Lib MLA says residential schools weren't all that bad
Thu, 2008-03-13 18:35
#1
Lib MLA says residential schools weren't all that bad
Thu, 2008-03-13 18:35
#2
In case anyone out there thought that the Campbell Libs in BC had become the centrists he claims they are, check this out. I heard it on CBC news and I spent the last hour or so trying to find it on the web. (found it on the hansard site)
Dennis Mckay, who represents a riding in north-west BC, says residential schools had some up sides.
quote:
I don't believe for a moment that every child that went to a residential school was abused. I think a lot of aboriginal people benefited greatly from the residential school system, but we never hear from them.
[url=http://leg.bc.ca/cmt/38thparl/session-4/cay/hansard/Y80312x.htm]http://l...
What. The. Fuck.
Thu, 2008-03-13 18:46
#3
remind
This may be going to become the new right mantra, as I have heard it several times recently while in the Capital Region. I rsponded with: "have you never wondered why you have not heard from them, if there are positive experiences out there, as logic says you should have if there were by now?"
Thu, 2008-03-13 19:04
#4
Makwa
Sure, let's here it for the positive aspects of cultural genocide and coercive assimilation. Yay. This doesn't surprise me, because the white settler overlords have always held out hope for complete genocide of the First Nations peoples, but in recent years they are usually a little more subtle about it, for fear of sounding insensitive.
Thu, 2008-03-13 19:10
#5
remind
For some reason makwa, they do not seem to have that fear anymore, nor do they get that there were not any positive experiences for them to hear about.
Thu, 2008-03-13 19:38
#6
ElizaQ
I've heard this mantra quite a bit lately though in even worse form. The person speaking always has a native 'friend' or aquantance or sometimes even a family member who told them that that in either their experience or a family members experience that the school wasn't that bad and/or they were glad to have the schools because they were poor and/or there were no good opportunities for education on their particular rezes. Sometimes this 'friend' also goes on to say that in there opinion the rest of the natives complaining about it either A. need to get over it and move on and/or B are just after money.
My usual reply is something, horribly sarcastic "Weeeell whoopee shyte for you. Yah got one person out of how many saying this? Wow that proves it beyond a doubt." I find this usually works better then challenging them on the whole "Well I have an NDN friend line..." [img]rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img]
Fri, 2008-03-14 06:58
#7
I'm not surprised. It's just another example of the myth of "benign" colonialism, that sense that we have more and lesser evolved human beings, that the enlightened ones have arrived to show the lesser human beings how the world is really supposed to work...otherwise those lesser souls won't survive without the imposition of our superior ways eh. As for casualties, ah well, can't stand in the way of "progress".
...oh, and toxic sludge is good for you!
I think you're hearing more from the justification side because the plight of those who have survived colonialsim, cultural genocide and the residential school system...their story is bubbling up through the mainstream right now. While there are more stories sympathetic to the Indigenous (and this is a worldwide phenomenon), there also seems to be a backlash from the powers that (seem to) be. I think we're seeing the crux of the struggle right now. Question is, which way is it going to tip?
One upside of the likes of George Bush and Steven Harper. They make the face of the Empire a rather naked thing, so much so, that even the White folk are starting to see it for what it is. And it ain't friendly. To anyone.
Fri, 2008-03-14 09:19
#8
I wonder if there was a first nations voice at this comittee's meeting.
A little prior to the quote in the article Fartful linked, Dennis MacKay takes a shot at aboriginal parenting skills while he's at it:
quote:
The one thing that seems to be missing, and you kind of alluded to it, Mary Ellen, when you talked about the supports for these kids…. What's missing, in my view, are the adult parenting skills for these young kids that are having the challenges. You did touch on it very briefly. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]I have a daughter who teaches at an Indian reserve. It's called Moricetown. She comes home some days, and she's in tears because of the lack of parenting skills of these people who have had these children. The schools…. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
We can do so much for children, but to me it's the parenting skills that are so lacking. We don't seem to be talking about what we can do to improve the parenting skills that are so lacking in these people who have these children who are, as you say, vulnerable in our education system and in their long-term lives as they move forward. To me, it's the parenting skills where a lot of this problem starts, and we don't seem to be addressing that. [DRAFT TRANSCRIPT ONLY]
ElizaQ:
quote:
My usual reply is something, horribly sarcastic "Weeeell whoopee shyte for you. Yah got one person out of how many saying this? Wow that proves it beyond a doubt." I find this usually works better then challenging them on the whole "Well I have an NDN friend line..."
Interesting how the friend of a family friend of a twice removed aunt's cousins stepchild's story is more compelling than the thousands that have actually stepped forward.
