peteforde:

I’m currently sitting on a train in Ottawa on my way home to Toronto.

Literally sitting; the train hasn’t moved in four hours. There’s a blockade of the tracks which is part of a much larger solidarity protest across Canada. Native Canadians are demanding action in the form of access to the basic needs of life such as shelter, food, education and health care in Attawapiskat, an extremely remote First Nation in Northern Ontario.

There’s no question that #idlenomore is a reaction to complex, nuanced issues. The problems are compounded not just by racist ignorance but a general lack of awareness amongst non-Native Canadians. Until these past few weeks and the #idlenomore movement’s mobilization, Native issues were simply not on the minds of most Canadians. It’s no Arab Spring (yet?) but it’s a level of activism that we don’t see often in Canada.

And our Federal leaders? They are being real dicks about it. Our Prime Minister is refusing to meet with Chief Theresa Spence, who is 19 days into a hunger strike.

As for me, I am still holding out hope that my train rolls tonight. In my gut, I think it will. Right now I couldn’t be more comfortable, since I somehow managed to social engineer the VIA Rail folks into letting me into 1st class. There’s one table on this train, and I told them that I didn’t mind the wait but I’d really appreciate using the table to get some work done on my laptop. I’ve been fed and there’s as much wine as I can stomach.

There’s wifi on my train, in addition to things like heat, running water, power outlets and fucking servants. The people blocking my train are standing in sub-zero temperatures in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in Attawapiskat.

Not only am I completely fine waiting as long as it takes, I am ashamed to be crossing what is essentially a picket line. What’s going on dishonours my country, and until these people get the support we promised them I consider myself personally on the hook for this “misunderstanding”. It’s not guilt that I feel — I didn’t choose this outcome. What I feel is disgust at how this could have happened just hours from where I live, while I enjoy the full privilege of my Colonial lineage.

Democracy is hard, and I hope it’s there for us all when we’re the ones standing in the cold.

(Source: peteforde)

“The life expectancy of an aboriginal is a decade less than a non-aboriginal in Canada. The rate of infant mortality is three times higher. The suicide rate is six times higher. Aboriginal people have a rate of diabetes and heart disease three times the national average, and dramatically higher rates of infectious diseases like tuberculosis, HIV-AIDS and H1N1 influenza.”

Globe & Mail

I am so ashamed of this country sometimes.

(Source: The Globe and Mail)

apihtawikosisan:

oberder:

ohlone:

Honesty, if someone is going to reblog a very personal post of what i wrote about my little brother being shamed by his teacher for his identity, then correct me by writing ” *native American ” when I explicitly wrote “Indian,” a big FUCK YOU to you. I am Ohlone. I am Indian. Do not…

wow, first time i have ever seen a Skin want to identify as one of Columbus’ “Indians”

Really?  I know a lot of people, especially older people, who absolutely hate some of the ‘newer’ terms out there.  Especially ‘aboriginal’ and ‘indigenous’. Some of the most heated refutations of those names I’ve heard come from people in my parents and grandparents generation.  They prefer ‘Indian’ because it’s at least more ‘honest’. When white people call you aboriginal or indigenous they’re in the main still saying it with contempt, but with the new dressed up language they’re pretending to be polite.

Most natives identify by who they are specifically anyway, Cree, Dene, Ojibwe, whatever.  I think a lot of people are comfortable with ‘Indian’ as a constant tongue-in-cheek word to use for people who are so ignorant they can’t tell Salish from Mi’gmaq.  ‘Aboriginal’ and ‘Indigenous’ and ‘Native American’ are words used by people who are just as ignorant but who pretend they aren’t. 

My two cents, ekosi.

/hand raise

I’ll admit to using them because I can’t tell the difference between tribes most times, and I don’t want to pretend I do when I don’t. :\ I’m working on learning them, but I have a shit memory and only tend to recall ones in my area that I hear about the most often (I do know Salish from Haida from Cowichan somewhat consistently, for instance. Though I tend to mess them up too, despite having talked to plenty of people on the subject). I do feel that a white person using ‘Indian’, at least, kind of implies ignorance of the history that gave rise to the origin of that particular meaning, so I try not to default to it. (Though if I get corrected then I’ll go with whatever the person in question is comfortable with. It’s your identity, man.) I know the same is true for a lot of the other white people I know.

That said, I really wish we got comprehensive lessons on the different peoples in school. It’s stuff worth knowing and would save everyone a bunch of headaches, I think.

pewpewlasernipples:

Feel free to add where I have missed:

Nishnawbe Aski Nation, Ontario: Also referred to as the “Ring of Fire”. Nishnawbe Aski Nation has an outstanding state of emergency in all 49 of it’s Northern Ontario communities because of an OxyCotin epidemic.

