Muffin
January 18, 2010, 9:58pm
51
astro:
Not going after all the threads of this tree, but from the descriptions of Canadian friends and acquaintances who have lived near these native housing sites it appears to them that many natives live in the equivalent of trash strewn, self created shit holes.
Regardless of whether you think this is their “fault” or not, is that observation and opinion racist?
To be serious for a moment, no, I do not think that such an observation is racist, however, the “self-created” phrase is one-sided, for although the squalor is directly created by some people in those communities, it begs the question of what external causes set the stage in the first place. It is a very complex problem, with more than enough blame to be passed about, which in my opinion needs to be examined from multiple perspectives with sensitivity but also with clear analysis, and without one side or the other crying “racist” too quickly, for that just obsfucates the matter.
Here are a couple of quotes from an earler SDMB Pit discussion on sentencing circles that might shed a bit of light on the problem:
. . . . Constant drunken violence is common on many of Canada’s northern reserves.
I don’t have any general stats handy, but even if we just look at spousal killings in aboriginal communities, the rates are astounding when compared to the general population of all Canadians. Although aboriginals form only approximately 4% of Canada’s population, aboriginal spousal killings of females by males constitutes 14% of all spousal killings in Canada committed against women by men, and whopping 22% of all spousal killings in Canada committed against men by women. http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/Collectio...5-224-XIE.html
The prime factors leading to aboriginal communities being violent places include economic and social deprivation, alcohol and substance abuse, and an inter-generational cycle of violence. Again, I don’t have any stats handy, but the conviction rate for aboriginals is off the edge of the graph when compared to the general Canadian population.
. . . .
As far as the proposition that the alcohol problem is a result of racism goes, it does not wash. On northern reserves, whites are few and far between – often just a nurse, a teacher or two, and a police officer (if the reserve does not have its own aboriginal police officer). It would be ludicrous to suggest that such a small number of people could drive an entire community to severe alcoholism by virtue of their racism, if indeed they were racists, which is unlikely given the locations they chose to work in.
Governmental paternalism based on race, however, has had hugely detrimental effects on aboriginal communities. The single greatest example of this is the residential school issue. For several generations, aboriginals from northern reserves were taken from their parents and placed in boarding schools, where they were then raised to live as if they were white men. The result was that the parents, stripped of their children, often fell heavily on the bottle. The children, upon finishing school and returning to their reserves, often had little memory of their families, no understanding of their own culture, and most disturbingly, absolutely no comprehension of normal family life. They too, often fell on the bottle. That paternalism based on race, however well intentioned it may have been, resulted in severely dysfunctional communities.
. . . .
To my mind (just thinking out loud here) the problem is this:
The traditional Native Canadian life-ways gave the people their meaning and dignity.
The traditional Native Canadian way of life is not really compatible with modern society.
Modern society is not going away any time soon.
In the past, the “solution” was forced assimilation - as in the Residence Schools. This was not good.
Now, we as a society have adopted the position that natives are to be supported in their traditional ways on their traditional lands: see point 1.
But this doesn’t work either (see points 2 and 3). What we get is not Native Canadians living a traditional life, but rather a bunch of very isolated slums with the inhabitants on welfare.
These people behave much like people stripped of feelings of self-worth and dignity, living in slums and on welfare always behave - badly. Drinking, drugging, crime and abuse are rampant.
Various programs such as “sentencing circles” and the like are designed to ameliorate the harshness of the results. Ditto with increased welfare and spending on cultural pursuits.
However, letting abusive alcoholoics out of jail and paying people to do their ethnic dance or whatever do nothing to resolve the root of the problem - the collective loss of self-worth and dignity that go with the loss of a whole way of life.
Myself, I do not know what solution for this problem can be found; all I can say is that the well-meaning attempts to keep these people in stasis are not having a good effect.