Herald colmunist Karin Klassen wrote a column perfectly expressing what I blogged about the other day (see 'A pretty poor show', July 26)...................
"Fostering aboriginal responsibility
"Last week, among the heartwarming tales of pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps Albertans, there were two stories slipped into the back pages that turned my stomach.
"In Manitoba, an inquiry into the 2005 death of five year old Phoenix Sinclair heard a lawyer for First Nations leaders claim that her death was due to "colonialism". It's their case that the seizing of these children and putting them in non-Native homes has broken up families, leaving them in "deep and protracted poverty ... criminal lifestyles, substance abuse, mental health challenges .... early mortality ... tragic deaths."
"Well this argument might have made sense if this beautiful baby had died in foster care. Actually, Phoenix passed violently in the 'care' of her mother, at home, and after months of abuse which included being shot by a BB gun, starved, and then being forced to eat her own vomit. Left in a heap on a basement floor, Phoenix stopped breathing after a beating that broke most of her little bones, while her mother watched. Indeed, Phoenix had been in and out of foster care, damned colonialists, but had always been returned to her mom. You see, as one First Nations witness explained to the inquiry, apparently without irony: "The social workers failed her."
"In story two, a class-action lawsuit has been filed in B.C. (joining a similar action in Ontario), against the Federal government for the so called "Sixties Scoop". This term references the do-gooder taking of close to 20,000 First Nations kids from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s and fostering them into white homes. These First Nations families want compensation for this practice which they say has deprived them of solid, stable citizens.
"I take this personally. When I was growing up, we fostered a First Nations boy I will call "Billy", who came to us malnourished, with worms, rotted teeth, and emotional issues after losing both of his parents, one involving the ubiquitous "exposure". Billy had been living in a one room trailer with more than a half a dozen other relatives before joining us in grade two, the highest level we could get away with, given that he had virtually no previous education. We took Billy to see his family in the summers, the last time our vehicle was pelted with rocks and we were chased away. One day a pickup truck full of Billy's vague extended family drove up on our lawn, and demanded that Billy get in. He did.
My mom frantically called social services, but was told the climate had changed. These kids were being repatriated, and we would be unlikely to get him back. We didn't.
"I would worry about identifying Billy, but unfortunately his story is like many. I did manage to contact him years later and learned his horrible post-script. Billy was ostracized for his absence, his perceived uppityness, and his white experience. Back living in the trailer, he had been sexually abused, he said. Would it have been better if he hadn't come to live with us at all? We both wondered. In subsequent years my then husband and I paid for a certificate program Billy wanted to take. There was money on the reserve for education, but his family had fallen out of favour after an aunt had been voted off council. Subsequently trained, he would also not be given one of the jobs doled out on the reserve to those in favour.
"At least Billy can now join the class action for the ethnic cleansing my milquetoast family wrought. Have things gotten any better? The Sixties Scoop might as well tack on another three decades to the parameters because the situation of First Nations kids does not seem improved. In Manitoba for example, where Phoenix met her merciless end, 85 per cent of the close to 10,000 kids in foster care currently, are First Nations.
"At some point someone needs to stand up for these children and demand better treatment of them by their own communities. Sadly and oddly, this doesn't seem to be coming from First Nations leadership, and the lack of courage by the federal government to demand it is deplorable.
"To First Nations communities: I may be 'white', but I know what we did in the Sixties Scoop. We loved your kids. Parenting is a primal instinct for most cultures; doing it badly is not the fault of colonialism or social workers. It's time to take some responsibility."
"Fostering aboriginal responsibility
"Last week, among the heartwarming tales of pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps Albertans, there were two stories slipped into the back pages that turned my stomach.
"In Manitoba, an inquiry into the 2005 death of five year old Phoenix Sinclair heard a lawyer for First Nations leaders claim that her death was due to "colonialism". It's their case that the seizing of these children and putting them in non-Native homes has broken up families, leaving them in "deep and protracted poverty ... criminal lifestyles, substance abuse, mental health challenges .... early mortality ... tragic deaths."
"Well this argument might have made sense if this beautiful baby had died in foster care. Actually, Phoenix passed violently in the 'care' of her mother, at home, and after months of abuse which included being shot by a BB gun, starved, and then being forced to eat her own vomit. Left in a heap on a basement floor, Phoenix stopped breathing after a beating that broke most of her little bones, while her mother watched. Indeed, Phoenix had been in and out of foster care, damned colonialists, but had always been returned to her mom. You see, as one First Nations witness explained to the inquiry, apparently without irony: "The social workers failed her."
"In story two, a class-action lawsuit has been filed in B.C. (joining a similar action in Ontario), against the Federal government for the so called "Sixties Scoop". This term references the do-gooder taking of close to 20,000 First Nations kids from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s and fostering them into white homes. These First Nations families want compensation for this practice which they say has deprived them of solid, stable citizens.
"I take this personally. When I was growing up, we fostered a First Nations boy I will call "Billy", who came to us malnourished, with worms, rotted teeth, and emotional issues after losing both of his parents, one involving the ubiquitous "exposure". Billy had been living in a one room trailer with more than a half a dozen other relatives before joining us in grade two, the highest level we could get away with, given that he had virtually no previous education. We took Billy to see his family in the summers, the last time our vehicle was pelted with rocks and we were chased away. One day a pickup truck full of Billy's vague extended family drove up on our lawn, and demanded that Billy get in. He did.
My mom frantically called social services, but was told the climate had changed. These kids were being repatriated, and we would be unlikely to get him back. We didn't.
"I would worry about identifying Billy, but unfortunately his story is like many. I did manage to contact him years later and learned his horrible post-script. Billy was ostracized for his absence, his perceived uppityness, and his white experience. Back living in the trailer, he had been sexually abused, he said. Would it have been better if he hadn't come to live with us at all? We both wondered. In subsequent years my then husband and I paid for a certificate program Billy wanted to take. There was money on the reserve for education, but his family had fallen out of favour after an aunt had been voted off council. Subsequently trained, he would also not be given one of the jobs doled out on the reserve to those in favour.
"At some point someone needs to stand up for these children and demand better treatment of them by their own communities. Sadly and oddly, this doesn't seem to be coming from First Nations leadership, and the lack of courage by the federal government to demand it is deplorable.
"To First Nations communities: I may be 'white', but I know what we did in the Sixties Scoop. We loved your kids. Parenting is a primal instinct for most cultures; doing it badly is not the fault of colonialism or social workers. It's time to take some responsibility."
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