Don't get me wrong, I love the stories I get to tell and the people I get to talk to--that's all great. But every time I take on a more challenging story, like the one I'm working on now about the Post-Secondary Student Support Program for Status Indian and Inuit students, it seems like I spend all of my 500-800 words on just EXPLAINING what the program actually is or how the treaties come into play. I never get to take it further and examine the actual legal case for 'free' post-sec education for First Nations people or talk about all the practical challenges of being a student trying to live on PSSSP when our funding levels are even LOWER than the Student Loan Program.
Why do I have to do all this basic explaining? I'll tell you why. Because our Canadian education system is failing everyone. I mean it's 2008 and only NOW are we getting taught about the treaties in elementary schools? I can't believe the government even brags about finally doing something that should have been um, maybe right after the treaties were signed? Oh wait I forgot. They were too busy assimilating the crap out of us in residential schools--another story that went untold by the media for wayyyyy to long.
Even in university, I am consistently disappointed and frustrated with the racist or ignorant comments that I have to sit through in class simply because people are not informed about the basic history of First Nations, Metis and Inuit people in Canada--in other words, CANADIAN history because it's not just our history, it's yours too because your non-Aboriginal ancestors signed onto the treaties too. HELLLOOOOO!
Yesterday in class, we had a discussion about the representative workforce practice; the idea that there should be more Aboriginal people, women and people with disabilities in the workforce and that hiring practices should reflect this. I was appalled when white males in class actually said they thought they were being discriminated against and couldn't get a job because of this practice. That's total crap. One person even argued the hiring practice was bad because "it makes other workers think oh maybe that person just got hired because of their race." Sigh... the problem there isn't the actual hiring practice, it's the idiots standing around at work talking about the new Indian. It's their ignorant, uninformed attitude towards the practice that is the problem, NOT the practice itself.
In this job, I am constantly--whether openly or more subtly--to speak on behalf of my race, defend my race, comment on my race as the only Aboriginal person in the classroom or the workplace or wherever I am. Why don't any of the non-Aboriginal people write these kinds of stories? Or pose their positions in the form of a question instead of stating it as fact or an assertion?
Because they don't know better. And they never will if the schools and universities (U of R Journalism School included) don't start teaching journalists and the public what they need to know so I can start writing REAL stories instead of teaching your kids and students.
1 comment:
The problem is that you're fighting a battle against common sense.
One of the most innately felt aspects of conservatism is that everyone should be treated exactly equally.
You hit on the most important fact that as signatories of the treaties we are a part of a nation to nation agreement that is binding on all of us.
"I wasn't there", people say to absolve themselves from any responsibility for residential schools and broken treaties.
When people take what Dad has told them and what's been reinforced through peer groups as fact, it's difficult for even a solid educational framework to break much ground.
To try to get through to people I use the example of patriotism. Are you proud of your country's role in defeating the Nazis?
Well, I hate to break it to you, but you were not there for the invasion of Normandy, and you had nothing to do with the liberation of Belgium.
There is nothing wrong with being patriotic and being proud of our nation's accomplishments, but to deny the more shameful aspects of our history is hypocrisy.
I suppose I would just say to you that there is a nobility in trying to educate adults who the system has failed, even if it's often frustrating.
I know it's completely different, but I want to be a science writer in a society where almost half of the people don't buy the theory of evolution!
I hope that I as a white male have atoned for my silence in class.
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