Happy Thanksgiving … Joyeux Action de Grâce … Redux 2022

Posted on October 9, 2022 by jilldennison under Global Issues, Holidays, Social commentary

I first wrote this post in 2017 about Thanksgiving in Canada, and have reprised it every year since, with the exception of last year. Why re-invent the wheel, right? At any rate, I would like to wish all of my Canadian friends a very Happy Thanksgiving! Save me some leftovers, okay?

🇨🇦 Happy Thanksgiving Canada!

I just realized, after a comment by friend Emily (Eschudel of Zombie Flamingoes) that today is Thanksgiving … in Canada! Action de grâce!

Now, for those outside Canada, I thought I would look a bit into the history of Canada’s Thanksgiving. We all know the lovely little story about the pilgrims and the natives and the first Thanksgiving in the U.S., which is basically a myth, but whatever. So, I wondered if Canada has such a feel-good story too. Well, turns out it’s confusing, but … let me tell you what I found, and then perhaps some of our Canadian friends will either correct me, or fill in the gaps.

According to Wikipedia …

“Thanksgiving is an annual Canadian holiday, occurring on the second Monday in October, which celebrates the harvest and other blessings of the past year.

According to some historians, the first celebration of Thanksgiving in North America occurred during the 1578 voyage of Martin Frobisher from England, in search of the Northwest Passage.

Years later, French settlers, having crossed the ocean and arrived in Canada with explorer Samuel de Champlain, from 1604, also held feasts of thanks. They even formed the Order of Good Cheer and held feasts with their First Nations neighbors, at which food was shared.

After the Seven Years’ War ended in 1763, with New France handed over to the British, the citizens of Halifax held a special day of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving days were observed beginning in 1799 but did not occur every year.

During and after the American Revolution, American refugees who remained loyal to Great Britain moved from the newly independent United States to Canada. They brought the customs and practices of the American Thanksgiving to Canada, such as the turkey, pumpkin, and squash.

The first Thanksgiving Day after Canadian Confederation was observed as a civic holiday on April 5, 1872, to celebrate the recovery of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) from a serious illness.

For many years before it was declared a national holiday in 1879, Thanksgiving was celebrated in either late October or early November. From 1879 onward, Thanksgiving Day has been observed every year.”

But then, I found an article in The Star (Toronto) that I think is more likely to be authentic …

“In the case of Thanksgiving Day, the critical actors were a group of Protestant clergymen in what is now Ontario. In 1859, these men petitioned the Canadian colonial government to declare a mid-week day of thanksgiving in recognition of the harvest. The government agreed to the ministers’ request, and it would do so again four more times before 1866, and annually beginning in 1871.

Protestant leaders had dual motives in lobbying for an autumn holiday. First, they wanted to reassure Canadian Christians, whose faith had been shaken by the publication of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in 1859.

Second, they felt obligated to mould Canadian identity in light of the prospect — and after 1867, the reality — of Confederation. To clergymen, an abundant harvest provided proof of God’s hand in nature, and evidence that Canadians were a chosen people. As such, a holiday that celebrated the harvest would give them the opportunity to remind Canadians of both their material prosperity and their divine national destiny.

Initially, Canadian Thanksgiving was a solemn and pious occasion compared to its American namesake. All businesses closed for the day, and church services were the only activities of note. Ministers delivered sermons that blended nationalism with religious dogma. Against the backdrop of the American Civil War, they hailed the superiority of British political institutions and praised Canada (incorrectly) for having avoided the evils of slavery.

Overall, their Thanksgiving sermons celebrated Canada for being a white, British, Protestant country — a perspective that pointedly ignored the presence of French Canadians, Catholics, Indigenous people, and non-British immigrants.

In time, however, the Protestant conception of Thanksgiving Day, and the narrow definition of Canadian identity that it promoted, gave way to other influences. From the 1870s onwards, holiday church services lost ground to secular community events and commercial amusements.

Meanwhile, Canadians began adopting American Thanksgiving traditions, such as family gatherings, turkey dinners, and football games. Such activities enabled previously excluded groups to stake their own claims to Thanksgiving, and by extension, to Canadian citizenship.

By 1957, when the government permanently fixed the timing of Thanksgiving Day, the holiday’s domestic focus was firmly established. While many Canadians used the occasion to close their summer cottages for the season, others devoted the day to family get-togethers and turkey dinners.

Today, Canadian Thanksgiving shows few hints of its religious and nationalist beginnings.”

Interesting … things are rarely as they seem on first glance, and it is always fun to delve into the traditions and history of other nations. At any rate, I wish all my Canadian friends & readers a very Happy Thanksgiving … Joyeux Action de grâce. You have one very obvious thing to be thankful for: that you have Justin Trudeau instead of Donald Trump! I hope you were all able to celebrate with loved ones, much laughter and good food.

The Real “Great Replacement” Already Happened

Posted on May 19, 2022 by jilldennison under education, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

I’ve got a sad story to tell those people who have tied themselves to the lie known as the “Great Replacement theory” … the replacement has already happened. Oh no, not in the way you think … white people are still a relevant portion of the population in the United States, and unfortunately, they still largely hold the reins of power … white males do, at least. But the replacement happened many years ago … let me tell you the story.

The story begins in the year 1492 when there were an estimated 10 million people living in an area of land that is now known as the United States. A Spanish explorer named Cristoforo Colombo stumbled onto a land mass he mistakenly thought was the East Indies, and thus he described the natives he met as “Indians”. On his first day, he ordered six natives to be seized as servants.

Fast forward to the year 1620 when white European settlers arrived on ‘American’ shores hungry for land—and the abundant natural resources that came with it. Now, the Indigenous People, the native tribes, saw themselves as stewards of the land, not owners, but the Europeans wanted to own the land. Forget those cutesy little stories you learned in 1^st grade about the Natives and the Europeans sharing that 1^st Thanksgiving dinner. Wake up to the reality … the white men wanted the land, the resources, and to turn the Natives into their slaves. Over the next 200+ years, they worked hard to accomplish that goal.

