Day of Awareness Helps Fight Racism
Jun 20, 2007
National Aboriginal Day is June 21st. A day which the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs refers to as an opportunity for Aboriginal people to “express great pride for their rich diverse cultures with their families, neighbours, friends and visitors.”
I believe it is a very important day for all Canadians to recognize the culture, remind us where we have been and, more importantly, where we need to go.
In the mid-1980s I became involved with the labour movement because I couldn’t believe the amount of racism that was allowed to exist within my workplace. I was looking for some support and an avenue to speak out, so I became a union activist.
At a Winnipeg labour convention held in 1988, I was asked to speak on a resolution about discrimination. And much of what I had to say then still applies today.
Being that tomorrow is National Aboriginal Day, I would like to share my words from that convention with those who may have never felt the isolation and helplessness caused by racism.
“Racism and discrimination: those are two words that make my soul ache. I am a human being. I am an aboriginal person. I am Sioux Valley Reservation Number 765 - a label that identifies me as a treaty Indian. The Government of Canada says I’m ‘An Indian within the meaning of the Indian act chapter 149 Revised Statutes of Canada in 1982’.”
What does this mean to me? Nothing - I know who I am.
What does this mean to our society? Well I can say for sure that for many members of our society it means that I’m privileged. I’m privileged because my father came to the city of Winnipeg from a Manitoba reservation some 40 years ago to seek out a job and raise a family only to be humbled and forced to eke out a living in the substandard society also known as the core area. I’m privileged because I can go into a department store to shop only to be followed around by employees who are suspicious of me. I’m privileged because I can walk down the street to be spat upon by a non-native.
I cannot demonstrate to you how I felt and still feel when experiencing such ‘privileges’. I even looked in dictionaries and thesauruses to try to find some words to explain this better, but there are no words that can do so.
Those of us in the labour movement need to strive to pass resolutions that work to remove the barriers in our workplaces and in our unions that perpetuate the sad reality of racism.
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Let's hope we end racism in Canada soon ,and end the racist indian reserve system. It's time to stop seperating Aboriginals .
Jimcotton - 2007-06-21 16:05