Ongoing Residential Schools Tragedy Discussion

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by edslunch

What does canceling even mean in this context?

As far as I can tell, it's pretty much meaningless in this context and Kenney is just using it as a buzzword to rile up angry reactionary conservatives. Nobody is saying we should erase John A. MacDonald or other 19th century Canadian leaders from the history books or remove them from the education curriculum. We're just re-examining whether or not we want to glorify the architects of genocide with public monuments and naming schools, bridges, etc., after them.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

So they lost a war?

Which is it?

Also, land isn't the same as someone's "stuff". The population of north america before the europeans arrived was a few million people. The highest estimate for ALL of the Americas that I could find was 60 million people. The lowest was 8 million people. That's a population density of .2 to 1.4 people per square kilometer. The US nowadays is something like 35. Canada was even more sparsely populated than that.

So we've got relatively nomadic people wandering around a huge swath of land, with an ultra-low population density. That does not make a strong case for "ownership" of that land, nor does it make a strong case that a nation exists as we would understand them today, or historically.

So I don't agree with your premise regarding theft.

The strongest possible word you should use is "displaced"...but that's also a bit of stretch also given the scarcity of the population.

Here's the thing, all the places we like to live, Vancouver Calgary, Winnipeg etc places were rivers run into the sea providing both abundant fishing and a decent harbour or at the confluence of rivers, at the mouth of the gaps in mountains where the trails started etc all those places we like to live is where they lived when we got here, the same reasons that we set up a village that turned into a town and then a city are why they lived there before.

And the old excuse 'well there weren't many of them and they really weren't doing much with the land anyway' is a bull#### excuse for Israel and it sure as #### aint working here

[BoLevi]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

Here's the thing, all the places we like to live, Vancouver Calgary, Winnipeg etc places were rivers run into the sea providing both abundant fishing and a decent harbour or at the confluence of rivers, at the mouth of the gaps in mountains where the trails started etc all those places we like to live is where they lived when we got here, the same reasons that we set up a village that turned into a town and then a city are why they lived there before.

And the old excuse 'well there weren't many of them and they really weren't doing much with the land anyway' is a bull#### excuse for Israel and it sure as #### aint working here

In order for it to be "theft", we need to have some sort of bar regarding ownership. I don't think a tiny number of people can setup shop at a river and then declare they own a whole continent. The people who were living off the land in Canada at the time had nothing even remotely resembling what we would consider a nation-state.

Just because someone laid eyes on a patch of land, doesn't mean they own it.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

In order for it to be "theft", we need to have some sort of bar regarding ownership. I don't think a tiny number of people can setup shop at a river and then declare they own a whole continent. The people who were living off the land in Canada at the time had nothing even remotely resembling what we would consider a nation-state.

Just because someone laid eyes on a patch of land, doesn't mean they own it.

wow I havent heard manifest destiny actually used as an excuse for theft, well ever, I've read about it from the 19th century but I didnt ever think anyone would be so morally lacking as to actually use the racist imperialistic 'well they weren't as civilised as us white folks, they didnt actually have a country so we can take all their ####!! stupid natives'

That's a bold move to excuse the rape and murder of children

[BoLevi]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

wow I havent heard manifest destiny actually used as an excuse for theft, well ever, I've read about it from the 19th century but I didnt ever think anyone would be so morally lacking as to actually use the racist imperialistic 'well they weren't as civilised as us white folks, they didnt actually have a country so we can take all their ####!! stupid natives'

That's a bold move to excuse the rape and murder of children

It's not manifest destiny, it's a discussion of appropriate considerations regarding when land can be considering owned. (Also manifest destiny was more of an American thing.)

Your premise is that sparse nomadic people had MORE of a right to exist on the land than anyone else. I disagree with that premise.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

It's not manifest destiny, it's a discussion of appropriate considerations regarding when land can be considering owned. (Also manifest destiny was more of an American thing.)

Your premise is that sparse nomadic people had MORE of a right to exist on the land than anyone else. I disagree with that premise.

That is literally what manifest destiny means, the primitives have no right to the land they live on because they are less than us white folks, they should be grateful we are here to civilize them, teach them to wear a suit and tie, what we need to do is take their kids and educate the to be like us white folks, make em live in a school, stop them speaking their primitive jibberish and teach them english, we can let the catholics run them, they like working with kids'.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

In order for it to be "theft", we need to have some sort of bar regarding ownership. I don't think a tiny number of people can setup shop at a river and then declare they own a whole continent. The people who were living off the land in Canada at the time had nothing even remotely resembling what we would consider a nation-state.

