Mixed race couple driven from Kahnawake home

[Hugh Jahrmes]

Originally Posted by pylon

Then every single band member with a violent criminal record should also be banished from the reserve.

I remember a huge stir in the Ponoka/Wetaskawin area a few years ago when Hobbema (now Maskwacis) was introducing a banishment rule for gang members/violent offenders. People were upset that extreme criminals would basically be driven into neighbouring communities iirc. Not sure if it passed

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

From what I've seen there is no formal inheritance of housing or land. It's the common property of the reserve. Look at it as a commune. Would the Hutterites let anyone move onto their commune?

I think a subtle but important difference with the Hutterite example is that their residence restrictions are based on the person's choice of what they profess to believe and what lifestyle they want to lead.

In the case of the Kahnawake, it is based on skin colour... something beyond the control of the person being discriminated against. In one of the links posted, an evicted white person even signed a document declaring that he respects Mohawk culture and will live according to Mohawk culture. They had Mohawk witnesses to the signing and had the document notarized. It wasn't good enough for the leaders though. The only thing that mattered was the person's skin colour.

Kicking people out doesn't help preserve culture... in fact, it does the opposite. It forces aboriginals into non-aboriginal communities instead. There are many aboriginal people that are the product of mixed race relations (many even have light skin), who uphold their native culture just as well as anyone.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by John Doe

It seems to me that whenever I hear about someone getting kicked off a reservation or losing their First Nation status for marrying outside their race it is a female. I have never heard of this happening to a male.

I doubt it ever happens to a male.

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Maybe he's just being a jackass legally but everyone wanted him out, so they pulled out an old, outdated, racist, and seldom used rule and said "#### the public backlash" just to get him out.

No. It's because he's a non-native guy living with a native woman.

Originally Posted by Vulcan

That was the law but it was changed about 30 years ago. Neither males or females lose their treaty status from marrying outside their race.

The amendment to Bill C-31 was put into place in 1985 to address the custom of disenfranchising from the band list any woman who married or lived with a non-native man, along with her children. Before that, bands didn't hide the fact that there were entirely different rules for native men and native women.

Sadly, although the laws have been in place for 30 years now, there are still bands that routinely discriminate against female band members by punishing them for marrying or having children with non-native men. Their defense is always that they're a sovereign nation, and the government of Canada has no right to tell them who can and can't be on their band list.

So it's egregiously racist and sexist.

[Cappy]

Man, there are a ton of apologists and cultural relativists on this thread.

This is stuff is terrible and speaks to the out-dated model of the reserve system that, unfortunately, many reserve members (or atleast the councils benefiting from them) continue to hold dear.

This is unacceptable for whatever reason any of you speculate.

[AcGold]

Originally Posted by pylon

Sometimes facts are facts.

If this happened off of a reserve in any other community against an Aboriginal Canadian, people's lives would be ruined by the Social Media Justice Warrior's.

This has nothing to do with anything but blatant racism. It has nothing to do with 'white oppression.'

Ah well maybe near genocide, generations of enslavement and abuse soured their moods a tad.

[codfather]

Originally Posted by AcGold

Ah well maybe near genocide, generations of enslavement and abuse soured their moods a tad.

And then the Europeans showed up and things really went south..

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by AcGold

Ah well maybe near genocide, generations of enslavement and abuse soured their moods a tad.

Ah well, maybe years of being raised in a household with parents who lived through the 1950's and '60's caused the reinforcement of gender stereotypes in many young men which is expanded and entrenched by male bonding over sporting events.

Maybe the growth of news media and reporting of crime, with a major focus on arrests of african-americans, has reinforced a person's racist stereotyping of black people in daily life.

Maybe everything that is wrong in this world was caused or influenced by actions or ideas beyond our apparent control. Maybe everyone can be given a pass for their sour moods.

OR, maybe we should attempt to let people know when they are being ****heads and that their view of an issue is wrong and needs to be discarded if we are to move forward as an enlightened society.

[AcGold]

Originally Posted by Cappy

Ah well, maybe years of being raised in a household with parents who lived through the 1950's and '60's caused the reinforcement of gender stereotypes in many young men which is expanded and entrenched by male bonding over sporting events.

Maybe the growth of news media and reporting of crime, with a major focus on arrests of african-americans, has reinforced a person's racist stereotyping of black people in daily life.

Maybe everything that is wrong in this world was caused or influenced by actions or ideas beyond our apparent control. Maybe everyone can be given a pass for their sour moods.

OR, maybe we should attempt to let people know when they are being ****heads and that their view of an issue is wrong and needs to be discarded if we are to move forward as an enlightened society.

You should go study the history of aboriginals, the fur trade the residential schools, the church influence in depth on a year by year basis. If you had you wouldn't say something like this. Free pass is just a profoundly uneducated thing to say and shows little to no understanding of history.

Acting like a ####head? No, acting like a generationally tortured culture.

[Coys1882]

Originally Posted by AcGold

You should go study the history of aboriginals, the fur trade the residential schools, the church influence in depth on a year by year basis. If you had you wouldn't say something like this. Free pass is just a profoundly uneducated thing to say and shows little to no understanding of history.

Acting like a ####head? No, acting like a generationally tortured culture.

