You want to talk about racism, isn’t that the definition of racism? I don’t recall the definition of racism including asking questions and demanding rigorous evidence when atrocities are claimed.
ESQUIRE
ArmchairMayor.ca 
The very people about whom you write were not seated at the table to record their own history; they were on the menu. As Carnie recently observed in reference to another matter, this distinction is fundamental.
When you describe this period as “cruel history,” I must assume you are alleging that crimes were committed. I further fail to see what this subject has to do with President Trump. Ought not our discussion centre on policy rather than personalities?
I belong to no political or ideological tribe. I subscribe solely to facts over opinion. In my view, genuine democracy proceeds from organised, concentrated study of the issues, yielding an informed public opinion capable of evaluating how specific conclusions were reached. Outcries from the margins cannot substitute for the intellectual engagement of opposing forces.
History does not excuse; it is written by people, frequently coloured by ideological bias rather than by facts. Ethically, it is therefore required that this matter be examined with equal rigour in both pragmatic and moral terms.
You refer to “flimsy evidence.” What, precisely, do you consider flimsy? Documentary records establish that millions of indigenous people died across the Americas. Large numbers were removed from their villages and never returned; entire tribes became extinct. We possess evidence of smallpox-infected blankets and of populations deliberately deprived of the conditions necessary for life. We also know that, the world over and across centuries, religious institutions routinely buried or burned alive children born out of wedlock.
In the earliest years following Columbus, some such children were reportedly dismembered and fed to dogs.
In the residential-school context, many deaths resulted from tuberculosis and other infectious diseases rendered lethal by chronic malnutrition, overcrowding, and deplorable living conditions; death rates reached 60 percent in certain institutions.
Thousands of “illegitimate” infants were surrendered by shamed unwed mothers to church-run facilities. Many of these children suffered extreme neglect in orphanages where a single nun might be responsible for more than ten infants, leaving children unable to speak or feed themselves properly even at ages four to six, This is not a tribal issue; it is a systemic one and must be analysed as such.
The introduction of the city-council matter is a clear deflection. In any court of law, it would be ruled irrelevant to the question of atrocities against indigenous children, as the two subjects are wholly unrelated. The city council neither perpetrated these acts nor operated the residential schools. Responsibility for those institutions’ rests with the churches and the government.
I trust the foregoing will be received in the spirit of honest, fact-based inquiry that the gravity of the subject demands.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The reference to City council was not a deflection. The featured comment was in response to another comment featured on on another, previously published article elsewhere in the Armchair mayor. Check with me next time, before writing a diatribe.
LikeLike
I’m not sure what side of this discussion that Esquire is on. I can’t tell from his ramble if he supports the KIB claims, or if he is against others questioning the facts.
I, for one, am quite sympathetic to the atrocities that First Nations were presented with, but I would like to know the facts. Are there bodies of school children buried in the orchard beside the school? So far, I am unaware of any evidence of it besides what I consider to be conjecture, and I feel that there should be some excavation to uncover what is there. I don’t want to disturb the sites any more than what has to be done to acquire some evidence of the bodies.
I guess I am becoming more skeptical when as soon as questions are asked, discussions are closed and what appear to be attacks are opened. One way of making me (and I imagine others) more willing to believe the things we have been told for so long, would be to present the evidence as fact. I don’t doubt that the children who attended school there (without their or their parents consent) were mistreated. I want to believe that they found something that would provide the evidence of it. I simply have not seen any movement towards getting that evidence.
What is with giving a press conference, stating some things, and then not accepting questions. It makes me feel that something is being covered up. Why should a homeowner who was doing some work in his yard where 2 skulls were found, immediately lose access to the area, and not be able to find out the rules? Why should that homeowner be subject to huge bills so that there can be some searching to see if there is more there? What is the secret about the survey that was done where they think that artifacts might be present.
I apologize for this rambling addition to the thoughts expressed by Esquire. I am starting to feel that the powers that are controlling things don’t want to expose what is happening with uncovering evidence (of something). Perhaps they know that what they claimed may not be accurate when this first came to light. Maybe it is simply my misunderstanding about what should happen, but I think that shedding more light on this would help me to understand, rather than feeling like something is being covered up.
LikeLike
Since you seem to agree with the points Mel raised in his editorial, “What is the actual number of ‘missing’ at the residential school?”, you cite examples of my public opposition to city council activities, and you mention comments I made in response to Mel’s editorial, I assume the “you” in your argument refers to me.
Of course I have a “double standard” where this issue is concerned. “Irresponsible spending” by “this council” at city hall didn’t kill one of my children. AAPs didn’t make me lose my language or abandon my culture.
Is your problem whether the claim of 215 burials is accurate? Maybe the 215 ground-penetrating radar anomalies that could be evidence of graves in the orchard north of the school raised overwhelming past pain and anger for the Secwepemc people. Maybe the anomalies were taken as proof in the heat of the moment and in the powerful hope that their lost children had finally been found. So what? The number doesn’t negate the fact that children died while in the “care” of the residential school.
Maybe 215 is correct. Or maybe it’s 467. Maybe it’s 10. Maybe the school used lye for more than making soap. Maybe, like the remains recently found in a Kamloops backyard, child burials will be found elsewhere. Will you demand an apology if they don’t find enough graves in the former orchard to suit you? If the number is “wrong,” do you feel the need to humble the Secwepemc more than they’ve already been humiliated throughout recent history?
Is it about the money? Isn’t it hypocritical to be concerned about $12million in federal funds the Secwepemc received to investigate potential burial spots while ignoring why the recent PAC AAP fine print didn’t inform voters that a $65 million leap in PAC costs would drain the city’s reserve funds, or why the $7 million PAC design didn’t account for the slope of the site? Oh—they’re entirely different issues? Yes, they are.
Or is the timeline your main complaint? My belief stands that in light of the terrible injustices the Secwepemc suffered, they can approach the issue of residential school deaths and possible grave sites in their own way and on their own time. Five years may seem a long time to you and Mel, but where child deaths are concerned maybe it’s a short time to the Secwepemc.
Maybe you take issue because the claim “sent shockwaves around the world” and now you’re hoping a finding of fewer than 215 graves will somehow make Canada’s well-known racist past look better internationally. Newsflash: the world has already moved on to significantly “bigger threat[s] to our way of life than anything in generations.”
LikeLike