November 11, a day to remember, a day to mourn, a day to ask, why?

On November 11, at the 11th minute of the 11th hour, Canadians all over the world stop what they are doing and honour those who have fought, those who have come back, and those who have never returned, with two minutes of silence. Today, most of us will take in a ceremony at a legion or cenotaph somewhere in this vast country. We wear our poppies proudly until today, when we will lay them on the cenotaphs, or pin them to a wreath. We owe so much to these men and women who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. It makes my heart warm to know children understand as much about our Veterans as I did as a child, as it is one thing we make sure we pass down to future generations. However, it does sadden me as well. We are not passing down all the truth to future generations. I am sure many of my own generation are unaware of the additional sacrifices paid by our First Nation Veterans who have fought side by side with their countrymen and women. While they enlisted and fought side by side during the wars, we all know they were not allowed that equality back in their own country. But what many do not know, as a reward for fighting, the Canadian Veteran's Settlement Act allowed Canadian Veterans (certain Veterans) returning home to buy land at very, very cheap prices. However, many of the Native soldiers who were fortunate enough to return home, were not only not allowed to buy the same land, but usually were not even told about the program. Instead, many returned home to their First Nation communities to find the government had seized huge portions of their reserve land to compensate non-native soldiers. Whole First Nation communities still mourn the loss of thousands of acres of land they were forces to surrender, as if they had lost a war. When these soldiers returned, many did have the option of getting the vote in Canada. Remember up until the 60's First Nations people were not even allowed to vote in their own country. Many feel this was the point we first became Canadian. Anyhow, a vet returning from the war could get the vote, if he were to become white. He had to give up who he was, where he came from, basically forget who he really was, in order to be Canadian. Many did this and in doing so, were not longer considered First Nation/Indian by the government. By society, that was a different story. How could one fit into a society if society did not want one there in the first place? Over 5200 First Nations people have served our military. Many are still waiting to receive even the basic benefits non-native veterans receive and have received for many, many years. Is it because prior to this year we were not even considered human? After all, the Canadian Human Rights Act did not apply to anyone living in a First Nations Community until this year. As we honour those brave soldiers today, on November 11, it is a day to remember, a day to mourn, a day to ask, why?

Good bye CBC, you racist organization

So for at least the 12th time in a couple weeks, I have gotten the boot from CBC. This time, as a report comes out that once again hides the truth behind a murder of a First Nations man by the RCMP. I know the inquiry has found that Chase McKay of the White Bear FN committed suicide by police back in June 2008. However, how can one conclude a person has committed suicide if (1) they are not around to ask, (2) they left no note, and (3) it was not self-inflicted. Comments made by readers assume those suffering from mental illness are just random idiots, etc. To me, this is an all to typical finding when it comes to violence to First Nations from police. RCMP Shooting was death by suicide. Want another example, look here Ceramics to find the story behind Elwood Friday and his treatment for looking drunk, while actually having medical issues. There is very little information on this story, but you can find some. I suggest you look him up to find out how stereotypes promote racism towards FN people by the public and the police.

My latest letter to CBC, please check the link above to the cbc story to see if it gets posted. My name in the comments is justkickin.
I am so sick and tired with cbc and whoever it is moderating these postings. Everytime I post anything that somewhat brings up the topic of racism against FN, Black folks, and others not in mainstream society, it does not get posted...EVERYTIME. However, any attack on said groups, racist comments and all, are allowed to be posted on here. Everyone is entitled to have their opinions heard, as long as they agree with the CBC's opinions. Shame on you CBC for being a contributor to racism. It is organizations like you that keep me in work. But then I wonder why I am wasting my time typing this, a no one will probably see it. I have posted at least a dozen comments over the last couple months that have not gone published, including one to this article about how it is unfair to call someone a random idiot while assuming they have a mental issue..nothing wrong with that statement.. I dare you cbc, print this so people will know how you folks operate.. my views should be heard...along with the racist ones you allow...I DARE YOU

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa...

