Ongoing Residential Schools Tragedy Discussion

[Monahammer]

Lol could you imagine actually believing that comparative death statistics matter when you're talking about an unmarked mass grave of children? I continue to be astounded by the depths of depravity existing in some people.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Makarov

Thank goodness CliffFletcher and BoLevi have arrived to steer this discussion about residential schools back to their preferred topics of discussion, including greatest hits like "the regressive left".

Did you miss the part where I was responding to a specific question?

But carry on. I see a really productive way forward with spitting contempt and derision at the religious. It has an unimpeachable track record as a strategy for bringing about positive change. No doubt any indigenous Catholics reading this thread have taken great solace from the comments made here.

[V]

Religious or not, I think we can all agree that the Roman Catholic Church is just all kinds of terrible.

[calumniate]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

Lol could you imagine actually believing that comparative death statistics matter when you're talking about an unmarked mass grave of children? I continue to be astounded by the depths of depravity existing in some people.

Thanks for attempting to bring this topic back to reality. Sadly, it likely won't last long but thumbs up sir.

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by Makarov

Thank goodness CliffFletcher and BoLevi have arrived to steer this discussion about residential schools back to their preferred topics of discussion, including greatest hits like "the regressive left".

Those two posters have not been remotely close in the content or quality of posts.

[stone hands]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Did you miss the part where I was responding to a specific question?

But carry on. I see a really productive way forward with spitting contempt and derision at the religious. It has an unimpeachable track record as a strategy for bringing about positive change. No doubt any indigenous Catholics reading this thread have taken great solace from the comments made here.

theres an old saying: you cant reason someone out of a position they didnt reason themselves into


im curious as to what type of discourse you think is appropriate for irreligious, tech savvy white people to "get through" to indoctrinated religious people of any disenfranchised group


when an individual feels personally attacked because the organization that runs their faith commits truly atrocious acts against humanity, what is the way to bridge the gap and make that person try and see the forest for the trees

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Of course populists make great hay exploiting these divisions. But the knowledge-class does the work of populists for them when they denigrate the unenlightened. Notice I didn’t say disagree with, but denigrate....

Finally, the root of the monstrous residential school system was white saviour syndrome. The idea that benighted native people needed to be led into the light by enlightened Europeans. A bunch of white atheists expressing contempt for the brainwashed fools (many of them indigenous) who persist in their ignorant beliefs has echoes of the same arrogance.

You don't wan't people to smear religious people with a wide brush, but you don't seem to have any problem smearing populists or atheists with a wide brush. Hmm....

One of the ways the enlightened keep up a compassionate self-image is by imagining that the people they’re denigrating are all middle-aged white men. People who don’t deserve sympathy. Which is why I’d guess people around here haven’t been particularly receptive to the data showing high rates of vaccine hesitancy among people of colour. They want to hate people who won’t get vaccinated, and that’s a lot easier when they’re picturing some people in their minds and not others.

Is it possible to frown at vaccine hesitancy, without actually hating the people who are vaccine hesitant? It's an important distinction that I'm not sure you're making here.

The same with religion. The popular depiction of religious conservatives in our media is white men. Which makes performative contempt for religion and the religious acceptable in their social circles - admirable even. Lots of social media points to be earned showing white people emerging from a church during the pandemic with a caption “#### these idiots.” I’d wager few of these people would post a picture of people emerging from a mosque over that caption. It would be unthinkable.

Same thing here. Hate the ideas, not the people embracing the ideas.

My criticisms of the Catholic Church are pointed, harsh, and unapologizing... yet have absolutely nothing to do with the skin colors of the people who follow its doctrines.

Maybe the enlightened wouldn’t be so contemptuous of the unenlightened if they were prodded to recognize that many of those unenlightened don’t fit the profile they want to assign to them. White men are actually the least religious demographic in North America (women of colour are the most religious). Catholics aren’t just pasty old white dudes, but young Filipino women, South Korean families, and the tens of thousands of indigenous Canadians who make the pilgrimage to Lac Ste Anne every year. There’s a good chance the next Pope will be African, and that would almost certainly shape how people talk about the Church.

Maybe, but speaking for myself and most of the atheists I've ever met, my criticisms of religion and dogmatic thinking don't have anything to do with the countries of origin of the people blindly following the doctrines.

I point out these demographics in the hopes of making people more tolerant. Less eager to put the unsophisticated and unenlightened in boxes so they can hate them with a clean conscience.

And yet my worry here is that the opposite effect could come into play... religious people weaponizing skin color as a way to conflate criticism of religion with hating on miniorities. It's the same kind of tactic used by the Netenyahu government, where he tries to label any criticism of his government's actions as Antisemitism.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

It is obvious that the deaths of children in care is a horrific tragedy and there are long lasting implications of trauma in youth that impact indigenous communities to this day. This shouldn't be a controversial statement in any way shape or form.

Our society has made mistakes in the past and will continue to make mistakes going forward. Our attitudes and beliefs change, we gain more information, knowledge and hopefully develop empathy for others along the way. The environment that the perpetrators of residential school trauma grew up in shaped their world view and their actions as a result. This doesn't make them bad people, but it also doesn't mean we need to continue to celebrate them with schools, roads, and communities named after them. If these changes help a community grow and move forward then I think it should be done. That said I think that the multigenerational trauma is more complex and results in bigger issues going forward such as with FASD and substance abuse.