The Gnadenhutten Massacre, 1782
Archive Photos/Getty Images

I have neither the time nor energy to give a full history lesson, but in a nutshell, the white men established a ‘government’ that would authorize some 1,500 wars, attacks and raids on the Natives, the most of any country in the world against its Indigenous people. By the close of the Indian Wars in the late 19th century, fewer than 238,000 Indigenous people remained in the nation now known as the United States, a mere fraction of the 10 million who once made their homes here.

White Americans often feared and resented the Native Americans they encountered. To them, Native Americans seemed to be an unfamiliar, alien people who occupied land that white settlers wanted (and wrongly believed they deserved).

Execution of Dakota Sioux Indians in Mankato, Minnesota, 1862
Library of Congress/Photo12/UIG/Getty Images

In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed into law the Indian Removal Act, which gave the federal government the power to exchange Native-held land in the cotton kingdom east of the Mississippi for land to the west, in the “Indian colonization zone” that the United States had acquired as part of the Louisiana Purchase. (This “Indian territory” was located in present-day Oklahoma.) Indigenous Peoples were forced to vacate the land they had lived on for generations, and in the winter of 1831 the Choctaw became the first nation to be expelled from its land altogether. They made the journey to Indian Territory on foot, some bound in chains and without any food, supplies or other help from the government. Thousands of people died along the way. It was, one Choctaw leader told an Alabama newspaper, a “trail of tears and death.”

A painting depicting the Trail of Tears, when Native Americans were forced by law to leave their homelands and move to designated territory in the west Al Moldvay/The Denver Post via Getty Images

The Indian-removal process continued with the Creeks and then the Cherokees. By 1840, tens of thousands of Native Americans had been driven off of their land in the southeastern states and forced to move across the Mississippi to Indian Territory. The federal government promised that their new land would remain unmolested forever, but as the line of white settlement pushed westward, “Indian Country” shrank and shrank. In 1907, Oklahoma became a state and Indian Territory was gone for good.

Burial of the dead after the massacre of Wounded Knee

That, my friends, was the unconscionable ‘great replacement’ and it was perpetuated by the ancestors of the very people who are spreading lies and conspiracy theories about an attempt to ‘replace’ white people. What white people did to the Indigenous People of this nation was nothing short of genocide. Today’s ‘great replacement theory’ is a stupid, nonsensical lie, but also a very dangerous one. People without adequate intellect or education to see through the lie are buying into it, hence the shooting spree that killed 10 and wounded 3 others in Buffalo, New York last weekend. Next time you hear somebody whine that there is a plot afoot to ‘replace’ white people in this country, tell them this true tale about the real replacement that took place at the hands of their own ancestors.

Your Children’s Future — Fight For It!!!

Posted on March 13, 2022 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, education, Election 2022, History, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

There are a large number of things happening in the world today that keep me awake nights – the trampling of our voting rights in nearly every state in the U.S.; the great divide between followers of the two political parties in the U.S. and the lies being told; the lack of interest on the part of Congress to act in the best interest of the people of this nation; the war in Ukraine and the potential for world-wide disaster; the increase in racism and homophobia; climate change and our abysmal failure to address it in any meaningful ways; the failure of people to understand that COVID is NOT over; the alarming increase in the ownership of guns and their use, and much more. However, the one that kept me awake last night was the whitewashing of history in the nation’s schools, prompted by racist individuals and supported by government and the courts.

Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill is just the tip of the iceberg. Many states are rebelling against the teaching of actual history and would prefer that schools teach only the more ‘noble’ moments in our history, leaving out or altering the facts about those moments that white Europeans were unconscionably cruel and murderous. I well remember when I first learned in school about Christopher Columbus, the settlers who came here to escape religious persecution in Europe, and how the Indigenous People taught the settlers how to fend for themselves, how to grow food, and then on that first Thanksgiving, how they sat side-by-side and broke bread together. A lovely story, only … it’s just a small part of the story. Back in the 1950s, we weren’t taught about how the white settlers then turned on the natives, killed them and ran them off of their lands. Slowly but surely, education began coming ‘round to the idea of teaching the facts, but suddenly in the last decade or so, that situation is reversing yet again!

I was in high school before I learned of white man’s treachery against the natives, and even then it wasn’t dealt with in any depth, but merely skimmed in the textbooks. Today, in the 21^st century, an increasingly large number of people are claiming a notion called ‘white supremacy’, the concept that people with whiter skin are somehow mentally and physically ‘superior’ to others. You and I know this is bullshit … if anything, the reverse is true.

The history of the U.S., although shorter than that of most other nations, is fraught with the evil of humans and if we cover that up, bury it like dog poop, or whitewash it to make it seem just a blip, then we are committing a crime against future generations, for they will not have the opportunity to view history through a clear glass, to make their own judgments, draw their own conclusions, and learn the lessons that history has to teach. They will be ill-prepared, as are many of today’s politicos, to understand the world they live in, to understand for instance the anger of Black people when one is killed for no good reason.

Ask a teenager today if they know why the BlackLivesMatter protests happened? Do they understand that the murders of George Floyd and so many others make it apparent that we are heading back to the days before Civil Rights legislation, the days of Jim Crow, the KKK, and Black people being treated as if they were dirt? Do they know what the Trail of Tears was, what happened, and why? Do they know that after the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, the United States government dispossessed thousands of Japanese-Americans, sent them to camps where they barely survived after losing their homes, their jobs, and all their worldly goods?

And more recently, do they know about the massacre at the Pulse Night Club in Orlando, Florida, in 2016? Do they understand that crimes are being committed against people just because of who they love? Do they know about the Charleston church shooting in 2015? Or the one in Sutherland Springs, Texas in 2017? All acts committed by those who believe their white skin, religion, or gender somehow gives them the “right” to kill people simply for looking, acting, or thinking differently than they do!

I no longer have school-age children, but if I did, I would be demanding that my child be taught the true history of the United States, which is not quite as pretty as the history that Governor DeSantis and other lawmakers across the nation would prefer to be taught. Teach them yourselves if you have to, but please … do not let the next generation grow up stupid, foolishly believing that the history of white people in the U.S. is somehow noble. The truth matters, even when it’s painful, and if we ignore the truth, then we will only devolve, never evolve. What the schools are doing is a form of censorship … censorship no different than what we’re seeing done by the Russian leader today, denying people the truth.

