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Racism on the reserve


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Of course you haven't a clue and I never expect much more of you than a straw man argument. That seems all you are capable of. Maybe it is wet brain?

People are refused residency on the basis of solid membership criteria. And all of it is consistent with the Indian Act which prohibits non-members, non-Indians etc from residing, owning law, renting or leasing property or converting lands or resources.

Colour it any you want, if your mommy ain't a particular type of iundian, you have the wrong racial membership.

Germany had similar laws...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_policy_of_Nazi_Germany

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Yes, European Americans; note where the concept originated and through where its history is tracked in the article you linked to.

Who came up with it, though, is of no importance right now. The real question is: why is it being adhered to in this country, today? Colonial minds of the 18th century can't be blamed for the actions of contemporary First Nations band leaders.

Because it can be, through the Indian Act - a creation of colonialist mentality where might usually trumps right. The actions of band leaders are often afforded an empowerment through the Indian Act that is more heavy handed than the rest of us might tolerate. That said, native people didn't create the Indian Act. As Charter Right's has pointed out this decision of the Mohawks is based on their own laws but I think its fair to question whether the Mohawk leaders would try to enforce their laws if the Indian Act wasn't there to support them.

I wonder: does the fault always end up with everyone else? Consider the conundrum that an apologist like eyeball sets up in this example: the white people being evicted can place fault with the First Nations reserve leaders for their racist policies, but the First Nations reserve leaders can place fault with the white people for racist decisions people not even related to them came up with nearly three centuries ago. Ergo, people with a certain skin colour are always to blame, merely because of their skin colour, even for their own evictions!

I think that's the point the National Post was trying to highlight: the glaringly evident hypocrisy of people who always claim to be victims of racism making others the victims of racism and a system that allows such racism in the name of forbearance. How people can function with such contradictory notions in mind is beyond me.

[+]

I think the National Post is simply trying to push people's buttons is all. I wasn't apologizing for anyone or blaming the color of anyone's skin.

When I heard the term blood quantum laws my first thought was only a colonialist mentality could dream up something so sinister sounding.

Link

As my link proves, I was right. Why you used the basis of a single link to extrapolate a bunch of assumptions perhaps related to your own prejudices was your doing, not mine.

I'd rather the Mohawk leadership use a little more diplomacy and humanity and think the lack of it accrues to a might makes right mentality. Please don't try to tell me this isn't a mentality that still exists in our culture to this day. A number, albeit a small number, of Canadians would be cheering if tanks and soldiers started rolling up the streets of Kahnawake tomorrow.

Like beauty, color is only skin deep, but like ugly, mentality often goes right to the bone. It doesn't have to and I wish it didn't go so deep in this case.

Edited by eyeball
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Oh, sweet Godzilla on His throne.

This is too delicious.

The same people who whine about issues of racism (against non-whites) being nothing more than "political correctness," dreamed up by lefty academics who are living off the "culture of victimhood" in which Natives et al are allegedly entrenched....

Are now screeching about racism.

Against the poor, long-sufferingt whites, of course.

What astonishes is that they can't even see how transparently sad this is. (Their mommies did them no favours by misinforming them as to their intelligence and insight.)

I'm reminded of the increasingly-irrelevant Camille Paglia: she made a public career from attacking what she deemed "political correctness," saying that blacks, and Latinos, and Natives, etc etc...all need to stop whining and complaining about negative portrayals and so on.........

....until, that is, The Sopranos became a hit.

Suddenly, Italian-Americans (of which PAglia is one) were being unfairly stigmatized, and it was so wrong, and so unbearable......

:)

Sad.

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...Suddenly, Italian-Americans (of which PAglia is one) were being unfairly stigmatized, and it was so wrong, and so unbearable......

:)

Sad.

What is sad....that Paglia has a very successful career as author, educator, and critic or that you still choose to watch American television and pop culture because...well...you know.

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What is sad....that Paglia has a very successful career as author, educator, and critic or that you still choose to watch American television and pop culture because...well...you know.

Lots of fools--both pseudo-intellectuals and otherwise--have had successful careers. So that "defense" carries zero information, is not even really a rebuttal.

