Quote:
Originally Posted by Cole436
We're not discussing Italian or Irish cultural imagery which has allowed immigrants and their decedents to integrate into Canadian society. We're discussing a group of people that historically were:
- Almost driven to extinction due to European action during colonialization, including intentional spread of disease, displacement and cutting off food supply
- From 1876 until the first world war, they were essentially prisoners on the reserves due to the Indian Act restrictions
- Experienced the Residential School System from 1847 until 1996 where our government attempted and almost successfully committed genocide.
Currently this group of people are:
- Systemically targeted and persecuted by the Canadian Criminal Justice System, being comically over represented in Canadian prisons. They represent only 4% of the total Canadian population yet account for 30% of all federal inmates. When compared to white Canadians, they are disproportionally arrested, charged, charged with multiple offences, found guilty, and serve jail time.
- Indigenous reserves have an infant mortality rate that is on the level of developing nations.
- Indigenous Canadians have a dropout rate 2.3 times higher than the national average
- A life expectancy over 10 years less than the national average
- A 14% unemployment rate
We are discussing a vulnerable group that our country has attempted to eliminate for centuries, continuing still today. These are groups that are, and I don't mean this figuratively, struggling to survive. Do you think it's appropriate for corporations to appropriate pieces of their art and culture without any financial compensation?
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by sketchyt
Just wanted to add a couple more stats that blew my mind and never knew about, considering how much the topic of systemic racism is being pushed: - The suicide rate among First Nations people was 24.3 deaths per 100,000 person-years at risk, which StatsCan says is “roughly understood as number of deaths per persons per year.” That is compared to eight deaths per 100,000 person-years at risk for non-Indigenous people.
- In May 2018, there were 174 drinking water advisories in over 100 First Nations. Some of the advisories date as far back as 1995 – like Shoal Lake 40 First Nation. A single drinking water advisory can mean as many at 5,000 people lack access to safe, clean drinking water.
|
I acknowledge all these stats, I agree that there is systemic racism against indigenous people, and I still don't think that it should obligate anyone to pay something like a licensing fee or a tax to use a broad artistic style. Nobody should own styles of art any more than anyone owns a language or a genre. These are things that thrive or die depending on how many people use them. Their broad use should be embraced and their death is the least desirable outcome for anyone who cares about them.
Ideas like forcing the Canucks to pay compensation may come from a place of good intent (including but not limited to hatred of the Canucks), but I think they also diminish discussion of more substantial issues such as decolonization. Expressions of injustice made on behalf of indigenous people in relation to appropriation also often strike me as subtle propagation of the myth of the noble savage and seem maybe a bit infantilizing of indigenous people.