Rather than banning books, buy them, place them in your child’s hands, read them yourself if you haven’t already. Knowledge is power and we are depriving our children, grandchildren, and all future generations of that power, destining them to continue down the path of ignorance. The fate of the world hinges on what our children learn today.

Good People Doing Good Things — Maggie MacDonnell

Posted on February 23, 2022 by jilldennison under education, Good people doing good things, Social commentary

I first wrote about Maggie MacDonnell in August 2017, long before many of you had ever heard of Filosofa’s Word, but she was one of my readers’ favourite good people that year and her story still resonates, is well worth highlighting a second time!

Today’s good person is a teacher … the winner of this year’s Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize of $1 million. I did not know there was such a prize, did you? Well, allow me to introduce this year’s most-deserving winner, Ms. Maggie MacDonnell!

Imagine, if you will, that you have just earned your college degree and are now a certified teacher. The world is your oyster; you can teach anywhere in the world. Where would you go? I am betting not too many would choose a town of only 1,347 people, accessible only by air, in the Canadian Arctic, but that is exactly where Maggie MacDonnell has been making a difference in young people’s lives for the past six years.

Maggie MacDonnell grew up in rural Nova Scotia and after completing her Bachelor’s degree, spent five years volunteering and teaching in Sub-Saharan Africa, largely in the field of HIV/AIDS prevention. After completing her Master’s degree, she found her country was beginning to wake up to the decades of abuse that Canadian Indigenous people have lived through, including assaults on the environment and enormous economic and social inequality. As such, she sought out opportunities to teach indigenous communities in Canada and for the last six years has been a teacher in a fly-in Inuit village called Salluit, nestled in the Canadian Arctic. This is home to the second northernmost Inuit community in Quebec, with a population of just over 1,300 – it cannot be reached by road, only by air. In winter, temperatures are minus 25° C (-13° F).

Most teachers who go to teach in the Arctic don’t stay long … many do not even make it halfway through their first year. Conditions are harsh, added to by the sense of isolation and limited resources. But Maggie has stayed for six years now, determined to make a difference in the lives of the young people in the village. There are many challenges for Maggie to confront. Teenagers, in the face of deprivation and isolation, frequently turn to drink, drugs and self-harm. In Salluit alone there were six suicides in 2015, all among men aged 18 to 25. Teenage pregnancy is common, levels of sexual abuse are high, and gender expectations see young girls burdened with domestic duties.

It takes a remarkable teacher just to work in such an environment. But, to do what Maggie has done requires something quite extraordinary, something very special. She has worked assiduously to raise funds for the community, particularly her students, focusing on nutrition and fitness, and created a life-skills program specifically for young women that has seen a 500 percent growth in girls’ enrollment because previous programs were designed to help mainly boys. With the help of her students, the community and contributions from individuals, companies and government agencies, Salluit now has a thriving fitness centre and the villagers have helped other communities create their own.

Outside the classroom, she spent time as a coach for the Salluit Running Club. Seven Inuit youth travelled with her to Hawaii in 2016 to run a half marathon. Her projects include taking students hiking in national parks, having them run a community kitchen, a second-hand store, and fundraising for diabetes prevention programs. She has also temporarily fostered some Salluit youth. Maggie does not simply see herself as the teacher and the kids as students, but sees their lives as being intertwined with hers. One of the biggest myths about teaching is that the school day ends at 3pm, says Maggie: “I think as a teacher in a small Arctic community, your day never ends. The school doors may close – but the relationship with your students is continuous as you share the community with them.”

The Life Skills program Maggie implemented is three-pronged:

It has motivated young people to return to school, by engaging them in projects that interest them – from cookery to mechanics.
These talents and interests are used to tackle and address issues in the community.
Her students then receive praise and acknowledgment. They have low confidence, and are viewed negatively by the community. But “giving them a new positive platform to stand upon while contributing to the community is transformative for both my students and the community,” writes Maggie.

A bit about the Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize …

The Varkey Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving education for underprivileged children around the world. The Global Teacher Prize is a $1 million award presented annually to an exceptional teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to their profession. The prize serves to underline the importance of educators and the fact that, throughout the world, their efforts deserve to be recognised and celebrated. It seeks to acknowledge the impacts of the very best teachers – not only on their students but on the communities around them. Why teachers? Lack of education is a major factor behind many of the social, political, economic and health issues faced by the world today. We believe education has the power to reduce poverty, prejudice and conflict. The status of teachers in cultures across the world is critically important to our global future.

MacDonnell was selected from among 20,000 nominees representing 179 countries. The Nobel-style award was set up three years ago by the Dubai-based Varkey Foundation. The prize is paid in instalments and requires the winner to remain a teacher for at least five years.

The award ceremony, held in Dubai, is a glitzy affair. The winner was announced by astronaut Thomas Pesquet, speaking from the International Space Station, who said: “I’d like to be the first person in history to thank all the world’s teachers from space.” The award was handed out by adventurer Bear Grylls, who jumped from a helicopter to deliver it to the ceremony. Italian singer Andrea Bocelli took part in the prize giving. A video message from Prince Harry was screened and the ceremony was attended by the vice president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Maggie was even congratulated by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau:

“You chose to teach at the Ikusik school in Salluit, a remote village in the Canadian Arctic. There are no roads to Salluit – it is only accessible by air and it gets cold, really cold, -20c this time of year. I’d like to say thank you to every teacher out there.”

My hat is off to this amazing young woman who is helping to make a big difference in the lives of the youth in Salluit. Her approach, rooted in respect for her students, their culture and the particular challenges of their community, is a model for teachers everywhere. Her conviction that kindness breeds hope holds a lesson for us all. This, my friends, is how we make the world a better place … one person at a time.

Note to Readers: If any of you know of a person or organization that you believe qualifies for a “good people” post, please feel free to send me a suggestion!

