Jessica Amber Murray
i should note that this section of the thread was deleted by the moderator of the event page. nice to see where their priorities are.
i still have the thread in memory; i'm going to post it here for context. the issue is one of substance, i think. i've seen this jump up repeatedly. i could cite some people that agree with me, but why bother for the purposes of posting this...
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Jessica Amber Murray
i legitimately just wanted to correct a point that i actually assumed was coming from a white liberal. after all, it's a white liberal perspective! but, the greater context here is something that i think some awareness needs to be raised regarding. this isn't the first time i've tried to discuss decolonization with an indigenous person, only to have them repeat a whitewashed colonial history back to me, and then twist the accusation of colonialism at me. it might not be my place to address strategies to dealing with this. i'd agree in a respect that this is sort of paternalistic. i mean, what do you say about the idea of white people teaching decolonization to indigenous people? it turns decolonization into...the universe just collapsed in a set of contradictions.... i think i can safely analyze the situation, though. i think there's a complex psychological aspect, but i'm going to avoid that. i think there's also an aspect of entrenched hierarchy. something that didn't come up in that discussion was that one of the tactics that the british used was bribing people at the top of the indigenous hierarchy to align with their aims, often explicitly against the interests of their own people. the british were ridiculous assholes in this respect. it worked, more often than not. and, it was a part of the colonization process. so, you'd end up with these wealthy indigenous leaders running their tribes like personal fiefdoms, in exchange for political alliances. sometimes it came with religious conversion. there were indigenous groups in the united states that owned black slaves that were given to them in exchange for whatever. the british did this all over the world, it was a key tactic. i'm left to conclude that what we're seeing here is a legacy of that tactic, on some level, that the colonization process - as it went through indigenous leaders that willingly engaged in exchange for personal gain - has left such an imprint that it's been intersected into their own histories. a certain culture of submission may be complicating that. for the precise issue at hand, at the end of the day, if you want to know what the british were thinking then you ask the british. if you want to know what whatever indigenous group was thinking, you ask that group. you don't ask the british what the indigenous people were thinking. and you don't ask the indigenous groups what the british were thinking.
Kardinal ZG
Hahaha i like how her idea of being a native woman is basically the injun from the movies
Jessica Amber Murray
i'm also going to post this. my understanding of the subject came from an essay on the indian act that i wrote last year, and mostly involved sorting through *older* histories written by the canadian government. now, that might seem backwards. we want the newest sources, right? well, no. not with history. especially when there's been a big change in social attitudes. there's a certain level of candidness that people working for the canadian government had in the period before wwII, and especially before pearson. they weren't concerned about not being racist. so, when a policy was openly racist, they would explain it in openly racist terms. in fact, more recent histories are less reliable in understanding what the government was actually thinking because they've been through all kinds of revisions to try and make the state seem less blatantly racist, because most people don't want to support a systemically racist state. i wanted to find an indigenous source that's a little bit more detailed than the average internet article. the one i posted in the initial thread was a little skimpy. i'm not sure if traci read it; while it was skimpy, it cited some texts. the value of the article was in the citations, rather than the article itself. where it was published wasn't particularly relevant. this is a bit better, and apparently sources from warriorpublications (although i couldn't locate it there). just to add to it, though.... i did bring up the concept of agency. i think this history is a little light on it. there's no question that these treaties were signed largely out of fear of encroaching american genocidal maniacs. there was an expectation of protection in return for the land. but, there's two things you have to keep in mind. first, it was a horrific choice. the choice was between being pushed into a reserve (and that's what 'protection' meant) and being slaughtered by lunatic americans. that's a hobson's choice, really. it's also what i was talking about with the psychological aspect. it's pride. but, there's every indication that the indigenous signatories were entirely aware of the situation they were in, and picked the best of a lot of bad options. that doesn't negate the reality that the rcmp were acting with a very heavy and very exploitative hand - it was just the least worst way of getting fucked over. the second was that the intentions of the police were not altruistic. they were there to clear the way for settlers, and to uphold corporate interests. like all cops. we can talk about whether the british were liars. there's no doubt they were, but only to an extent - protection meant reserves, and that was clear in the treaties. the truth is that the dishonesty of the british was understood by both sides. decolonization means understanding all of this.
http://copwatchvancouver.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/rcmp-history-of-colonialism-state-violence/
http://canadiandimension.com/articles/4664/