The timing of the closing events of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission followed by the mass murder of African-American parishioners in a South Carolina church provides ample opportunity for reflection on colonization and racist practices within Canadian and American societies.
Response to the South Carolina tragedy was swift and unequivocal, with condemnations of racism, violence and the legacy of slavery. Occurring against the backdrop of the numerous protests about the treatment of African-Americans by police authorities, institutionalized racism and oppression of African-American people have been on full display.
Media commentators, federal and state politicians, academic and community leaders and the public have denounced the events and called for immediate change, perhaps most poignantly symbolized by the lowering of the Confederate flag at the state capitol.
The message is clear: Slavery is an abhorrent colonial practice entrenched in dehumanizing and racist views and unacceptable within a free society. Further, the legacy of these colonial and racist beliefs enshrouded in policies and actions of individual citizens and governments, including police departments and many others, will no longer be tolerated. The social-media response was instantaneous, with Canadians appalled by the recent events.
Canadians pride themselves on sharing a tolerant, fair-minded, open society where respect for cultural differences and commitment to social justice are held in high regard. It is part of our identity and the way in which we want to be seen throughout the world.
Why, then, is our collective response to the recent Truth and Reconciliation Commission so lacklustre?
Our treatment of indigenous peoples in Canada is disconcertingly similar to the American experience of slavery. We, too, live with the legacy of colonization and racism, including institutional racism that affects indigenous people’s experience within our everyday systems of health care, education, social services, policing and criminal justice.
The closing of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was widely broadcast in the media. However, in stark contrast to events in the United States, there is a profound void, a deafening silence from our leaders and from us, the public.
Where is our outrage? Where is our compassionate response? Our colonial legacy is founded on the invasion, the settling of a land that we now call home, Canada. The impact on the lives, cultures and languages of indigenous people was deeply injurious and continues to this day.
Look at the news on any given day and you will see in full view the results of colonization and racism. Indigenous people are much more likely to lack adequate housing and access to clean water, live in poverty, not complete high school and have little access to higher education, suffer chronic and disabling health conditions, have their children placed in foster care, be victims of violence, be arrested and imprisoned.
These facts, and they are facts, are not because of some moral ineptitude on the part of indigenous people — they are a result of multi-generational trauma, of displacement from land and families and communities, of annihilation of language and culture. Read the report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where these realities and racist colonial practices are fully evident.
Further, consider again the plight of African-American people. You will see an eerily familiar pattern of displacement, loss, confinement, servitude and consequent suffering. Do we not have the moral fortitude to face these realities? To not respond is unconscionable.
We need leaders with courage to name our colonial history and address the legacy of its impact on indigenous peoples and on our Canadian society. We need leaders unafraid of naming racism when and where it occurs and challenging racist practices within our own institutions.
We must see ourselves as part of the problem and as part of the solution. We need to recognize that we, each one of us, must contribute to the dialogue.
To root out and rid ourselves and our country of racism in all forms, we must be willing to look at our institutions and policies right down to the social-studies texts we use and the stories we tell our children about our own history.
And we need to engage in dialogue, in conversation, in reconciliation with indigenous people in order that we all move forward in a society that is more inclusive and embodies the values to which we all aspire.
Laurene Sheilds is professor in the school of nursing and associate dean of the faculty of human and social development at the University of Victoria.
