defending the despicable

A 7-year-old girl shows up in class with a nazi swastika drawn on her arm. The teacher washes it off. The next day, the mother has redrawn the swastika on her daughter’s arm and sent her back to school. Provincial child welfare authorities show up at their home, find nazi flags and other symbols of neo-nazism, and decide to take the girl and her 2-year-old brother into custody. 

“It was one of the stupidest things I’ve done in my life but it’s no reason to take my kids,” the mother told CBC News at the time.

The mother is fighting Manitoba child welfare authorities who have applied to take permanent custody of the children. She says that while she possesses neo-nazi and “white pride” symbols, she is not a white supremacist. 

“A black person has a right to say black power or black pride and yet they’re turning around on us and saying we’re racists and bigots and neo-Nazis because we say white pride. It’s hypocrisy at its finest.”  

Consider whether the state should have the right to remove children from their families because the state deems the parents’ thoughts or beliefs unsuitable, unacceptable or dangerous. Then consider what you would do as a Mohawk parent if the state decided that possession of red power literature, symbols or a Warrior flag were justification for apprehending your children? 

Is it instilling pride or conditioning racial hatred?

media mysteries

I’ve worked as a journalist for most of my working life. Most of that time has been spent with the mainstream media, in broadcast newsrooms or productions. I have spent very little time working with or for Indigenous publications and broadcasters, unfortunately. The few times that I did often ended in disaster.  I blame the mindset in these places – not the individuals. They were often inhabited by really nice people, but also people with a horribly misguided sense of purpose and few to inspire them.

So often, they felt it their duty to tip the scales or act as advocates, representatives, spokespeople and cheerleaders for Indigenous politicians. In other words, they were propagandists.

Other times, they wanted to be opinion shapers or pundits but lacked the depth, clarity of mind, experience or intellect to pull it off.

Often, a lot more often than I care to think, they wanted to be celebrities; to be somebodies on TV or the radio but without paying the dues.

Rarely, once in a while, I came across people who cared about the profession of journalism, wanted to tell good stories well, and to make a difference in peoples’ lives. Perhaps if I had met a few more people like this last group, I might still be trying to work in Indigenous journalism.

The worst part isn’t the disappointment I felt that there weren’t more good people trying to be Indigenous journalists. Or the disappointment that comes from straining to keep the mainstream door of opportunity open for so long and for such meagre results. No, the worst part is that so many good Indigenous people chose to avoid the profession altogether.

They prefered to work in politics, at band councils, for relatively well-paying organizations as hacks, writing news releases, and putting up with know-it-all politicos who have such disdain for anyone with an independent thought that they revile anyone who even used to be a journalist. These are the people that really get my blood boiling. Because they knew better.

Yet they abandoned the field to others who care not a whit for fairness, accuracy and balance. In their places, they have allowed in shameless ideological flacks who seem to dominate the few and shrinking number of Indigenous newsrooms these days. They are filled with such self-loathing that it seems they want to destroy all that is Indigenous in this country.

Meanwhile, the rest of those in the Indigenous media continue to shovel out mindless, meaningless crap. They want to be loved instead of respected, invited to tea instead of feared, prefer to be treated like a servile dog than a feisty champion for the poor and victimized.

Then again, maybe it’s just January and the lack of sun.

here we go again

The CBC is hailing the Royal Assent given to Bill C-27, an Act to Amend the Human Rights Act as a good thing. I say, beware what you wish for – especially when it comes from Canada’s other national public broadcaster (APTN is another).

Why? I remember Bill C-31 which allowed some but not all “non-status Indian” people to regain their status after the Canadian government had stripped them of their rights in the first place with clearly, obviously, deliberately discriminatory legislation.

First, Bill C-31 didn’t work for everyone. Second, it continued to allow discrimination against Status Indians. It did so by continuing the very same discrimination – only this time by jumping a generation. So Bill C-31 might allow a child of a non-status Indian to regain rights, but the children of this person would lose it. Clever folks, these federal bureaucrats. Makes you wonder what they do in their spare time.

Secondly, status is one thing but most services are delivered to “band members.” Some bands came up with such narrow definitions of membership that they actually lost numbers. This, too, is another form of discrimination but the feds considered this to be OK so long as it was Indians discriminating against Indians AND in a way that they agreed with (less Indians is and always has been the ultimate objective of federal Indian policy).

Then there were the unkept promises (don’t get me started!) by the Prime Minister on down that bands would be adequately funded and able to handle the increased demand for medical and social services, housing, basic welfare, etc.

Hah! If you believed that one, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn for you.

Here’s what the CBC put down about Bill C-27:

But bands in the region will need more money to comply with the act, said John Paul, executive director of the Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nations Chiefs.

With this legislation, he said, communities may be forced to provide services “with money they don’t have.”

Reserves were exempt from the Canadian Human Rights Act when it was passed in 1977. The exemption was supposed to be temporary to give bands time to prepare.