He is red for sure, Republican red, goes by the name of McDonnell, and has a sack full of goodies for you Virginia. Please, please, PLEASE tell me it ain't so. What did you do, just one day short of a year, when you overwhelmingly voted true blue and helped elect Obama to the presidency. I wonder what could have changed for you to vote the likes of Republican Bob McDonnell into office? Now I am hearing over and over "it is time to take back my America" and "bring back the good old days". Are you seriously talking about the good old days of Bush? Or the good old days of daddy bush? Or are we talking the good old days when it was ok, no, fashionable, no, a required mindset, to hate your neighbor based on the color of their skin? Oh hold on a second, as I see a problem with that last statement and I apologize. In the "good old America", it was indeed difficult to hate your neighbor due to their skin color...since chances are...YOUR NEIGHBOR LOOKED LIKE YOU! Now that I think of it, yes, I do believe that is exactly what Virginia is talking about. Why you ask? All you have to do Virginia, is look in the bag your Santa is carrying to see what gifts he is bringing to you. Shall we look together. According to McDonnell's thesis he wrote a few years back, I do not think you will find any jobs for women. I think the words were something along the line of "working women are detrimental to the traditional family". Unmarried couples will no longer be able to use contraceptives. What happened to the state having no place in the bedrooms of the citizens? Oh, and what happened to all the people who said the Federal govt is grabbing on to too much power... should we give them the power to dictate our lives in our homes? On that note, he still believes that marriage should be limited to one man and one woman, but in the same breath, strongly believes that people should not be discriminated against based on gender, orientation, or marital status...amazing what one can say when talking out of both the mouth and the ass at the same time. Sounds like his ass and mouth are having a slight disagreement.
Virginia, oh dear Virginia, please, please..PLEASE tell America there are cameras hidden all over the place and you are going to jump out and yell "GOTCHA" soon, as the shock on my heart from that scare will do less damage than what is being done on it right now by your voting actions. For all of you who are still saying "take back our America" while holding your hand on your heart and saying those words you all hold dear " I pledge allegiance to the flag..." remember who wrote those famous words, yes, that's right, the one and only Francis Bellamy, and in case you did not know, he was a Christian SOCIALIST!!!
...twas the morn after the election and all through the state,
Folks were waking up to a big old mistake,
The ship they were on, I think they just sunk'er
Why the hell did they elect Archie BUNKER???????????????????

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa, and he is hiring, but save your resume, I am not sure he will hire a woman

Welcome to page 9 of the Chronicle Herald

So as a continuation of my blog from September 16 "5 arrested in raid in Preston", my point has once again been proven. Today in the Chronicle Herald, an article ran on the drug raid yesterday in Cole Harbour and Dartmouth. Get this... ON PAGE 9! Please read the previous blog if you are unsure about what I am talking about. I checked the CBC website and found exactly what I expected...nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. There were three comments:

• Put them in prison for life (11 disagreed)
• Unspecified(small amount), no weapons, what a waste of officers time and tax payers money (11 agreed)

• So what? The government is a big drug dealer anyway (18 agreed)

As predicted, CBC did not even run the names of the communities in the headline "12 charged in Halifax-area Drug raids" News flash, none were in Halifax. Last time I checked, Dartmouth and Cole Harbour were part of HRM, but not part of Halifax, nor is Preston, but they ALWAYS make sure that is known.
Amazing, and proves my point. A couple months back when a raid happened in Preston, people were all over this site wanting to get rid of the neighborhood, saying how it was such a horrible community. When I mentioned these raid happen all over the place, not specifically in one community and dared to even mention to check with your neighbors, as they may be dealers (think about it, what a great cover, selling drugs out of a middle class white community, police will never think of looking there), people were all over me. Correct me if I am wrong, but this raid was in Cole Harbour, and those names don't quite seem to fit the names people on this comment site THINK..yes THINK fit the names of people who should be charged in these raids. If you want to see then names, try not to get too tired flipping all the way to page 9, but they are there. Let me tell you, that Cole Harbour is nothing but a slum and crime community...sound familiar?

Do I want to Speak on Columbus Day...let me think about it!

First I want to personally thank Glenn Singleton and the staff at Pacific Educational Group for organizing once again an amazing Summit for Courageous Conversations in Baltimore. The feeling you get attending such an event with 500+ people passionate about anti- racism is, for lack of a better word, overwhelming. I was excited enough to be presenting my Historical time line workshop, on Columbus Day... in the US, and sharing the truth about terrorists like Columbus and Cornwallis to 25 or so people. However, on Monday, the day of the national celebrations of a glorified boat captain (I do not use the word explorer to describe these men. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Alrdrin are explorers, the others more like tourists visiting a place where someone already was/is), I was asked to speak to the entire conference for a couple minutes about Columbus. Talk about a dream come true...but only a couple minutes? Sure that is all this history deserves in a classroom, in the curriculum, but 2 minutes to to undo 517 years of lies...hmmm... I got it let's focus on present day

Here is a copy of what I said:

Columbus, South Carolina
Columbus, Missouri
Columbus, Indiana
Columbus, Wisconsin
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus State University...in Columbus, Georgia
Washington, D.C.
There is actually a statue of Christopher Columbus right here in Baltimore on the Inner Harbour, next to Christoper Columbus Building. Yesterday there was a parade through this very city to celebrate Columbus. Now I am one who loves geography, so I got out my maps and looked:
Hitler, Montana
Hitler, Arizona
Miloshevich, Kansas
Aldof Consolidated School
I could not find any of these places. If we are ok to name places after one person who committed genocide, why not others?

I would like to read you a few statements from the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1948:

Article 1
The contracting parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace on in time of war, is a crime under international law.