As for American pop culture...I love American pop culture. I'm an admirer.

It's weird...only you could see a non-American, who is a professed lover of American popular culture, as somehow an affront to....well, something. It isn't clear to me what the insult is supposed to be here.

Edited by bloodyminded
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Lots of fools--both pseudo-intellectuals and otherwise--have had successful careers. So that "defense" carries zero information, is not even really a rebuttal.

It's not a rebuttal...it's a fact. Who the hell needs a defense from your lame assertions?

As for American pop culture...I love American pop culture. I'm an admirer.

...cue crickets.

It's weird...only you could see a non-American, who is a professed lover of American popular culture, as somehow an affront to....well, something. It isn't clear to me what the insult is supposed to be here.

It's not all about you, Francis.

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Comments on this:

First the Canadian Government sets guidelines on who is deemed native under Canada's Indian Act - it requires a certain level of blood ancestry. So there is that racism on who can be deemed first nations within the legislation existing in Canada.

As far as I am aware there are two classes of Indians by law in Canada, those who are members of a band, and those who are not. That is a separate issue.

chiefs and their council as far as I am aware are the ones who determine who can live on reserve. Usually non band members need permission of an on reserve band member to be able to be on reserve, such as a spouse.

While I am not totally aware of band bylaws for that reserve or who and how the residency on reserve is handled, I am fairly sure that the chief of that reserve would normally have the powers, like a super intendant to say who can live on reserve. I would guess that the band would have some means of imposing some type of petition or move to change their executive / chief, although this would determine on powers of impeachment or removal the band may have over their chief.

The whole racial thing is bogus - I think I should be able to be full status first nations if I sought to be we were both born on the same planet and the in the same countries. Fact is both their government and Canada's government have set definition status and a split privilege based on racism. Canada needs to end this instituted racism and give first nations the rights of Canadians, and Canadians the rights of the first nations.

Edited by William Ashley
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Of course. If you think that this situation is even remotely close to what Europeans did to the Natives, then you have a serious skewed vision of history.

Meh...I haven't done anything to yon Native Indians. I'd be seriously pissed if they did that to me based on skin colour.

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As Charter Right's has pointed out this decision of the Mohawks is based on their own laws but I think its fair to question whether the Mohawk leaders would try to enforce their laws if the Indian Act wasn't there to support them... Why you used the basis of a single link to extrapolate a bunch of assumptions perhaps related to your own prejudices was your doing, not mine.

I'd rather the Mohawk leadership use a little more diplomacy and humanity and think the lack of it accrues to a might makes right mentality. Please don't try to tell me this isn't a mentality that still exists in our culture to this day.

Eyeball, that your first reaction was to point at colonial laws as the root of this present event is evidence itself of the attempt to absolve these Mohawk leaders of personal responsibility for their actions. Put together with the above - in which your harshest criticism of the reserve leaders is for their being too undiplomatically racist - what you seem to be saying is that white legislators in colonial times created policies that fostered the racism seen in Kahnawake heads today.

But, the point, really, is the one you casually dismiss with a "but...": the laws being employed here are those of the Mohawks themselves. That means the racism stems from within, not without, and that which exists elsewhere or came before is no excuse; as my wise mother always said, two wrongs don't make a right.

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Of course. If you think that this situation is even remotely close to what Europeans did to the Natives, then you have a serious skewed vision of history.

Our social and cultural standards have changed somewhat over the decades and centuries. Are you suggesting natives are still primitives who are generations behind white people, and so cannot be judged by the same standards?

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Is that supposed to be some attempt at justifying what's taken place?

No. I'm just pointing out that the abuses didn't stop 300 years ago. I can't be sure what the intention was behind that statement, but it certainly glosses over the fact that First Nations were being abused well into the 20th century and some would argue are still being abused. It says nothing about the topic and what has taken place, but I'm not the one that brought it up.
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The very well may be true, and I can't say that I would be too pleased either, however, ethnic cleansing it is not.
Technically it is:
Main Entry: ethnic cleansing

Function: noun

Date: 1991:

the expulsion, imprisonment, or killing of an ethnic minority by a dominant majority in order to achieve ethnic homogeneity

However, I agree the phrase does imply the use of violance which is not going on here and so I could agree if you also agree that whatever bad things happened at residential schools it was not genocide.
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Technically it is:

However, I agree the phrase does imply the use of violance which is not going on here and so I could agree if you also agree that whatever bad things happened at residential schools it was not genocide.