Fri, 2008-03-14 09:36
#9
You would think the link between residential schools and the family dysfunction would be obvious. I wonder what he would think if someone kidnapped his kids and made them speak only Chinese and beat them if they spoke English. That's of course not even looking at the percentage of the "care givers" that were brutal paedophiles. I hope that the native peoples in his riding begin a campaign now to get him thrown out of office. Maybe we can start an impeachment campaign.
Fri, 2008-03-14 10:41
#10
remind
quote:
Originally posted by kropotkin1951:
[b]You would think the link between residential schools and the family dysfunction would be obvious.[/b]
For some, it just isn't obvious that parenting skills are learned and how can people, who were not raised in a family, and who were cut from their heritage, home and parents, and who were forced into an institutional setting, and who suffered every form of abuse imaginable, have good parenting skills.
Such people like, Dennis Mckay, who can't see the obvious, are suffering from mental and emotional atrophy.
quote:
[b] I wonder what he would think if someone kidnapped his kids and made them speak only Chinese and beat them if they spoke English. [/b]
And those actions woiuld just be the tip of the ice burg in respect to what FN's have endured.
Fri, 2008-03-14 12:44
#11
[url=http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sg29_e.html]http://www.ainc-inac.g...
quote:
According to a review of the educational performance of the system up to 1950, conducted in 1968 by R.F. Davey, the director of educational services, the practical training that had been in place "contained very little of instructional value but consisted mainly of the performance of repetitive, routine chores of little or no educational value."68Davey's judgement of the quality of the academic program was equally harsh. The system had failed to keep pace with advances in the general field of education and, because the schools were often in isolated locations and generally offered low salaries, the system had been unable to attract qualified staff. A departmental study quoted by Davey found that, as late as 1950, "over 40 per cent of the teaching staff had no professional training. Indeed, some had not even graduated from high school." Moreover, teachers worked under the most difficult conditions. Language training was a persistent problem, and the half-day system reduced class time to the extent that it was, Davey concluded, virtually impossible for students to make significant progress. He noted in his report that in 1945, when there were 9,149 residential school students, the annual report of the department showed only "slightly over 100 students enroled in grades above grade VIII and...there was no record of any students beyond the grade IX level."
Fri, 2008-03-14 18:43
#12
Just an update: the Liberal chair of the committee in which McKay made his stupid comments is now calling on the NDP to apologize for slurring the poor man's reputation. I am not making this up.
[url=http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/03/14/bc-mla-aborig...
quote:
Liberal Ron Cantelon, who chairs the children and youth committee, says if anyone should apologize it's the NDP."To yank a quote out of context and to slur and throw it in the face of Dennis MacKay — a very fine, honest, straightforward guy — is disgraceful," said Cantelon.
Fri, 2008-03-14 19:49
#13
The truth is that a majority of Canadians think that the only abuse was physical. They don't understand the rest and it's Canada's job to make them understand. Myself, I am tired of explaining it over and over and over and over....
Fri, 2008-03-14 19:52
#14
remind
quote:
Originally posted by Fartful Codger:
[b]Just an update: the Liberal chair of the committee in which McKay made his stupid comments is now calling on the NDP to apologize for slurring the poor man's reputation. I am not making this up. [/b]
Wonder what number this manover is in the far right handbook? Is he going to also "sue" but in this case it will be the NDP? Nice way to try and silence the left in Canada, if so...
Dumb ass hats that they are, there can be no context where those remarks would be suitable.
May have to go dig out my Machiavelli and do some reading up.
Fri, 2008-03-14 20:41
#15
It's an insult to Machiavelli to attribute the behaviour of these twits to his writing. I am not being sarcastic. In the context of the political situation of his time Machiavelli was perfectly reasonable. In particular, his advice to the Prince was designed to improve the lot of the ruled.
The reason that Machiavellian is an epithet is that he had the infernal gall to accurately describe how power is exercised. The powerful don't like that.
Fri, 2008-03-14 21:09
#16
remind
To be more accurate, IMV, the powerful do like having a "how to acheive and hold power" hand book, they do not like other people having access to it.
Moreover, what I have found throughout the years is that, Machiavelli's 'advice' to consolidate, and hold power, to "improve the lot of the ruled", can be, and is, used to to destroy "the lot of the ruled".
That the "twits", using his advice to subjugate, and to try to destroy the "lot" of the world's majority, can't see that it never works, does not mean that they do not still try to use his advice.
Fri, 2008-03-14 22:53
#17
Le T
I thought it was satire.
Sat, 2008-03-15 16:58
#18
quote:
I don't believe for a moment that every child that went to a residential school was abused.
This line is hauntingly similar to the line that WWII revisionists use when they claim that the holocaust was exaggerated. In fact, it's not similar, it's the SAME.