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Old 01-17-2014, 12:36 PM   #162
opendoor
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction View Post
I'm not ignorant of history though. I am quite aware of what the British and French colonialist, the church and the Canadian government have done to screw over First Nations people in Canada. I never spared them from that blame. I was educated in a school that was about 50% First Nations. They certainly didn't ignore history.

I am simply stating that history is more than just a snapshot and if you look at the big picture, aboriginal people have played a role in their current situation.
Obviously First Nations people play a huge role in continuing the cycle of the poverty and abuse. But as has been demonstrated all over the world, once you're placed in a multi-generational cycle of poverty, it's damned hard to break out of it regardless of anyone's intentions. People can point to outliers of successful people who grew up on reserves but all that does is muddy the issue. I know very successful people who grew up in trailer parks, but that doesn't mean a child born into a very poor family isn't generally severely disadvantaged relative to his peers.

People who threaten or beat up a person for working off the reserve weren't born that way. They've grown up in a hopeless situation where values and a way of life have been instilled in them which are largely a direct descendent of historical wrongs at the hand of the Canadian state. That doesn't excuse their behavior or justify it, but it does offer a context as to why it might occur. It's hard to begin to even approach a solution if we don't recognize why the current situation is as it is. And unlike most other situations of disadvantaged minorities, it's impossible to ignore this issue because of Canada's constitutional obligation to First Nations peoples.
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