You're calling Native people the dominant majority in our society. They are not.

Nonetheless, I don't agree with the Reserve system anyway. It only serves to segregate First Nations and create a racial, class, and ethnic divide. IMHO, it only makes the problems worse. It's impossible to undo what we have called "progress". The fact remains that we stopped being nomadic, settled on farms (came to North American and forced the First Nations to do the same), then packed cities when industry arose. Although there are horrible inequalities in the system, ie. the widening gap between the rich and poor (even though incomes generally are increasing), it's the only system that can generate the type of capital needed to allow people to sit around and think of ways to cure diseases, make more efficient means of production, etc.

The First Nations cannot maintain their former way of life, nor go back; however, we owe it to them to make it as easy as possible for them to adjust to what we have created in their homeland. We forced our way of life on them and refused to take responsibility for that for the longest time. Our ideas of helping were to force them out of their culture, language, and heritage. That is genocide and we ought to take responsibility for what we have taken from them. I have no idea how to even begin going about doing that, but, like I said, I disagree entirely with the reserve system. You might as well call them "ghettos", like they had for the blacks in the South.

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You're calling Native people the dominant majority in our society. They are not.
It depends entirely on where you draw the lines. Natives are the majority in many parts of the Canada.
That is genocide and we ought to take responsibility for what we have taken from them.
In other words, you have no business complaining when the Mohawks are accused of ethnic clensing because that is *exactly* they are doing. Edited by Riverwind
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Eyeball, that your first reaction was to point at colonial laws as the root of this present event is evidence itself of the attempt to absolve these Mohawk leaders of personal responsibility for their actions.

No, it's evidence that I understand how it came to pass that Mohawk leaders are able to act the way they do. I may not agree with it but I'm not about to stoop to automatic assumptions of racism at their hands or our's to argue against it.

Put together with the above - in which your harshest criticism of the reserve leaders is for their being too undiplomatically racist - what you seem to be saying is that white legislators in colonial times created policies that fostered the racism seen in Kahnawake heads today.

What I'm saying is that legislators today are upholding an old colonialist mentality of might makes right by maintaining the Indian Act - an Act that empowers FN leaders with a heavy handedness that most other Canadians would not tolerate and probably for good reason.

But, the point, really, is the one you casually dismiss with a "but...": the laws being employed here are those of the Mohawks themselves. That means the racism stems from within, not without, and that which exists elsewhere or came before is no excuse; as my wise mother always said, two wrongs don't make a right.

Well that's certainly what the National Post would have us believe.

I didn't casually dismiss anything, I clearly said I regret their use of their law in this manner.

I live next door to a reserve that is also running out of room and housing. Their population is amongst the fastest growing population in Canada and like many reserves on the coast it is in the midst of treaty settlements. This fortunate change of events is prompting a lot of off-reserve natives to return home for the first time in years, many with new non-native family members. It's become apparent that a few of these new-comers are not fitting in well and are causing problems like break-ins and disturbing the peace etc. Necessity is driving these people, in some cases to use whatever laws they have available to do something about it.

Amongst these solutions are some rather unpalatable one's that our laws support nonetheless. The easiest solution in my mind is to simply give them back enough of their land to grow on.

You probably don't have a clue just how dysfunctional things have been at times given a combination of band councils, reserve governance, housing issues, the Indian Act and an often indifferent federal government and non-native population. I know full blooded native people who were often placed at the back of the line for housing on the basis of their ancestors having been slaves.

What you don't seem to realize and what the National Post probably doesn't give a shit about is that the negative impacts of first contact are going to take a few more generations to resolve themselves. These are powerful times for native people, and adjusting to that power is not going to happen with out a few bumps in the road. In the meantime I'm willing to cut them a little slack and I think you should to.

Edited by eyeball
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