Tears Of Shame … Yet Again

Posted on July 20, 2021 by jilldennison under education, History, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Over the past few weeks, we have read with horror about the discovery of unmarked graves at Canada’s boarding schools that housed indigenous children a century ago. But guess what, folks? We may well find the same here. The U.S. does NOT have clean hands when it comes to the treatment of the original settlers in this land, the Native Americans. The New York Times has presented a moving article that frankly brought tears to my eyes when I read it last night, so I have decided to share it with you, my friends.

Lost Lives, Lost Culture: The Forgotten History of Indigenous Boarding Schools

Thousands of Native American children attended U.S. boarding schools designed to “civilize the savage.” Many died. Many who lived are reclaiming their identity.

The last day Dzabahe remembers praying in the way of her ancestors was on the morning in the 1950s when she was taken to the boarding school.

At first light, she grabbed a small pouch and ran out into the desert to a spot facing the rising sun to sprinkle the taa dih’deen — or corn pollen — to the four directions, offering honor for the new day.

Within hours of arriving at the school, she was told not to speak her own Navajo language. The leather skirt her mother had sewn for her and the beaded moccasins were taken away and bundled in plastic, like garbage.

She was given a dress to wear and her long hair was cut — something that is taboo in Navajo culture. Before she was sent to the dormitory, one more thing was taken: her name.

“You have a belief system. You have a way of life you have already embraced,” said Bessie Smith, now 79, who continues to use the name given to her at the former boarding school in Arizona.

“And then it’s so casually taken away,” she said. “It’s like you are violated.”

Bessie Smith, 79, was forbidden from speaking her Navajo language once she began attending a federal boarding school and nearly forgot her native tongue. “It’s so casually taken away,” she said. “It’s like you are violated.”Credit…Sharon Chischilly for The New York Times

A memorial set up after the discovery of 215 unmarked graves at a former boarding school in British Columbia.Credit…Amber Bracken for The New York Times

The recent discoveries of unmarked graves at government-run schools for Indigenous children in Canada — 215 graves in British Columbia, 750 more in Saskatchewan — surfaced like a long-forgotten nightmare.

But for many Indigenous people in Canada and the United States, the nightmare was never forgotten. Instead the discoveries are a reminder of how many living Native Americans were products of an experiment in forcibly removing children from their families and culture.

Many of them are still struggling to make sense of who they were and who they are.

In the century and a half that the U.S. government ran boarding schools for Native Americans, hundreds of thousands of children were housed and educated in a network of institutions, created to “civilize the savage.” By the 1920s, one group estimates, nearly 83 percent of Native American school-age children were attending such schools.

Tolani Lake School children and staff in an undated photograph.Credit…National Archives

“When people do things to you when you’re growing up, it affects you spiritually, physically, mentally and emotionally,” said Russell Box Sr., a member of the Southern Ute tribe who was 6 when he was sent to a boarding school in southwestern Colorado.

“We couldn’t speak our language, we couldn’t sing our prayer songs,” he said. “To this day, maybe that’s why I can’t sing.”

The discovery of the bodies in Canada led Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, the first Native American to head the department that once ran the boarding schools in the United States — and herself the granddaughter of people forced to attend them — to announce that the government would search the grounds of former facilities to identify the remains of children.

That many children died in the schools on this side of the border is not in question. Just last week, nine Lakota children who perished at the federal boarding school in Carlisle, Pa., were disinterred and buried in buffalo robes in a ceremony on a tribal reservation in South Dakota.

Many of the deaths of former students have been recorded in federal archives and newspaper death notices. Based on what those records indicate, the search for bodies of other students is already underway at two former schools in Colorado: Grand Junction Indian School in central Colorado, which closed in 1911, and the Fort Lewis Indian School, which closed in 1910 and reopened in Durango as Fort Lewis College.

“There were horrific things that happened at boarding schools,” said Tom Stritikus, the president of Fort Lewis College. “It’s important that we daylight that.”

A committee at Fort Lewis College in Colorado has begun investigating the institution’s past and is studying how to search its former campus for the possibility of the remains of children who died there.Credit…Sharon Chischilly for The New York Times

Fort Lewis Indian School, which closed 111 years ago, was dedicated to eradicating Native American culture. Now, on its former grounds, student are planting Native American crops.Credit…Sharon Chischilly for The New York Times

The idea of assimilating Native Americans through education dates back to the earliest history of the colonies.

In 1775, the Continental Congress passed a bill appropriating $500 for the education of Native American youth. By the late 1800s, the number of students in boarding schools had risen from a handful to 24,000, and the amount appropriated had soared to $2.6 million.

Throughout the decades that they were in existence, the schools were seen as both a cheaper and a more expedient way of dealing with the “Indian problem.”

Carl Schurz, the secretary of the interior in the late 1800s, argued that it cost close to $1 million to kill a Native American in warfare, versus just $1,200 to give his child eight years of schooling, according to the account of the historian David Wallace Adams in “Education for Extinction.” “A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one,” Capt. Richard H. Pratt, the founder of one of the first boarding schools, wrote in 1892. “In a sense I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: That all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him and save the man.”

Students and staff at Fort Lewis Indian School circa 1900.Credit…Courtesy of the Center of Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College

Those who survived the schools described violence as routine. As punishment, Norman Lopez was made to sit in the corner for hours at the Ute Vocational School in southwestern Colorado where he was sent around age 6. When he tried to get up, a teacher picked him up and slammed him against the wall, he said. Then the teacher picked him up a second time and threw him headfirst to the ground, he said.

“I thought that it was part of school,” said Mr. Lopez, now 78. “I didn’t think of it as abusive.”

A less violent incident marked him more, he said.

His grandfather taught him how to carve a flute out of the branch of a cedar. When the boy brought the flute to school, his teacher smashed it and threw it in the trash.

He grasped even then how special the cedar flute and his native music were. “That’s what God is. God speaks through air,” he said, of the music his grandfather taught him.

He said the lesson was clear, both in the need to comply and the need to resist.

“I had to keep quiet. There’s plenty where it came from. Tree’s not going to give up,” he said of the cedar. “I’m not going to give up.”

Decades later, Mr. Lopez has returned to the flute. He carves them and records in a homemade studio, set up in his home on the Ute Mountain Ute reservation in Towaoc, Colo.