Just because someone laid eyes on a patch of land, doesn't mean they own it.

That's what we did, how exactly did we end up owning a country we just 'laid eyes on' and then took from the locals who had been here for at least 10,000 years before our sorry theiving arses showed up looking to take #### we didnt have any claim too

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

It's not manifest destiny, it's a discussion of appropriate considerations regarding when land can be considering owned. (Also manifest destiny was more of an American thing.)

Your premise is that sparse nomadic people had MORE of a right to exist on the land than anyone else. I disagree with that premise.

The biggest flaw in your position, it seems to me, is that the British Crown clearly didn't even agree with you back when it entered into those treaties. The very act of entering into the treaties acknowledged the need for the treaty due to some form of Aboriginal title over the lands. As anyone with even a passing familiarity with such issues in Canada knows, the Supreme Court of Canada continues to recognize that Aboriginal title exists and that indigineous peoples may establish Aboriginal title of unceded land through evidence of traditional occupation and use.

[Makarov]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

Ask your self why they signed the treaties, it wasnt like we gave them anything in return, sign here and we get to keep 99% of your stuff, you get to live on a tiny patch of what used to be your land and we will drop off some flour once a month to make up for the food you used to be able to freely obtain from the land we are taking.

hell of a 'treaty'

The courts have rightfully interpreted treaty rights much more broadly than that.

Also, one the most important things to emerge from the Crown's early recognition of both Aboriginal title and Aboriginal rights (and later, treaty rights) is the Crown's fiduciary responsibility to indigineous peoples in Canada. The residential school system was a flagrant and egregious breach of those fiduciary responsibilities.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

Jason Kenney went on a lengthy tirade against "cancel culture" at a press conference today after hearing that the Calgary Board of Education changed the name of a high school that was named after Hector-Louis Langevin, one of the architects of the residential school program.

"If we want to get into cancelling every figure in our history who took positions on issues at the time, that we now judge harshly and rightly in historical retrospective, but if that’s the new standard, then I think almost the entire founding leadership of our country gets cancelled."

Jason comes soooo close to hitting the mark with that comment.

The Famous Five were champion of eugenics, and supported legislation that saw thousands of indigenous women, “imbeciles,” etc. sterilized. Do we change the names of all the schools named after Nellie McClung, Emily Murphy, and the rest of the Famous Five? Close the Famous Five Centre at Heritage Park?

[PsYcNeT]

Man it sure would be burdensome to rename some stuff so it isn't named after historical #######s.

Just absolutely untenable even.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by BoLevi

It's not manifest destiny, it's a discussion of appropriate considerations regarding when land can be considering owned. (Also manifest destiny was more of an American thing.)

Your premise is that sparse nomadic people had MORE of a right to exist on the land than anyone else. I disagree with that premise.

The term manifest destiny may have been an "american thing" but the premise of exceptionalism resulting in the annexation and occupation of territory certainly is not.

[GirlySports]

We have to be careful about renaming stuff and history, Although I have no problem with removing Langevin School. It probably should have been removed when the bridge was renamed.


But careful because this is a time machine that only goes one way. You can go back and judge people back then using today's standards, but that person back then never gets the opportunity to change his/her behavior using today's standards.



Now residential schools and removing kids from homes and indoctrinating them was wrong using any standard past or present so that seems clear to me anyways. There should probably be a review of everything anyways, not just have these things come up due to the discovery of a mass grave.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

The Famous Five were champion of eugenics, and supported legislation that saw thousands of indigenous women, “imbeciles,” etc. sterilized. Do we change the names of all the schools named after Nellie McClung, Emily Murphy, and the rest of the Famous Five? Close the Famous Five Centre at Heritage Park?

Yeah, cool, let’s do it.

Any Nellie McClung stans gonna lose it if we change the name of a school? I know this means that for many people like Cliff, whose education was wholly dependent on the names of buildings and structures and some statues, they will disappear into the annals of history, but that’s a sacrifice we’re willing to make.

Honestly imagine thinking “WHAT ABOUT THE NAME OF THIS OTHER SCHOOL?” is a compelling argument?