Article 2
In the present convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group as such:

1. killing members of the group
2. causing severe bodily or mental harm to members of the group
3. deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
4. imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
5. forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
   

Were Canada and the US guilty of genocide? In Canada, First Nation children were forcibly taken, sometimes by gunpoint by the police, from their homes and sent to Residential Schools, in order for them to learn how to assimilate into a society that did not want them there in the first place. If they made it through alive, which many thousands did not, where could they go? Home? No, they no longer spoke the language or knew their culture. Into the dominant society? No, they were still not wanted there. The destruction is still being felt, generations later. Our students are disengaged from school at grade 3 and dropping out on average at grade 9. Many generations destroyed by one act. I ask you, where did this start and when will it end? Our Prime Minister, this year, stood up in the House of Commons, actuallystood up and issued an apology for the treatment of children at the Residential Schools, which was the first time in our history a group representing First Nations was allowed on the floor of the House of Commons...FIRST TIME. However, just a couple weeks ago, this same Prime Minister actually stood on the floor on the United Nations and said (Canada)"...we have no history of Colonialism" I guess that apology was nothing more that words.
As we observe Columbus Day today, I ask you, when did this genocide start, should it be celebrated, and when will it end? Thank you


I did not have enough time to finish my thoughts, so here it goes. This convention was written in 1948, after WWII. That year there were 72 residential schools open in Canada. The last federally run residential school officially closed its doors in 1996. Should Canada be held accountable for this genocide? Today, in 2009, Canada and the US still practice genocide through our biased judicial systems. A disproportionate number of Black, Latino, First Nation, men and women are being incarcerated as compared to Whites. For identical crimes, the first group is more likely to receive higher sentences, at higher security levels, for no other reason, except for the colour of their skin. In many of these cases, in relations to drugs, you will see the first group sentenced to federal time, while the second group is given a chance at rehab. Now, what happens when these folks have kids? The province/state steps in, removes the kids and puts them where? Many, many times, they are completely removed from their own cultural and racial identity., please see Article 2(5) above

What is media, I mean, who owns media and why they say what they do

Media is more influential today than it has ever been, even more so than the reports from the mid seventies on the cold war and the general hatred spread towards Russians. Canadians, the same as Americans, have always depended on the media to tell us what to think, how to think, and how to judge others. When I look at the media, I do not look so much at the message, but first and foremost, at whom the message is coming from. I am not talking about the picture of “whiteness” that is on the screen, but the people you do not see. The people who have the say in what is put out there, those with the deep pockets, those who have the privilege to tell society what is the norm.

Up until the election of Obama as the 44th president of the US, the only time (generally speaking) you would see a person of colour in the news was if he was gunned down by the police for threatening them not with a weapon but with a cell phone. Instead of reporting the MURDER as done by the police, the focus is on the previous records of the victim. This happens all too often. One of the big offenders of this portrayal of people of colour as violent is the show COPS. Do you ever see them following an officer in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Connecticut? Do these areas not have crime?

The portrayal in sitcoms is even worse than the news. The recent hiring of Adam Beach, a First Nations actor, to the cast of Law and Order was a big day for FN people everywhere. Finally a FN actor not being type cast. After only a season, the last scene he was in saw him getting hauled away in the back of a police car. What does this tell society? First Nations people have always had a rough go with the media, from the cartoon antics of Bugs Bunny, the Flintstones, the Jetsons, even up to current children (teen) cartoons like the Simpson (who have a license to attack everyone it seems) to children programming on YTV that portrays the “noble savage” otherwise known as the Hollywood Indian. These are shows, produced by the dominant society, for, get this, their children! If these negative stereotypes are a thing of past generations and if society continues to let the media dictate what the dominant society believes and holds true, then how far have we truly come, where did we really come from, and where are we heading next?

5 arrested in East Preston drug raid

Ok, so there was a drug bust in Preston today (Sept 16) Not a huge haul 147 plants, a bit of coke, and so forth. Typical raid as far as raids go. What pisses me off, is not so much how this is being reported, but once again, the asinine, ignorant remarks coming from the readers of CBC's web site, who feel it is their life purpose to show their bigotry and ignorance towards a specific community that they have never been to nor probably ever will. Every community has its criminals, not just black communities. How many raids have there been in Colby Village? What about Portland Estates? Lawrencetown? Ross Road? how about the South end of Halifax? If you can't remember, you are not alone. These hit the news, usually page 4, 5,...of section B and disappear just as fast. When these raids take place in a community other than they typical white community, seems "those people have no sense of community" or "those people have no respect for anyone". Umm, what about the grow-ops that are happening next door to you as you read this, stealing YOUR power, or how about the meth lab you neighbour has in their basement? can you imagine the damage if that thing explodes? talk about no respect for your neighbours! So if all this is happening in YOUR communities, why is it the CBC readers think black communities have the monopoly drug raids and criminals? Does Jimmy Melvin live in Preston? I thought not. Speaking of which, it seems a lot of these folks get their misconceptions from a select few. They see a black guy arrested for drugs and suddenly all black folks are drug dealers. If this logic held true, all white males would could be either, say thugs with no respect for those around them, aka JM, or say terrorists, as Timothy McVeigh, or all old white males are pedophiles thanks to the actions of a few priests. Or perhaps all corporate white males are theives because of the actions of Conrad Black. See, this logic does not make sense. So if it does not make sense and you still believe it, what exactly does that make you?