Norman Lopez, 78, playing a flute outside of his home. He said a boarding school teacher in Colorado smashed his hand-carved flute and threw it in the trash.Credit…Sharon Chischilly for The New York Times

Russell Box Sr. spends his days at his home in Ignacio, Colo., painting images of Native American symbols and ceremonies he was told to forget at the boarding school he attended as a child.Credit…Sharon Chischilly for The New York Times

In the same boarding school, Mr. Box was punished so severely for speaking Ute that he refused to teach his children the language, in an effort to shield them the pain he endured, his ex-wife, Pearl E. Casias, said.

Years of alcoholism followed, he said. His marriage fell apart. It was not until middle age that he reached a fork in the road.

“I had been yearning in here,” he said, pointing to his heart. “My spirit had been yearning in here to stand in the lodge,” he said, referring to the medicine lodge that dancers enter during the annual Sundance, one of the most important ceremonies of the Ute people. “Then one day I said to myself, ‘Now I’m going to stand.’ And when I said that inside of me, there was a little flame.”

He went to the Sundance for the first time. He stopped drinking. This year, one of his daughters reached out to her mother, asking if she could teach her how to make beaded moccasins.

But for many, the wounds just do not heal.

Students and staff at Grand Junction Indian School in central Colorado in an undated photograph.Credit…Museums of Western Colorado

Jacqueline Frost, 60, was raised by her Ute aunt, a matron at the boarding school who embraced the system and became its enforcer.

Ms. Frost said she remembered the beatings. “I don’t know if it was a broom or a mop, I just remember the stick part, and my aunt swung it at me,” she said, adding: “There was belts. There was hangers. There was shoes. There was sticks, branches, wire.”

She, too, turned to alcohol. “Even though I’ve gone to so much counseling,” she said, “I still would always say, ‘Why am I like this? Why do I have this ugly feeling inside me?’”

By the turn of the century, a debate had erupted on whether it was better to “carry civilization to the Indian” by building schools on tribal land. In 1902, the government completed the construction of a boarding school on the Southern Ute reservation in Ignacio, Colo. — the school that Mr. Box and Mr. Lopez both attended.

The impact of the school, which was shuttered decades ago, can be summed up in two statistics: In the 1800s, when federal agents were trawling the reservation for children, they complained that there were almost no adults who spoke English. Today, about 30 people out of a tribe of fewer than 1,500 people — only 2 percent — speak the Ute language fluently, said Lindsay J. Box, a tribal spokeswoman. (Mr. Box is her uncle.)

“There were horrific things that happened at boarding schools,” said Tom Stritikus, the president of Fort Lewis College. “It’s important that we daylight that.”Credit…Sharon Chischilly for The New York Times

Jacqueline Frost, 60, holds a photo showing how she was forced to adopt the look and attire of a white girl. She said she was beaten by a Ute aunt who served as a matron at a federal boarding school designed to assimilate Native children.Credit…Sharon Chischilly for The New York Times

For decades, Ms. Smith barely spoke Navajo. She thought she had forgotten it, until years later at the hospital in Denver where she worked as director of patient admissions, a Navajo couple came in with their dying baby and the language came tumbling back, she said.

It marked a turn for her. She realized that the vocabulary she thought had been beaten out of her was still there. As she looked back, she recognized the small but meaningful ways in which she had resisted.

From her first day in the dormitory, she never again practiced the morning prayer to the four directions.

Unable to do it in physical form, she learned instead to do it internally: “I did it in my heart,” she said.

In her old age, she now makes jewelry using traditional elements, like “ghost beads” made from the dried berries of the juniper tree. When she started selling online, she chose the domain: www.dzabahe.com.

It is her birth name, the one that was taken from her at the boarding school, the one whose Navajo meaning endured: “woman who fights back.”

Understanding Our Past — CRT: Part I

Posted on June 27, 2021 by jilldennison under education, History, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary, voting rights

Okay, folks … it seems that there is much confusion surrounding the concept of Critical Race Theory or CRT. The confusion is twofold: genuine confusion by people who truly do not understand the theory, and fake outrage by racists and Republicans (largely one and the same) who are trying to make a point to their mostly white base.

Today’s post, the first in a two-maybe-three-part series, looks at what Critical Race Theory is … and what it isn’t, and the evidence to support it. Then, I hope to deconstruct the outright lies that are being told by the politicians and the likes of Fox News that are creating a furor in this nation … mainly among racists and bigots, but also among those who simply don’t understand what it is and why the theory is accurate. This is by no means intended to be an academic work, but merely a layman’s view of what CRT is and how it is affecting this nation today.

Let’s start with a simple explanation of Critical Race Theory.

The simplest explanation is that racism has been a part of this nation since its founding, and today, even in the 21^st century is systemic, meaning it is built into our institutions such as law enforcement, schools, the courts, etc. in an attempt to maintain the dominance of white people in society. Sometimes it is blatant, but since the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, more often it is subtle or implied, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

CRT does not, as some would have you believe, posit that all white people are racists, but rather that this nation’s history of racism lives on in many today, even though some may not realize it, and that it is imbedded in our laws, our society, our system. Think about it … from the earliest days of white people coming to these shores, racism has been cruelly executed. Think about what the white European settlers did to the indigenous people who had been here for thousands of years before the white people showed up and literally imprisoned them and kicked them off their land … killed them. Read Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation by John Ehle.

And then, in 1619, the first slaves were imported from the African continent to do the hard work. White men owned those dark-skinned men and women … owned them like they might own a painting or a cow.

More than 200 years later, at the stroke of midnight on January 1, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation came into effect and declared enslaved people in the Confederacy free—on the condition that the Union won the war. Still, slavery remained constant until the war was won by the Union troops and the 13^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1865 …

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

President Lincoln did not live to see final ratification: Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, and the necessary number of states did not ratify the 13th Amendment until December 6^th of that year.

Then came the Black Codes¹, Jim Crow laws², and … the Ku Klux Klan³ (KKK).

