What I need to say is that a relative of mine came to work at the Cecilia Jeffrey Residential School just a few months after Chanie had died out there in cold, trying to walk home.
What you need to know is that relative of mine didn't hear about Chanie. Just a few months after he'd run away from that place and died, trying to go home to be with his Mom and Dad. No one spoke his name. No one said "The other kids might need some extra support." No one said "We need to do things differently."
If you're wondering what it is that you can do, as a white person, as a settler on this land, to make things better (as I have), maybe this is part of it: listen to Indigenous voices. Really listen to the voices speaking right now. The stories being told right now. If you don't hear any: change your life, click follow, click unfollow on some others, go on Twitter, go to the library. (I'm happy to recommend some folks I've been learning from). As my friend Smokii said: "We need to support living Indigenous folks. Indigenous futures. Indigenous voices. Indigenous stories."
If you're wondering what it is you can do, as a white person, as a settler on this land, to make things better (as I have, many times), maybe this is part of it: look into the spaces between your family stories and find out the truth about your place in what is currently Canada. Look at the history and understand that it is your history.
Residential school is my history, too, and maybe it's yours? The history of residential school in my family is different than it is for the Wenjacks. The history of residential school in my family paid for good food and warm houses and post-secondary education and dentist appointments and horses and farms.
This isn't about guilt, it's about accountability. It's about paying attention to who tells the stories now. It's about paying attention to where the money goes now.
It's about saying "We need to do things differently."
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This post was originally shared on Facebook, and was inspired by this post by Aylan Couchie about the Canadian government's funding of the Downie-Wenjack fund.