Originally Posted by GirlySports

We have to be careful about renaming stuff and history, Although I have no problem with removing Langevin School. It probably should have been removed when the bridge was renamed.


But careful because this is a time machine that only goes one way. You can go back and judge people back then using today's standards, but that person back then never gets the opportunity to change his/her behavior using today's standards.

No we don’t. We don’t have to be careful about it at all. What’s the consequence? That a school’s name is changed? Well, the unspeakable horror of that might be too much to handle, I guess.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

We have to be careful about renaming stuff and history, Although I have no problem with removing Langevin School. It probably should have been removed when the bridge was renamed.

But careful because this is a time machine that only goes one way. You can go back and judge people back then using today's standards, but that person back then never gets the opportunity to change his/her behavior using today's standards.

Now residential schools and removing kids from homes and indoctrinating them was wrong using any standard past or present so that seems clear to me anyways. There should probably be a review of everything anyways, not just have these things come up due to the discovery of a mass grave.

We don't have to be that careful. These guys we've named stuff after are dead. Life is for the living. I'm not worried about hurting one dead guy's feelings that don't exist if it means added insult/suffering to 10s, hundreds or thousands of living people. Like, c'mon.

[Matata]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

That's what we did, how exactly did we end up owning a country we just 'laid eyes on' and then took from the locals who had been here for at least 10,000 years before our sorry theiving arses showed up looking to take #### we didnt have any claim too

The biggest concession I can give the colonialists is that the continent was wide open and it was just too easy to pass on. Even the highest population estimate of 60 million is effectively 6 million as 90% of the natives coming into contact with settlers would soon die from disease, which also make the remaining 10% much more vulnerable. Repopulating a land an ocean away where the native people have a tendency to be extremely adapt guerrilla warriors would have been impossible without the populations being cleared away by disease, from the settlers perspective it would have mostly looked like open land ripe for the taking. It's hard to expect more out of people in the 1600s.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Yeah, cool, let’s do it.

Any Nellie McClung stans gonna lose it if we change the name of a school? I know this means that for many people like Cliff, whose education was wholly dependent on the names of buildings and structures and some statues, they will disappear into the annals of history, but that’s a sacrifice we’re willing to make.

Honestly imagine thinking “WHAT ABOUT THE NAME OF THIS OTHER SCHOOL?” is a compelling argument?



No we don’t. We don’t have to be careful about it at all. What’s the consequence? That a school’s name is changed? Well, the unspeakable horror of that might be too much to handle, I guess.

It would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad.

[Looch City]

We need to do something about the discovery of these mass graves...

....wait no, not like that, that's CANCEL CUTLRUE! Slippery slope!

This is hilarious and sad at the same time.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by Sliver

We don't have to be that careful. These guys we've named stuff after are dead. Life is for the living. I'm not worried about hurting one dead guy's feelings that don't exist if it means added insult/suffering to 10s, hundreds or thousands of living people. Like, c'mon.

Just that we shouldn't erase all history. Canadians need to know what happened back then. Sure remove the name from things, just don't erase it out of all history books. Maybe naming things after people is a bad idea to begin with.

If you've ever been to China, no streets are named after people. They're named like Construction, Harmony, Friendly, Help. or other cities, like we have Edmonton Trail.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

I don't care who stuff is named after. It is all meaningless to me. Call it Calgary Middle School #27 for all I care.

Just be honest and forthcoming about who these people were and what they did. Good and bad.

Does anyone feel like schools and statues and other stuff are monuments of worship? They're for education as much as anything. When I see a school named after someone, I don't view it with reverence. It's just a meaningless name. But if it helps me learn more about the history of that region, that person, of the people who lived there then great. Literally every person you name something after will have detractors, so that whole whataboutism slippery slope argument gets tired real fast for me.

Frankly I find it insulting that we are ok with indigenous canadians living in squalor and poverty but are like "oh but don't worry, we'll change the name of this school so as not to offend. We all good now? Ok thanks. Fist bump." Eff that BS.

Seems like everytime this type of stuff comes up we get ignorance from the organizations involved, fake tears from politicians and then a big check from the government as long as all the victims and victims descendants promise to not mention it again...until the next round of atrocities are uncovered. Here's a thought, instead of doing nothing but empty gestures about old problems, we do actual things for current problems that those old atrocities directly or indirectly are responsible for?