Black Codes were strict local and state laws that detailed when, where and how formerly enslaved people could work, and for how much compensation. The codes appeared throughout the South as a legal way to put Black citizens into indentured servitude, to take voting rights away, to control where they lived and how they traveled and to seize children for labour purposes.
Jim Crow laws existed for about 100 years, from the post-Civil War era until 1968. They were meant to marginalize African Americans by denying them the right to vote, hold jobs, get an education or other opportunities. Those who attempted to defy Jim Crow laws often faced arrest, fines, jail sentences, violence and death.
The Ku Klux Klan was born in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee, as a private club for Confederate veterans. The KKK grew into a secret society terrorizing Black communities and seeping through white Southern culture, with members at the highest levels of government and in the lowest echelons of criminal back alleys.

Under Jim Crow, segregated waiting rooms in bus and train stations were required, as well as water fountains, restrooms, building entrances, elevators, cemeteries, even amusement-park cashier windows. Laws forbade African Americans from living in white neighborhoods. Segregation was enforced for public pools, phone booths, hospitals, asylums, jails, and residential homes for the elderly and handicapped. Some states even required separate textbooks for Black and white students. New Orleans mandated the segregation of prostitutes according to race. In Atlanta, African Americans in court were given a different Bible from white people to swear on. Marriage and cohabitation between white and Black people was strictly forbidden in most Southern states. It was not uncommon to see signs posted at town and city limits warning African Americans that they were not welcome there.

And no, my friends, this wasn’t hundreds of years ago … Jim Crow laws were still in effect when I was young, and only legally ended in 1968. Less than fifty years ago. But … in many ways they are still being practiced, just not quite as openly or blatantly.

And what of the KKK? A relic of past history? Guess again. Some 42 different Klan groups were active in 22 states as of June 2017, a slight increase from early 2016, according to a report from the Anti-Defamation League.

Now, sit down for a minute and take a few deep, calming breaths, for this is some disturbing information I’ve just laid on you. None of it was likely news to you, but … seeing it all in print, realizing that yes, Virginia, racism is alive and well in the United States today, can take the wind out of your sails. Racism in the U.S. is not a thing of the past, not something we’ve overcome. Sure, we’ve made some progress, there are anti-discrimination laws on the books to protect minorities from being denied jobs, education, and housing … but that doesn’t mean that people don’t find a way around it. Racism is, like it or not, part of our past and our present … the goal here is to ensure it is NOT part of our future.

My goal is two-fold: to clear up some of the misconceptions floating around today, perpetuated by the uneducated or those who have ulterior motives, and to show why and how we, as a nation, can be so much better than we are today. I will have Part II to this series in the next day or two and will try to tie it all up in Part III by the end of the week. But folks, don’t let anybody tell you that this is not a racist nation … hell yes, it is. Many of us are not racist, don’t understand those who are, but sadly the racists are often the ones calling the shots, making the laws, setting the rules, teaching our children – hence, systemic rasicm.

Celebrating Australia

Posted on January 26, 2021 by jilldennison under animals, Global Issues, History, Holidays, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

I initially started out to do a fun, positive, upbeat post about Australia Day. I had even snagged a few fun memes about the day and the country from over at Phil’s Phun (Phil is an Aussie, you know). But then, I discovered that not everybody in Australia is all that happy to observe a national commemoration on January 26^th, and with good reason. It’s reminiscent of our own Christopher Columbus Day in October that … well, should really be ended. According to an article I found on VOA (Voice of America) News …

The first fleet of British convicts arrived in Sydney on Jan. 26, 1788, but Aboriginal groups mourn what they call “Invasion Day.” Australia’s national day is controversial because it is held on a date marking British colonization. Aboriginal Australians have led the charge for it to be commemorated at a different time of the year.

Cricket bosses have removed the term “Australia Day” from promotional material for matches because they insist it was a time of “mourning” for many Indigenous players. Many Australia Day events this year are being scaled back or postponed because of COVID-19 restrictions, but the clamor for the date to be altered is likely to be undiminished.

Australia’s Indigenous peoples make up about 3% of the national population. They believe that high rates of unemployment, poverty and incarceration are the direct result of the dispossession and marginalization caused by European colonization that began in 1788.

Sadly, Australia’s current Prime Minister Scott Morrison seems rather oblivious to the pain the date recalls. He is angry that the cricket teams will not be touting the day, and says, “When those 12 ships turned up in Sydney all those years ago, it wasn’t a particularly flash day for the people on those vessels either.” This statement in itself reminds me so much of the person we here in the U.S. just voted out of the Oval Office … no empathy, no consideration for others’ feelings. And he doesn’t even know the history of his nation, for according to historians there were 11 ships, not 12.

So now, I am torn. I have a number of Australian blogging friends and I want to honour their country, and yet, I fully understand the reasons that this day should not be one of celebration, for it would be rather like celebrating the arrival of the first slave ships on U.S. soil … not something to be proud of. So, instead of writing about the day and the tragedies of history, I will share a few of the beautiful areas and wildlife of Australia and drink a toast to all my Aussie friends … Paul, Andrea, Simeon, Anne, and all the rest! Cheers, my friends — you guys live in a beautiful country! 🥂

Uluru, the iconic monolith, also known as Ayers Rock, is the emblem of Australia. The massive sandstone rock is located in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. Uluru, one of Australia’s World Heritage Sites, is sacred to its indigenous custodians. The monolith is now off-limits for climbers.

Iconic Sydney Opera House

The Great Barrier Reef is located off the east coast of Queensland and is one of Australia’s natural wonders and a World Heritage Site.

The Twelve Apostles, the collection of limestone stacks off the shore of the Port Campbell National Park in Victoria.

The ‘Totem Pole’ from the last lookout of the Cape Hauy Track, in Tasman National Park, Tasmania.

Weedy Sea Dragon

Lake Hillier, whose pink hue defies scientific explanation.

I think that Australia has some of the cutest wildlife on the planet! My two favourites are the Quokka and the Koala, but they are all beautiful!

Baby Echidna, aka Hedgehog

Kangaroo with Joey in the pouch

Koala

Quokka

Tasmanian Devil

Happy Thanksgiving … Joyeux Action de Grâce … Redux 2020

Posted on October 12, 2020 by jilldennison under Global Issues, Holidays, Social commentary

I first wrote this post in 2017 about Thanksgiving in Canada, and have reprised it every year since. Why re-invent the wheel, right? At any rate, I would like to wish all of my Canadian friends a very Happy Thanksgiving! Save me some leftovers, okay?

