Another Writing Project

WHEN ASKED BY THE REGISTERED NURSES’ ASSOCIATION of ONTARIO (RNAO) WHY I RESPONDED to a call to action by a petition they posted online, I wrote much of what follows here. The short answer is: because I am a Canadian citizen. A longer explanation follows.

THE BACKGROUND, OR THE MANY REASONS I RESPONDED

My mother is a retired OBG RN (labour and delivery) who lives in Thunder Bay. I lived in The Lakehead in the mid-70s to mid-80s during my pre-teen and teenage years there and saw firsthand the challenges and prejudice that Natives faced in the community. And probably still do.

As a kid, I was fascinated with the artistry of the culture, which was all around us (black and red Native paintings hung in my best friend’s house, and in public places, beaded suede moccasins; I owned a beaded necklaces crafted by local Natives), but the flip side was  evident, too—bigotry, unemployment, alcoholism—and for a sensitive kid like I was, it made me sad.

It may be the distance and perspective that comes with maturity of adulthood, or the birth of two nephews with First Nation ancestry, or, as a writer and avid reader, maybe it was the exposure to the many talented Canadian writers of First Nations heritage who shared their stories in fiction, and non-fiction books: Thomas King, Joseph Boyden, James Bartelman, and those who contributed to collections such as Me Sexy, and Me Funny, and Native Poetry in Canada. Or, it may have been the television coverage and newspaper reportage of Caledonia, Ipperwash, Oka, Burnt Church. Maybe it was all of this, collectively, but I often, albeit quietly, sided with the First Nations’ viewpoint.

When I became more vocal about my stand, it seemed to surprise friends and coworkers given my English-Ukrainian background. That is, how can a Caucasian person understand the “Indian” point of view? As if skin colour somehow meant I should, and would, care only about human beings that looked like I do.

Compassion is innate, but is further developed through one’s experience. My typical childhood experiences did not expose me to the degree of prejudice and bigotry, and flat-out racism that First Nations kids in my school faced. Being teased about the way I looks, or my weight, or remarks about my inability due to my gender, or the size of my breasts in no way equals that which they experienced, but in adulthood it is easy to understand the damage that sustained racism has on successive generations.

Perhaps the story that drove home the extent of the abuse, and lack of remorse we showed for our particpation (by our tolerance of it, and lack of willingness to offer apology for it), was that of Residential Schools. With a young child of my own, it was impossible to imagine the degree with which the children and parents suffered. What kind of people made up our government that they would create such a horrendous circumstances for 100,000 children in the name of education? Were they a reflection of who we were as a country? Have we changed?

Textbooks taught me how my Ukrainian family members would have been treated—in newspapers, by priests and ministers in church sermons, broken promises by government who enticed them to emigrate from their war-torn country—but eventually the bigotry towards them receded. This is not so for First Nations peoples.

I wondered: When are we going to get it right??

Any time there was mention in the news, it added to my consciousness and played against my sense of fairness, of humanity, and were underscored in 2007 when my mother, Grace Poulin, wrote about the experiences of invisibility of First Nation’s women in her Masters thesis, which she turned into a book Invisible Women: WWII Aboriginal Servicewomen in Canada. The personal stories of these women, and those quoted in an older sister’s Masters thesis Day to Day: Three Women Living with HIV (Colleen J. Miller, May 2000), brought their plight closer to home.

THE TWITTER TWEET

So what prompted me to sign a petition asked the managing editor of the RNAO’s Registered Nurse Journal. This was a big question for such a small act of support.

It was @NikkiReimer’s tweet (11/22/11 5:22 a.m.), a fellow writer and poet, whom I follow on Twitter and who included a link to MP Charlie Angus’ HuffPost article. Her tweet started with “Fucking hell…” and ended with “Cdn. state does jack shit.”  She was angry, and when I read the article, I, too, became angry. Each of the ten times I saw the message retweeted, I retweeted it. It is difficult to comprehend the government’s continued treatment of my fellow citizens.

Not much had changed, I realized, since the women featured in my mother’s thesis. Many, many years had passed, but First Nations people remained invisible in many ways, and Attiwapiskat was the latest example.

NOW THAT YOU KNOW…

When I read Charlie Angus’ article, words of Thomas King came to mind. These words have haunted me since I first read them in 2007 in his novel The Truth About Stories. King wrote: “Forget it. But don’t say in the years that come that  you would have lived your life differently if only you had heard this story. You’ve heard it now.”

When the RNAO representative asked about government response, I simply forwarded a copy of the email responses I received. Is that action? Not really. But it is a start.

Instead of putting faith in political spin, I started to pay more attention to those who repressent the First Nation peoples, many of whom, like Wab Kinew, are interviewed by George Stroumboulopoulous, but who I watch online when I learn about their appearances through social networking sites. If it were not for my Facebook friend Joseph Boyden, I would not know about Shawn A-in-chut Atleo, or about the work being done by @firstnationbook. On Twitter, @TheoFluery14 and @ShelKenn chime in with links to articles about First Nations issues.

However, when all is said and all is done, I will know that I did not do enough.