At what point do you have to let go though? Every civilization has been exploited and victimized by another. My grandmother loved the Germans and Germany even though they bombed the #### out of her city and killed two of her brothers - that directly affected her not generations down the line.

I think for the most part people think differently now and we should all be trying to get on the same page not allow bitterness for past wrongs - it isn't healthy.

[AcGold]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

At what point do you have to let go though? Every civilization has been exploited and victimized by another. My grandmother loved the Germans and Germany even though they bombed the #### out of her city and killed two of her brothers - that directly affected her not generations down the line.

I think for the most part people think differently now and we should all be trying to get on the same page not allow bitterness for past wrongs - it isn't healthy.

Still, a profound lack of education. And I mean profound. This isn't about letting go, my family experienced hardships as well, the Nazis lined up my bloddline and shot them, nearly every single person with my name was killed.

However, that was one generation. The last residential school was closed in the 90's not more than 30 years ago.

For arguments sake say I took your children, abused them, enslaved them in boarding schools that resembled prisons and drove them to suicide. Introduced foreign drugs to their system and taught them forcefully that their cultural identity is less than nothing. Then I took their kids and did the same, and then to their children. For generations I torture your bloodline, drive many of them to suicide and tell them they are worthless. Then when it stops and they act up tell them to stop acting like ####heads and tell them to just get over it already.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by AcGold

You should go study the history of aboriginals, the fur trade the residential schools, the church influence in depth on a year by year basis. If you had you wouldn't say something like this. Free pass is just a profoundly uneducated thing to say and shows little to no understanding of history.

Acting like a ####head? No, acting like a generationally tortured culture.

You can study any society and have these issues.

Go study Judaism under any regime in history. Look at the history of the Japanese and Chinese under colonial rule. Africans under colonial rule or even before then. Look at Armenians under Turkish rule. Latvians, slavs, Ukrainians, under Soviet/Russian rule. Look at Yugoslavia.

What difference does they crappy way we treated natives have with any of the above? Almost all of those mentioned above have happened closer to today than the examples you mentioned.

You act like the oppression natives faced in NA is different and worse than any other oppressive act other people have faced anywhere. Retaliation based on racism is not acceptable in any of the instances above and shouldn't be acceptable in this instance either.

I'm not offering a free pass, because that would imply there is a barrier that needs to be passed (i.e. oh we have these racist rules but we will gave you a free pass).

[polak]

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[Coys1882]

Originally Posted by AcGold

Still, a profound lack of education.

Yep - you're right. This is the only example in history.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by AcGold

Ah well maybe near genocide, generations of enslavement and abuse soured their moods a tad.

...and made it justifiable for native men to kick out the white spouses and children of native women, while their own white women and children are a-okay?

Your eagerness to regard all natives as nothing but victims who are not responsible for their actions is blinding you to inexcusable bigotry and exclusion within native communities. Par for the course for those whose minds can't cope with the nuance of any group other than white European males being oppressive, cruel, or bigoted.

[AcGold]

I never said I regard them all as victims. You guys should be ashamed, this is a disgraceful display of ignorance and egotism

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by AcGold

I never said I regard them all as victims. You guys should be ashamed, this is a disgraceful display of ignorance and egotism

How so?

Because we refuse to allow a group of people to remove another person from their own home because of the colour of his skin and ancestry, based on some notion that others that look like him did bad things to other people that looked like them?

He's right, guys. Lets pack it up.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by AcGold

I never said I regard them all as victims. You guys should be ashamed, this is a disgraceful display of ignorance and egotism

AcGold, I agree that the treatment of the aboriginal people(s) has been poor (to say the least). That being said I agree with Coys1882 that there needs to be steps forward by both sides towards reconciliation. While wounds are still deep & fresh there needs to be a willingness to accept an apology and much as a willingness to give an apology.


It is a two way street.

[AcGold]

Originally Posted by Cappy

How so?

Because we refuse to allow a group of people to remove another person from their own home because of the colour of his skin and ancestry, based on some notion that others that look like him did bad things to other people that looked like them?

He's right, guys. Lets pack it up.

No, you really should he embarrassed. I never suggested that it was OK to exile the people from their home at all, I never suggested that bigotry is OK I was simply aware of the profound lack of education in this thread.

If you have the urge to insinuate I said something that I never even remotely suggested you should check your head. 3 false assumptions on one page from ignorant uneducated people. How about instead of telling me what I said when I didn't say it you go read about history instead. I am ashamed to call myself Canadian if this is how you people behave, truly shameful. You want to point the finger at me while blatantly lying about what I meant in a melodramatic nonsensical red herring of a post. I thought Canadians were better than this.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by AcGold

No, you really should he embarrassed. I never suggested that it was OK to exile the people from their home at all, I never suggested that bigotry is OK I was simply aware of the profound lack of education in this thread.

It's possible to be well-versed in the history of natives in this country and still not subscribe to identity politics, or turn a blind eye to bigotry practiced by natives. Every culture is racist. And it's not equivocating to say so.

[GGG]

That still doesnt justify a policy which kicks out a person for marrying outside the culture. It explains the poverty, the alcohol abuse, and other issues but this racism is as beaten now as it was in the 1800s when this policy was applied to just women marrying white men.