🇨🇦 Happy Thanksgiving Canada!

I just realized, after a comment by friend Emily (Eschudel of Zombie Flamingoes) that today is Thanksgiving … in Canada! Action de grâce!

According to Wikipedia …

“Thanksgiving is an annual Canadian holiday, occurring on the second Monday in October, which celebrates the harvest and other blessings of the past year.

According to some historians, the first celebration of Thanksgiving in North America occurred during the 1578 voyage of Martin Frobisher from England, in search of the Northwest Passage.

Years later, French settlers, having crossed the ocean and arrived in Canada with explorer Samuel de Champlain, from 1604, also held feasts of thanks. They even formed the Order of Good Cheer and held feasts with their First Nations neighbors, at which food was shared.

After the Seven Years’ War ended in 1763, with New France handed over to the British, the citizens of Halifax held a special day of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving days were observed beginning in 1799 but did not occur every year.

During and after the American Revolution, American refugees who remained loyal to Great Britain moved from the newly independent United States to Canada. They brought the customs and practices of the American Thanksgiving to Canada, such as the turkey, pumpkin, and squash.

The first Thanksgiving Day after Canadian Confederation was observed as a civic holiday on April 5, 1872, to celebrate the recovery of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) from a serious illness.

For many years before it was declared a national holiday in 1879, Thanksgiving was celebrated in either late October or early November. From 1879 onward, Thanksgiving Day has been observed every year.”

But then, I found an article in The Star (Toronto) that I think is more likely to be authentic …

“In the case of Thanksgiving Day, the critical actors were a group of Protestant clergymen in what is now Ontario. In 1859, these men petitioned the Canadian colonial government to declare a mid-week day of thanksgiving in recognition of the harvest. The government agreed to the ministers’ request, and it would do so again four more times before 1866, and annually beginning in 1871.

Protestant leaders had dual motives in lobbying for an autumn holiday. First, they wanted to reassure Canadian Christians, whose faith had been shaken by the publication of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in 1859.

Second, they felt obligated to mould Canadian identity in light of the prospect — and after 1867, the reality — of Confederation. To clergymen, an abundant harvest provided proof of God’s hand in nature, and evidence that Canadians were a chosen people. As such, a holiday that celebrated the harvest would give them the opportunity to remind Canadians of both their material prosperity and their divine national destiny.

Initially, Canadian Thanksgiving was a solemn and pious occasion compared to its American namesake. All businesses closed for the day, and church services were the only activities of note. Ministers delivered sermons that blended nationalism with religious dogma. Against the backdrop of the American Civil War, they hailed the superiority of British political institutions and praised Canada (incorrectly) for having avoided the evils of slavery.

Overall, their Thanksgiving sermons celebrated Canada for being a white, British, Protestant country — a perspective that pointedly ignored the presence of French Canadians, Catholics, Indigenous people, and non-British immigrants.

In time, however, the Protestant conception of Thanksgiving Day, and the narrow definition of Canadian identity that it promoted, gave way to other influences. From the 1870s onwards, holiday church services lost ground to secular community events and commercial amusements.

Meanwhile, Canadians began adopting American Thanksgiving traditions, such as family gatherings, turkey dinners, and football games. Such activities enabled previously excluded groups to stake their own claims to Thanksgiving, and by extension, to Canadian citizenship.

By 1957, when the government permanently fixed the timing of Thanksgiving Day, the holiday’s domestic focus was firmly established. While many Canadians used the occasion to close their summer cottages for the season, others devoted the day to family get-togethers and turkey dinners.

Today, Canadian Thanksgiving shows few hints of its religious and nationalist beginnings.”

Bears Ears And Tears

Posted on February 9, 2020 by jilldennison under animals, Environmental Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Rants, Social commentary

They’re at it again, folks. The greedy fools running this country (into the ground) have decided that … what the people want matters not. In essence, they have said, “We will tell you what you want … now sit down and shut up … oh yeah, and don’t forget to pay us your tax money so we can waste more money on utter stupidity!” Yes, Filosofa is in fight mode once again. Damn these greedy bastards.

In 2017, Trump announced he would downsize both the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah, which would be the largest reversal of national monument protections in U.S. history. Now folks … first of all, those aren’t Trump’s lands to do with as he pleases … they are OURS. After Trump made that announcement in 2017, a public comment period was opened by the administration whereby fully 99% of the respondents opposed the decision. We spoke … we said, “No, leave our beautiful land alone!” In addition to the people’s voice, there are numerous legal challenges still pending in the courts that have held up the implementation of the act. But now, all of a sudden, the Department of Interior has announced that plans have been finalized to open up roughly two million acres of formerly protected land in southern Utah to the fossil fuel industry for mining and drilling. Mining and drilling for the very things that are decimating our planet, killing wildlife, and ensuring the extinction of the human species. Without permission from the owners of that land. Without approval by environmental groups or the courts.

According to the Interior Department’s acting assistant secretary of land, materials and minerals management, Casey Hammond …

“These cooperatively developed and locally driven plans restore a prosperous future to communities too often dismissed and punished by unilateral decisions of those that would not listen to the voices of Utahns.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong, and once again wrong. Those “communities too often dismissed and punished” are the indigenous people of the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and Pueblo of Zuni, and they are in a lawsuit challenging the dismantling of Bears Ears National Monument! Don’t, Ms. Hammond, pretend you are helping the very people you are hurting!

We need more coal, oil and gas like we need fourteen more holes in our heads! Oh, but wait … Trump did promise the ignoble oil and coal barons that he would give them carte balance to destroy the natural resources of this nation, didn’t he? Silly me … how could I forget?

The Department of Interior is headed by none other than David Bernhardt. Bernhardt’s past, like that of EPA head, Andrew Wheeler, includes serving as a lobbyist for the fossil fuel industry … in other words, his best buddies are in the oil industry, the very industry this asininity is designed to help. His legal clients included the Independent Petroleum Association of America, which represents dozens of oil companies, and Halliburton Energy Services, the oil and gas extraction firm that was led by Dick Cheney before he became vice president to George W. Bush. What a tangled bloody web!