Wawa, Michipicoten First Nations and surrounding area, Ontario: Declared October 24th during Hurricane Sandy when roads collapsed leaving many stranded on a nearby First Nations reserve

Kashechewan Reserve nearby to Attiwapiskat, Ontario: Multiple states of emergencies were declared between November 23rd and December 2nd. Prior to that declaration, the federal government was approached several times when it became apparent that no fuel could get on the reserve without assistance. The federal government choose to ignore the oncoming emergency at Kashechewan.

Fort Albany Reserve, Ontario: Close to Kashechewan, Fort Albany reserve flooded on October 25th 2005. 300 people were removed from the reserve and relocated to Wawa. Since then many more State of Emergencies have been declared there.

13 States of Emergency have been declared this year alone in James Bay. All of the communities in the James Bay area has declared a state of emergency at least once within the last 3 years.

Pikangikum First Nation, Ontario: Declared April 2012 after water born illnesses broke out from lack of safe water. Dealt with by AFN, Pikangikum is still under water boiling advisory; an advisory shared by 116 other reserves. That’s 116 communities who have not declared states of emergencies without safe drinking water.

Little Saskatchewan and Lake St. Martin, Manitoba: Originally three communities declared states of emergencies after flooding in Manitoba during April 2011. The one on Peguis was lifted later in 2012 (if you don’t know aboutPeguis, they are amazing), but we’re heading into 2013 and Lake St. Martin residents are being pressured to move onto Little Saskatchewan reserve which is still under state of emergency, where recurring floods is a constant problem.

Little Buffalo and Lubicon, Alberta: After an oil spill in 2011, Little Buffalo and Lubicon Cree Nation in the Peace River Region,  were forced to declare a state of emergency. The provincial government nor the oil company never came to clean it up. State of Emergency still stands in Lubicon.

Rainbow Lake, Alberta: A State of Emergency was not declared, but urgent action was called after 22,000 were leaked. The leak also may potentially affect communities in NWT and Northern BC.

Daylu Dena along Laird River, BC: Daylu Dena called a State of Emergency after massive floods forced people out of their homes in June. The State of Emergency was never lifted.

Yikes. Is there anything we can do for aid? Is the Red Cross involved at all?

unleashthemeesh:

This.

Do ya’ll even know what happened yesterday in Canada?

Shit is getting real.

March on parliament hill yesterday

This is parts of what was said while they were there…sorry no time to write the whole dialogue out but you get the idea of the greatness of yesterday. This happened in the hall way.

“What is being deemed by the federal government as consultation with afn or any other political organizations is not what we stand for, we are here for our people…we are here to pose objection of any bill that is continuing to violate our inherent right as a people of Turtle Island…no longer will government tell our people what to do, this has got to stop, and this is what we’re here for. Two, three people across the land is not consolation, I represent almost 6000 people in treaty six territory  nobody has come and asked me and my people for our opinion of what is being proposed today. We are here to serve notice to government enough is enough we will not tolerate  we will not put up with it any more.”

~shitty response by government official~ “my colleague John Duncan blah blah blah”

“We are people we are human beings too cotrary to what legislation initially [the indian act]…it is an inherent right to land…why is government policy and legislation always wanting us to surrender land?~gets interrupted by government person~ WE WOULDN’T BE HERE IF YOU WERE FOLLOWING THE CONTITUTION…your legislation don’t mean a dam thing to us.”

the government officiall walks away

the police stop them from entering a meeting they were invited to

Shit’s getting real, y’all.

A protest like this from the general population should have also happened en masse with C-38, though this bill is at least as terrible if not moreso. The Conservatives have been allowed to get away with this crap for too long.

Also, “forcing their way in” and “scuffling”? Methinks HP reeks of some bias or other.

And Baird’s a blustering, skeevy ball of privilege but I’m pretty sure that’s common knowledge by now.

The goal of this federally (NSERC) and provincially (BC Campus) funded pilot program is to engage Aboriginal youth in computer science careers by having them develop their own games or animated stories, using the proven educational software environment Alice 3D. To make the experience more relevant to Aboriginal youth, this project included the development of a library of cultural images and sounds, providing youth the ability to explore their own unique history within their community and natural environment through their games or stories.

Phase two of the project developed a learning management system using Moodle. The system contains two units (beginner and intermediate) of work that contain:

• Video tutorials
• Teacher’s notes with suggested lesson plans
• Example stories developed using Alice
• Example games developed using Alice

Ancestor Project stands for “AborigiNal Computer Education through STORytelling” and is run by Camosun College and the AECC in Victoria BC in order to teach aboriginal kids wicked programming skills while exploring their history.