My fear though is that there will be empty platitudes, ribbon wearing, flag lowering, and then little change. I hope I'm wrong but we have all seen this song and dance before.

[BoLevi]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

It is obvious that the deaths of children in care is a horrific tragedy and there are long lasting implications of trauma in youth that impact indigenous communities to this day. This shouldn't be a controversial statement in any way shape or form.

Our society has made mistakes in the past and will continue to make mistakes going forward. Our attitudes and beliefs change, we gain more information, knowledge and hopefully develop empathy for others along the way. The environment that the perpetrators of residential school trauma grew up in shaped their world view and their actions as a result. This doesn't make them bad people, but it also doesn't mean we need to continue to celebrate them with schools, roads, and communities named after them. If these changes help a community grow and move forward then I think it should be done. That said I think that the multigenerational trauma is more complex and results in bigger issues going forward such as with FASD and substance abuse.

My fear though is that there will be empty platitudes, ribbon wearing, flag lowering, and then little change. I hope I'm wrong but we have all seen this song and dance before.

What change would you like to see?

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

What change would you like to see?

We could start with something as simple as, oh, I dunno, clean water that has been promised over and over.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

What change would you like to see?

free counselling for survivors and their decendents and free education for life

[BoLevi]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

free counselling for survivors and their decendents and free education for life

this seems reasonable. how many generations of descendants?

[Wastedyouth]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

this seems reasonable. how many generations of descendants?

As many as needed.

In fact, free education for all Canadians seems pretty good to me.

[Manhattanboy]

So how many millions were spent on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission? Was this very issue not a principal topic that was investigated? If not why not?

What have the Liberals done since the Commission released its report?

Forgive me but I am not as up to speed as I should be.

The fact that we can't get clean water to First Nations Territories is in itself a national embarrassment.

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Did you miss the part where I was responding to a specific question?

But carry on. I see a really productive way forward with spitting contempt and derision at the religious. It has an unimpeachable track record as a strategy for bringing about positive change. No doubt any indigenous Catholics reading this thread have taken great solace from the comments made here.

It was probably an unfair post. And I agree with you that it is (obviously) unfair to treat all things and persons religious with contempt. However, there are already several threads with active or semi-active discussion of that and similar issues. I think it would be a shame for this thread to detail into another such discussion.

Anyway, as I conceded, it was probably an unfair, cheap shot post, so I apologize for it. It was born out of frustration.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Did you miss the part where I was responding to a specific question?

But you didn't respond to it.

My question didn't contain any question about, implication relating to, some sort of fantasy-world where criticism of religion is substitutional criticism of old white men. I suspect you'll agree, having read my posts, that I couldn't possibly care less about engaging in that sort of thing. It was about why it would be problematic to apply criticisms of religion across the board, regardless of what ethnicity the religious people in question are. You can't steer your response towards claims obviously I wasn't making, or biases I obviously don't possess, in an attempt to avoid actually answering the question I actually asked.

The only thing in that post that was remotely on topic was this:

A bunch of white atheists expressing contempt for the brainwashed fools (many of them indigenous) who persist in their ignorant beliefs has echoes of the same arrogance.

Many of them may be indigenous, but many aren't, too. Hell, many of them are southeast Asian. It couldn't possibly make the least difference. Nor does it make any difference what my skin colour is when I criticize the Church. There's no "arrogance" about a rejection of dogmatism, any more than there's arrogance to insisting that two and two is four.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

this seems reasonable. how many generations of descendants?

I would just create a seperate mental health system with an emphasise on addiction and residential schools generational issues for our native community, it would almost certainly be cheaper than the band aids we use now for the multitude of social issues the community faces anyway.

Again with education, free for any native for life, if (and over a time I believe it would) it lifts our native population out of the difficulties they face then it would pay for itself and what price can you place on Canada anyway? we owe them for our whole country, aside from the grim abusive crap we did to them after we stole everything they had.

[BoLevi]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

I would just create a seperate mental health system with an emphasise on addiction and residential schools generational issues for our native community, it would almost certainly be cheaper than the band aids we use now for the multitude of social issues the community faces anyway.

Again with education, free for any native for life, if (and over a time I believe it would) it lifts our native population out of the difficulties they face then it would pay for itself and what price can you place on Canada anyway? we owe them for our whole country, aside from the grim abusive crap we did to them after we stole everything they had.

"We" is not a particularly useful term in the context of the long course of history, distant generations, nations coming and going on a global scale, and immigration.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

"We" is not a particularly useful term in the context of the long course of history, distant generations, nations coming and going on a global scale, and immigration.

I live on stolen land, there isnt a way I get to morally wash off that original sin just because the land was stolen a while back and lots of other people were stealing things as well.

My obligation to the survivors of the people who my land was stolen from is to at least acknowledge the theft and try to enable them to enjoy the same fruits of that theft as I am enjoying

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by V

Religious or not, I think we can all agree that the Roman Catholic Church is just all kinds of terrible.

Canada is just all kinds of terrible. The RCC was a tool that Canada used to colonize people. It’s also worth mentioning that the Anglican Church operated dozens of sanctioned residential schools and had the same results.

Blaming religion seems like a way for non-religious people to wipe their hands clean and deny the secular element of colonialism.