Harper to meet with Chief Spence/First Nations leaders

[Snman]

Yup, let's forget all those millions of dollars that Chiefs keep stealing at the expense of their people and taxpayers. Kibbs, you sound like one of those Chiefs, just wanting the media to go home and stop investigating without anything changing. Just pedaling madly on your bike with your eyes closed shouting "it's all good" doesn't make it so.

Actually zzontar, I think you have kibbs all wrong. While he is pedaling madly with peacenik blinders on, his message is more like "It's not all good my brothers, but it can be if we group hug this tree and throw economics to the wind". Still, kibbs may be right when he says this topic is dead. Next to fade will be 'Idle No More'.

[Roadster]

its not our business its theirs mind your own business .Are non native Canadian leaders wasting tax payers money on anything?.Unless native ,that is your concern.Champion a cause you actually matter in.if you believe that we should cut off all moniies without dealing with treaties first you will see much worse than hunger strikes and road blocks.

We matter here. Our tax dollars are going there and the last thing we want to find out is it's being put to other uses. May as well quit sending it if people are gonna freeze anyway.

[kibbs]

Just by looking at the number of comments here and the ongoing news buddy, this topic is far from dead, you weren't serious tho, were ya?

Idle no more has always been my concern not chief spense .In the larger media this topic is dead.Idle no more carrys' on and i will support them here as long as the thread does.As cooperation builds, cultures shared instead of being imposed, economics will improve for the better for them.Seriously, we need to live with less .Peace and hug a groovy tree today.

[Roadster]

Idle no more is my concern too, the name speaks for itself. But this thread is about Spence...

[zzontar]

Spence is just one Chief, there has to be a hard look at the expenditures of all bands. It's also time for the natives to realize that the notion of being entitled to land because your ancestors lived here is unreasonable and that's why none of the rest of the world demands that entitlement.

[normaM]

Many Canadians notoriously ignorant about First Nation history

By Jacqueline Windh, Special To The Sun January 12, 2013



THE INCONVENIENT INDIAN

By Thomas King

Doubleday, 288 pages, $34.95

Thomas King could hardly have planned a more auspicious timing for the publication of his most recent book. In the month following the November release of The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America, the Idle No More movement was born, and Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence embarked on a hunger strike to demand action from our federal government regarding unresolved issues affecting First Nations communities.

Many Canadians are notoriously ignorant about the history that has led to the current state of unrest. (While working on a series of interviews with Indian Residential School survivors only a decade ago, several of my friends quietly asked me, "What exactly is Residential School?") The Inconvenient Indian conveniently lays out much of that history: the backstory that has led to the actions and protests that are today springing up across our country.

King calls his book "a narrative history of Indians in Canada." He is the first to admit that his book is not complete, nor is it even balanced. "I say at the beginning that this is opinionated, it has a bias," he explains to me. "For example, there is no reason to be balanced about Indian Residential School: it was a bad idea, badly carried out, and a death trap."

But a book that is admittedly incomplete, unbalanced and opinionated does not mean that it is not founded upon a wealth of research. Much of what King attempts to do with The Inconvenient Indian is to recount the parts of history that have been left out of many history books, as well as to debunk the fallacious parts that did make it into the books. For example, the "most horrible Indian massacre" of 300 westbound pioneers in what is now the town of Almo, Idaho, in 1861 - a massacre that is now known not to have happened (although the town still refuses to remove their plaque commemorating the "victims.")

King explains in his introduction that " ... the underlying narrative is a series of conversations and arguments that I've been having with myself and others for most of my adult life." King's personality shines through that narrative. He is ornery, opinionated, biased and angry. However, those aspects are balanced throughout by his wry sense of humour. In particular, the conversations he has on the page with his wife, the academic Helen Hoy, bring a lighter, personal note to the text; Hoy obviously was peering over his shoulder as he wrote, attempting to tone down his rants.

King's book will anger some people. It angered me at times, with lines like "Whites want land" and "All North America dreams about is the Dead Indian." I am White and I am North American, yet those statements don't represent me. Is he not stereotyping Whites even as he rebels against the idea of "Indians" being stereotyped?

But, King explains to me, he is talking about societal views, not the views of any one individual. And I have to concede that he is right: that those statements do reflect how our society has, in general, treated the indigenous people of North America over the past two or more centuries.