The House of Commons closed the loophole late last month.

Not quite accurate, even for the CBC. It was not ONLY status Indian bands that needed more time. The federal and provincial governments wanted time as well, so they could get their programs, policies, laws and regulations in line with any changes that might be required to accommodate the COLLECTIVE rights of Aboriginal peoples. Or maybe to find new ways to weed out even more Indians or otherwise restrict their rights.

Whatever. These rights were entrenched in the Charter of Rights and the Constitution Act. The federal and provincial governments were also supposed to make sure that any changes they made did not undermine or violate these rights.

You see, it isn’t just one party that has been discriminating both for and against Aboriginal peoples. Sometimes the Indigenous peoples do it to themselves. But most often, it’s the folks with the power and authority that discriminate against Indigenous folks with near impunity – and get away it time after time.

So, let’s start keeping track of who is complaining about what in the next few months. Let’s just see if the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and the legions of knuckleheads out there who think status Indians spend their lives sipping mai-tais by the backyard pool, begin to file all kinds of grievances “so we can all be equal under the law.”

To me, equal treatment would mean that the federal and provincial government begins to treat them the way they have been treating Indians. Let’s see how they like that!

how to spin (twist) a story

One reporter. One story. Two newspapers. But one is edited much different from the other. The result is a lesson in how individuals in the news media can spin a story, insert their own bias into a story, to send a very different message to the reader.

The reporter is Kerry Benjoe. His email address at the end of the first story puts him at the Regina Leader Post, part of the Canwest (Canada.com) chain. The first story is the longest and is in the Leader post. A shorter version is re-printed in the Vancouver Sun. The two headlines of the same story, however, say very different things.

This is the first headline, and the top of the story (the lede):

Aboriginal children in need of most help: new report
Kerry Benjoe, Leader-Post

REGINA — The most disadvantaged group in Canada is aboriginal children, a new report by the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP) concludes.

Jessica Ball, a professor at the University of Victoria who authored the study, examined the opportunities for health and development of First Nation, Métis and Inuit children from infancy to age five. She specializes in early childhood development and felt compelled to study this area.

Here are the second set of headlines, and the lede from the story in the VANCOUVER SUN:

Aboriginal kids found to do better in cities
Persistent disparities for decades, study says
Kerry Benjoe, Canwest News Service

REGINA — Aboriginal children on Canadian reserves are starting out their lives at a disadvantage compared to non-aboriginal kids — and even compared to aboriginal kids living in cities, a new study suggests.

Jessica Ball, a professor at the University of Victoria’s School of Child and Youth Care, says in a new report for the Montreal-based Institute for Research on Public Policy that aboriginal children are the most disadvantaged group in Canada.

Here’s my beef. Maybe the reporter re-jigged the second story for a national audience, hoping it might be picked up by other newspapers in the Canwest chain. Maybe each newspaper in that chain has an editor who makes their own headlines for every story that comes across the system. Whatever the reason, these are two very different stories now.

The first story, the one in the Regina LEADER POST, emphasizes the suffering of onkhwehnohweh (Indigenous) children due to the failure of federal and provincial governments to adequately support programs in remote, northern and reserve communities, or failing to fund them at all (thus the “funding gaps” mentioned).

The spin takes off in the second story, in the VANCOUVER SUN. This version pins the failure to adequately provide for “Aboriginal” children upon the reserves, letting the governments off the hook. More, it seems to suggest that these kids are lacking opportunities because of the failure of the entire reserve system.

There are several things wrong with this second story. First, Indians live on reserves but not Métis or Inuit. So the use of “Aboriginal” is wrong.

Secondly, the study examined “the opportunities for health and development of First Nation, Metis and Inuit children from infancy to age five.” The author of the study found “that aboriginal children, particularly in rural settings, continue to lack adequate housing, food security, clean water and access to services.”

The author wrote that there are gaps and disparities in services and funding for these services, between urban and remote, on and off-reserve programs for all Aboriginal groups. However, of special concern is the situation with Indians (First Nations). These disparities and gaps in services exists due to the jurisidictional fumbling that goes on between the federal and provincial governments. This game of “not me” plays “a major role in creating that gap between the two groups (urban and remote) of aboriginal children.“

Where is the spin? The original story in the LEADER POST is fairly neutral in tone. The second story in the VANCOUVER SUN, blames the folks who have little or no control over how government spends — or deliberately chooses not to spend on basic services, or decides to spend much less that it would on white Canadians. The explanation that it’s actually the governments that are at fault is buried halfway down into the story.

First impressions count in journalism today. Most people scan and would probably miss the point of that second story once they got beyond the headline and the first three paragraphs.

You see, according to that second version, it isn’t a case of discrimination at all. The government isn’t really deliberately under-funding Indigenous programs at all. It’s not governments fault that they choose to live to far away from everything. Y’see? Doncha? Huh?