There were a lot of opinions flying after the recent release of the TRC summary of the Truth and Reconciliation report, but sadly, it was hard to discern which one was the majority – acknowledgement or denial.

————————–The Past Shows Us the Way————————— aaronpaquette.net

This report was several years in the making and outlines the history and consequences of the genocide effort Canada inflicted upon its Indigenous peoples from 1876 until presently.

The opinions that followed seemed to hold mostly two views – one that included a good deal of understanding, and support for the recommendations for Canada to acknowledge and manage the issues related to the Indigenous communities.

The other was this example, written by a Sudbury, Ont resident. I felt it encapsulated some very common views about Canada’s Indigenous history. He began his piece by asserting that, yes, Canada did bad things:

… “However, the inflammatory statements made are just a little…

Nlaka’pamux, Immediately

Stories gain and lose power once they’re spoken. My mother was over-cultivated with story. The legends became too layered and profound to inherit. She spent days at her typewriter trying to convey the most important things about our lineage as Nlaka’pamux.

Native people say the distinction between stories in our culture and theirs is that the land is a character itself, not setting. My great-grandfather cleared forty acres with only a few tools after the government told his people they could no longer travel seasonally. They didn’t want the Natives to move, in a way to stop what an unmovable force we were. After the smallpox epidemic, we were still alive, able to irrigate, fish, navigate the river basins, and build lodges. The women understood the land was sacred and familial. They planted raspberry bushes that fenced in the yard, a snowball tree inside our circular driveway…

Photo of Lower Berth by Kati J, via Facebook

EDIT: We have received a response from the owner of Beerland.

At my four thousandth punk show, I was told to “never come to another punk show.” It will take a long time before I feel safe at one again.

My recent visit to Austin started out uneventfully. My vacation was simply a country-fried version of my music-filled life in Chicago, with Lone Star instead of Hamm’s, and Frito Pie instead of cheese fries. I was already infatuated with the venue Beerland, comparing it an alternate universe version of my beloved Empty Bottle.

I had actually been to Beerland two nights running, figuring that those devoted to moderation rarely achieve greatness. The second night, the opener was local band Lower Berth. Their noisy psych rock inspired three dudes in the sparse crowd to utterly lose their shit. No one…

by Jenell Navarro

For the past three years, I have taught a course in my department titled “Ethnic Studies 310: Hip-Hop, Politics and Poetics.” This class, a favorite of mine to teach, always generates interesting responses when we discuss Native hip-hop. Since the university I teach for is located in California, I have many students who were raised in the public education system of this state. This means that they have all conducted a “mission project” in the fourth grade during their elementary school education. This project does not implement a critical lens on the colonial and genocidal project of the mission system, nor does it offer these students accounts of Indigenous resistance to this violent and abusive system. Instead, the assignment romanticizes and celebrates these missions within California’s history to the point that, when these fourth graders become young adults and enter into their college curriculum, many of them…