The book will also likely anger some "Indians" as well, but for different reasons. (As much as I do not like to use that word for North American indigenous people, it is the word that many natives, including King, choose to use collectively for themselves). Although King wrote this book with both a native and non-native audience in mind, his intention for his native readers was specific. "Native people generally know their own local history, of their reserve and their area. They have a decent idea of what has happened there. But it's often a very myopic idea because it doesn't connect with the larger ideas that make up policy in North America. Hopefully, by reading this, they can look at the larger historical arcs, and say 'Hey, yeah, that's what happened to us, too.'"

The first half of the book deals mainly with history and image. It begins with a history of massacres, with numbers tallied for both the White and Indian sides, which concludes "that Whites were considerably more successful at massacres than Indians." The section on image includes an unsettling discussion of what King labels as "Live Indians," the real indigenous people of today, be they legally recognized ("status") or not, be they on reserve or in the city; and "Dead Indians," his term for the image of what an Indian should look like, decked out in buckskin and feather headdress, or at very least wearing a headband or beaded necklace.

King tells me that "the first part of the book is gentler than the second half." However, I found the opposite to be true. The first half of the book feels more as if it is written in anger (never, I might add, unjustifiably so, given the nature of some of the atrocities in native history). "I've gotten to an age where I'm not as gentle as I might once have been," he explains. However, the second half of the book is a more balanced and considered look at the problems and issues of the present, including a very thoughtful analysis of some of the solutions that have so far been attempted.

The research that forms the foundation of The Inconvenient Indian is copious. Although not a complete history within itself, the book completes, or at least complements, the bulk of Indian histories (or, perhaps more accurately, histories that include Indians) that have previously been published.

The Inconvenient Indian may well be unsettling for many non-natives in this country to read. This is exactly why we all should read it. Especially now.
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

I decided to post it rather than the link :/

[waterwings]

There are not too many people who dispute that, way back when, there was a bad deal done. However, beating on that drum while resources (money) is wasted on 600 chiefs representing 600 nations that have no idea on how to move forward is the problem now.

[zzontar]

Would the natives rather have had it that people just immigrated here way back without "stealing" the land and everything would be basically the same now except natives would have no special status? I've asked this many times and have never had a reply... strange.

[zzontar]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/canadian-nativ ... nance.html

Hundreds of natives, some wearing colorful dress and banging drums, blocked an access road leading to the Ambassador Bridge, according to the Globe and Mail, slowing traffic on a major trade artery that connects Windsor, Ontario, with Detroit, Michigan.

Why is it that natives can blockade any road or railway and no arrests are made? Before the white man came and they had housing with no insulation, no money from the government, no heating, no electricity, etc, did they just complain about it to eachother? Do they want the old ways they complain that were stolen or don't they?

[kibbs]

recent blockades were temporary and people were warned ,They still suck ,they will lose support if they get carried away with that crap. Sean's hiding, Theresa just fasting now till Steve and Dave see her still . You'd think they need a leader.i think Pam's right if they had a strong leader representing all the bands ,then the moment will die.Lets face it getting a note from your doctor excusing you from representing your nation is weak,wheres Dan George when you need him. r.i.p dude.

[Ken7]

Those involved in the roadblocks have ZERO class. They are not helping their cause in any way shape or manor. Very sad, but I guess when you are uneducated and have no job you have the time to do as you Chief tells you!!

No word on how many pound you can drop on fish soup?

[GrooveTunes]

Congratulations to all that supported the "Idle No More" protests today.

[Roadster]

Uh ya,,, according to the news there was no Idle no more in the Okanagan today,,,,

[Libelle]

Idle no more has always been my concern not chief spense .In the larger media this topic is dead.Idle no more carrys' on and i will support them here as long as the thread does.As cooperation builds, cultures shared instead of being imposed, economics will improve for the better for them.Seriously, we need to live with less .Peace and hug a groovy tree today.

A true supporter will be there until the bitter end all because of a thread on the local forums exists. Way to take one for the team kibbs!

[kibbs]

will support inm on this thread as long as it runs ,when it stops i will support them on other threads as i do already.
just FYI my friend lives in a native retirement home ,her face book page tells that chief spence is not on a hunger strike but a fast.a ritual ceremony.the fishbroth is a healing medicine .I believe she wants wants the gg who represents the government who made the first treaties ,our government who is now negotiating the treaties and the first nations reps to join in a healing circle .A ceremony to symbolize the burying of the hatchet and negotiating the rest of the treaties in good faith. Dave and Steve should just sit down drink some broth so we can move on.