Have you ever let someone win an argument even though you knew you were right? Who? And why?
My mom is just a perfect, calm, cool and collected angel. She’s not one to argue or debate things. I’ve rarely seen her angry.
Dad on the other hand, he’ll go toe to toe over anything that he truly believes in. And we believe in very different things.
But, because he’s nearing eighty years old, I’ve finally learned to just shut my mouth, let him say his piece and carry on. If you only knew what an accomplishment that is for me!
Today is a “holiday” here in Canada. It’s the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. We should be spending the day reflecting on the history of the cruel abuse that Indigenous people went through at the hands of the government and churches, part of which was their Residential Schools.
For those who don’t know, the government had this big stupid and awful idea to remove Indigenous children from their homes so they could “educate” them in these horrible institutions, hundreds of kilometres from home and basically “white-wash” them. They cut their hair, punished them for speaking their languages and tried to take the Indigenous out of them.
But mostly what happened was that the kids were unfairly punished and abused in all manners including sexual abuse by these sick disgusting people including priests, nuns and other church officials and staff. They were homesick. They were fed foods that were foreign to them.
Over 150 000 kids were taken away from their homes and everything that was familiar to them, often forcibly and with police interference.
The horror of the residential school system was not the only injustice that Indigenous people have had to endure, going back as far as the early 1800’s. Even today, Indigenous people are still living with the effects of this intergenerational trauma.
Being that the last residential school closed only in 1996 and they say it will take seven generations to repair itself, it’s going to be a long healing process.
We need to be patient.
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