Indigenous History Month: A Time for Truth and Action

In “normal times”, we would be celebrating National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21^st, during National Indigenous History Month. But these are not normal times. And now is not the time to celebrate.

Canada is at a historic turning point. The relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada, and between Indigenous peoples and the Canadian state needs to be radically transformed. (from “Shaping a New Future”, the Canada Council for the Arts Strategic Plan 2016-21)

We stated this long before Covid-19 upended all our lives and long before George Floyd, an unarmed black man, was murdered by Minneapolis police officers. Days later, in Canada, Chantel Moore, a 26 year old Noo-chah-nulth woman was shot and killed by police in her home during a “wellness check”. These were just the latest in a long history of racialized violence in the United States and Canada. Pestilence and racist violence are an eerily deadly combination for Indigenous and Black peoples. Our “historical turning point” is in danger of turning into an era of trauma, anger, rage and fear for communities of colour and Indigenous peoples. Fear of a pandemic that continues to ravage these communities disproportionately is compounded by fear of the very state apparatuses that perpetrate and condone racist violence against them.

Indigenous peoples are no strangers to pestilence, whether natural, or as a weapon of colonialism. In the 17^th to early 19^th centuries, smallpox, intentionally introduced by European missionaries and traders decimated Indigenous communities across this land. Some communities lost more than 75% of their people. And, in 1763, the British military under Jeffrey Amherst used blankets exposed to smallpox as germ warfare in an attempt to subdue the First Nations resistance led by Obwandiyag (Pontiac).

And Indigenous people are no strangers to state based racial violence. We know all too acutely the pain, grief, anger and rage of Black and other communities of colour. We know what it means to be criminalized, targeted, abused and killed by police. We know what it’s like to stand by helplessly while a white farmer gets acquitted of the murder of Colten Boushie. We know Indigenous women and girls continue to be murdered and go missing at an unconscionable rate. We know the frustration of dealing with a justice system that is stacked against us and imprisons us at overwhelmingly shocking rates.

As Sefanit Habtom and Megan ScribeBlack have written in a recent Yellowhead Institute report To Breathe Together: Co-Conspirators For Decolonial Futures, “Black and Indigenous relationships are not easy or straightforward. At times, we have let each other down. Other times, we have lost sight of one another, seeking immediate gains over collective liberation. However, entangled within white supremacist settler states, there are many times – times like now – when it is increasingly clear that our interests and our survival tie us together.”

Across the lands we now call Canada and the United States of America, the bodies of Indigenous, Black and other people of colour are continually sacrificed to the altars of colonialism, capitalism and white supremacy. We acknowledge the fact that Black presence in the Americas is the direct result of the dehumanization and forced migration of African peoples through the slave trade and we share the rage of all communities targeted by racist and genocidal acts. This is indeed a defining moment for Canada. It is a time for radical rethinking. It is a time for deep listening and reflection as we examine the kind of nation(s), and society, we wish to be.

Arts and literature can, and must, play a significant role in that future. In its final report, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada urged all Canadians to educate themselves on the lived realities and histories of Indigenous people. The same is true of the Black experience in this country.

I encourage you to read books by Indigenous and Black authors, listen to some amazing music by musicians from these communities, watch films and media by Indigenous and Black directors (from the comfort of your home) or visit a virtual exhibition or performance by Indigenous and Black artists. I also encourage you to actively support Indigenous and Black communities in their struggle against injustice, inequality and violence.

Maori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith has written that “non-Indigenous history is an invention of dominant society, written to exclude Indigenous values and view while claiming to be an objective and accurate portrayal of the chronology of events, when in reality it is a tool of domination.” During this Indigenous History Month we honour those lost to this history, but we must also re-imagine our future. We must end the structural racism and colonial oppression that have created this injustice. Now is not the time for silence. Now is the time to act. Now is the time to stand with all oppressed and racialized communities on this land and demand justice.

Idle No More. Black Lives Matter.

Steven Loft (Mohawk)