This is yet another example of Trump & Co putting more money into the pockets of the already-wealthy, at the expense of the other 99% of people in this country. Fossil fuels are on the way out the back door, globally. Trump brags that the U.S. is now the biggest producer of oil. Guess what? That’s nothing to brag about. It would deserve far more kudos if we could say we were the largest producer of wind or solar energy, that we had decreased our dependence on fossil fuels. Whether Trump, Bernhardt or their cronies at Exxon-Mobil like it or not, coal and oil are rapidly becoming dinosaurs in the energy market.

Regardless of the pending lawsuits, the Trump administration intends to plow forward with its plans. When questioned about those lawsuits and how they can move forward before those are resolved, Ms. Hammond replied …

“If we stopped and waited for every piece of litigation to be resolved, we would never be able to do much of anything around here.”

Much of this country has been decimated … skyscrapers rise to the clouds where animals once roamed free. Oil derricks have replaced beautiful land in the west, and ugly surface mines have replaced what were once beautiful mountains in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kentucky. Where once there were life-giving trees, there are now ruins, devastation. Where once streams and rivers ran clear, now they are filled with toxic sludge.

Soon, this …

… will look like this …

If Donald Trump and his cronies have their way, the entire nation will be covered in buildings, mines, drilling rigs, and waste dumps. No more beautiful national parks, mountains, hiking trails, clean beaches, green valleys …

Which would you rather have?

The Results Are In — And So Is Trudeau!

Posted on October 23, 2019 by jilldennison under Environmental Issues, Global Issues, guest posts, Political commentary, Social commentary

A couple of weeks ago, John Fioravanti wrote a guest post about what was then the upcoming elections in Canada. At the time, the race between incumbent Justin Trudeau and newcomer (Trump clone) Andrew Scheer was neck-in-neck. Last Sunday, the much-awaited election took place and John has graciously written a new guest post to explain and help us understand the results …

CANADA’S FEDERAL ELECTION: 2019

On Monday, October 21^st, voters in Canada returned Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party to power in Ottawa with a strong minority government. The party standings in our 338 seat House of Commons at the time of this writing is:

LIBERALS – 157 CONSERVATIVES – 121 BLOC QUEBECOIS – 32

NEW DEMOCRATIC – 24 GREEN PARTY – 3 INDEPENDENT – 1

For readers who are unfamiliar with the Parliamentary democratic system, here is a brief explanation. We have two legislative bodies that make laws. The House of Commons is elected and electoral ridings are drawn by the principle of representation by population. Members serve 4-year terms and all stand for election at the same time. The Senate is a body appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister. All bills must pass both houses to become law, but only the House of Commons can force a new election before the mandatory 4-year term has expired.

Left to right … Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau

We do not have a separate election to choose the Prime Minister. The PM and the Cabinet are selected from elected members of the largest party in the Commons.

Canada’s Prime Minister is the leader of the party that wins the most seats in the Commons in an election. He/she is appointed by the Governor General who represents the Queen. The PM and Cabinet must maintain the support of a majority of elected members in the Commons or resign their appointed positions in the executive branch. In a Parliamentary system, the members of the executive branch are first elected to the legislative branch – the House of Commons.

In 2015, Trudeau’s Liberals won a clear majority of the seats in the House of Commons. But Trudeau lost ground in 2019 and was left with a strong minority. He needed 170 seats to win a majority and fell 13 short.A look at the electoral map of Canada makes it clear that the country is fractured along regional lines. The greatest number of Liberal seats came from eastern Canada – the Maritime Provinces, Quebec, and Ontario. The Conservative’s stronghold was west of Ontario – especially in the prairie provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. Third place Bloc Quebecois support came exclusively from Quebec as its party platform is Quebec nationalist – to protect and nurture the French language and culture in Quebec. The BQ cares not about the rest of Canada.

I was very disappointed that Elections Canada pegged voter turnout at 66% of eligible voters. That bodes ill for democracy in Canada and it also speaks to voter disapproval of all the parties. Another interesting fact is that the Conservatives won the popular vote netting 35% while the Liberals trailed with just 33%. The Liberals had concentrated support in the large urban areas – especially Montreal and Toronto, while Conservative support was concentrated in the less populous rural areas.

Justin Trudeau & family — election night

It is fair to say that Trudeau was spanked by the voters for his transgressions in the SNC Lavalin affair and the blackface pictures. His party won 20 fewer seats than in 2015. On the other hand, it is clear that Scheer was not embraced by voters and was criticized for his attack-style campaign. One commentator said that Trudeau’s political problems should have been enough to turf the Liberals out of power altogether. Scheer failed to capitalize.

ANDREW-SCHEER-ELECTION-NIGHT-FAMILY-810x445

Andrew Scheer & family — election night

To me, the big message of this election was that the voters are fed up with partisan politics determining how Parliament will tackle or ignore the serious problems facing the country. The only party that put forward a comprehensive platform on the environment was the Green Party. They finished with 3 seats, just one more than in 2015. Our Indigenous Peoples are suffering throughout the country with excessively high poverty rates and many reserves have filthy drinking water. This is a terrible travesty. The only party that has addressed these issues to any degree is the Liberal Party – yet they have accomplished very little in this regard.

Politicians need to wake up to the reality that they must work together as leaders, not partisan plotters, for the benefit of ALL the people. This is why the voters inflicted a minority government on the country. It is true that minority governments are unstable because the opposition members outnumber the government members in any and all votes in the Commons. It is also true that this built-in threat forces politicians on all sides to work together and exercise compromise for the benefit of all.

Canada has elected minority governments in the past and some worked well, while others did not. On average, statistics point out that minority governments last less than two years! What happens then? We have another very expensive election. As I see it, we need to commit financial resources and energy to bring carbon emissions under control so that one day soon our country will no longer depend on fossil fuels. We also need political parties to operate respectfully and cooperatively and serve the nation instead of themselves.

Filosofa's Word

Cogito Ergo Sum

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