(I have to admit, I’d like to see someone do this with StoryNexus somehow.)

themedicineproject.com

I was born in 1969 in Comox, British Columbia. I am a member of the Dzawada‘enuxw Tribe of the Kwakwaka‘wakw First Nations, my mother being Dzawada‘enuxw and my father a Scottish immigrant from the Isle of Lewis. In 1996 I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. In 1999 I completed a Masters in Fine Arts at the University of Victoria. In the early 1990s I apprenticed with a master carver in traditional Kwakwaka‘wakw design. Since 1992 I have exhibited work locally, nationally and internationally, mostly in public art galleries and site-specific works. I create both strictly traditional works for ceremonial purposes confined to the Kwakwaka‘wakw community, and conceptually based works for public art spaces.

My work for public art spaces are extensions on traditional Northwest Coast artistic expressions. I engage in the exploration of traditional concepts and incorporate contemporary media into the visual presentation of these concepts. While I consider that the material component of Northwest Coast cultural production is well represented in museums and commercial galleries, I fear that the conceptual foundations of this work are endangered owing to radical acculturation and language loss. Creating artworks that address these issues and express traditional concepts in new ways in public art spaces is my way of perpetuating and preserving Kwakwaka‘wakw/Aboriginal culture as well as sharing those concepts with a wider audience.

artspeak.ca

Marianne Nicolson’s Artspeak installation centres around an altered bentwood chest constructed from cedar and etched glass. While bentwood chests are traditionally meant to hold articles of value, Nicholson’s decorated chest will contain and spill light, so that shadows are cast onto the gallery walls. These projected shadows index the rich and ephemeral concepts from which this object is conceived. The viewer, upon entering the gallery, will physically interrupt the throw of light to add another layer of shadows. Referencing the traditional tale of how Raven stole the sun from a chief (who kept it in a box) to release it for the entire world’s benefit, Nicolson’s Bakwina`tsi: the Container for Souls proposes a distinction between the object and it’s contents. Nicolson’s chest is both a play on a consumable object and a receptacle and/or projector of cultural dialogue.

vanartgallery.bc.ca

Marianne Nicolson, a member of the Dzawada’enuxw Tribe of the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation, first came to prominence in 1998 when she scaled a vertical rock face in Kingcome Inlet to paint a 28 x 38-foot pictograph—the first in the inlet for over sixty years—to mark the continued vitality of her ancestral village of Gwa’yi. In a similarly monumental gesture, Nicolson’s site-specific project The House of the Ghosts imaginatively transforms the Georgia Street façade of the Vancouver Art Gallery into a Northwest Coast ceremonial house. Using high-powered lighting, Nicolson will project the vision of a house front and totem poles onto the Gallery façade from dusk to dawn every night. By altering the Gallery in this way, the building itself becomes a site of cultural exchange, emphasizing its importance as a transformative space while wryly commenting on its historic role as a courthouse and jail where, decades ago, First Nations peoples were punished for defying the government’s Potlach ban. Nicolson sees this work as a positive and symbolic reassertion of a culture in a place where it was once forbidden, in a gesture that speaks to the vibrancy of Kwakwaka’wakw culture and the need to sustain it.

Enpaauk (Andrew Dexel) is a young artist from the Nlakapamux Nation. His painting style mixes graffiti style with Coast Salish design creating figurative and abstract images that speak to resistance and renewal. His beginnings as a graffiti artist is central to his style and since his switch from walls to canvas three years ago he has brought this energy from the streets into his paintings. His work was featured in Kamloops Art Gallery’s exhibition Shazam earlier this year and he also had the pleasure doing a solo show titled, “Gratitude” at Vancouver’s Grunt Gallery. his work is also featured at the Native Winds Gallery in Honolulu and has been published in Blood Lines, Redwire, and Brunt Magazine.

More old rebloggings! Check out Enpaauk’s stuff at Beat Nation, or take a look at his Flickr feed, Lattimer Gallery, or the Tribal Spirit Gallery.

Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas is a very active player in a vibrant shift in the comfortably familiar world of Canada’s iconic First Nations’ art. After a career that spanned three decades of involvement in high-profile Haida political successes, Yahgulanaas decided to finally apply his formal training in classic Haida design.

He takes from an extensive corpus of Haida narratives and transforms them into contemporary, accessible and socially relevant Art. Yahgulanaas invented a new genre of graphic narrative called Haida Manga - part Haida, part Asian, and all Michael - to combat the simplistic narratives perpetrated about Indigenous People of the Pacific Coast. He’s telling another story altogether: of complex human beings struggling, loving and dreaming just like everyone else.

Social and environmental issues continue to play a big role in his works and when blended with his passionate belief in the power of the small Yahgulanaas is clearly adeptly blending appealing imagery with contemporary issues.

Yahgulanaas is highly respected among many art circles in Canada. You can read some of his comics online at Haida Manga, and see his sketches and short comics here.

(Source: mny.ca)