Cowboy Coffee: A Reconciliation Conversation

  It is not the fault of the flower when it cannot thrive.  When it wilts, we provide nourishment or water or sun.  We do not blame the flower.   The Indigenous experience in Canada is not the fault of the people.  It is a result of the environment that they have been subjected to.  And yet, we tend to blame them for the result. 

When you’re on the phone with someone in service who has a very thick accent which makes them difficult to understand and you get mad, does that make you racist?   When somebody cuts you off in traffic and you notice the person is Japanese, does that make you racist? When they’re...I could give so many examples.   Here’s my take on it.   Wikipedia: Racism is t he belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to physical appearance and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. [1] [2] [3] [4] It may also mean prejudice , discrimination , or antagonism directed against other people because they are of a different ethnicity . [2] [3] Modern variants of racism are often based in social perceptions of biological differences between peoples. These views can take the form of social actions , practices or beliefs, or political systems in which different races are ranked as inherently superior or inferior to each other, based on pr

There are 650 diverse indigenous communities in Canada.  Some of these are reserves, some are settlements and some are the results of modern-day treaties and land claims. Many of these communities are rural and distant from larger centers but there are some that are literal minutes away from large urban centers.    Of these 650 indigenous communities… 350 have a fire department, leaving almost half without fire and emergency services 100 (May 2121) are on a boil water advisory due to water borne illnesses and ecoli, many having elevated levels of heavy metals Most are without local hospitals and have woefully inadequate medical facilities given the population of their communities (infrastructure, staffing, resources)  If you were looking for a new community to move to and raise a family, would you choose a community that is missing these vital pieces of infrastructure?  No one would choose this lifestyle given our modern-day expectations.  It should be no surprise that indigenous peo

  I see life like a ski hill.  We’re all standing at the top, waiting for life’s ride, deciding which run to choose, excited and scared about where it will take us.   If you’re white,  you’re thinking about things like… Should I go to post secondary education? Where will I live?  What job will I have?  Will I have a family? You can take any run that you like, really.  You may have challenges on each or, more likely, all of those runs but you still have choice.   You can pick the green run with its easy slopes. It’s the one most of us start off on as we get used to being adults.  Some of us graduate to harder runs quickly and some of us just stay here, comfortable with enjoying the ride for a while, not wanting to take bigger risks.   You can choose the BLUE run.  It’s got some longer, steeper slopes.  You may need to take a few runs to get used to the faster pace and you may even need some lessons to develop some skills to properly navigate the bumps and turns.  Perhaps this is the pos

  215 My heart is breaking. I know the pain of grieving the death of a child. I live with it daily.  It never leaves.  It never will.  I can’t begin to imagine the agony of having my child taken away from me to go to a boarding school far away.  I can’t imagine that child not coming back...ever.  I can’t imagine the frustration and trauma of not being told what happened to them, if they are alive or dead. I can’t imagine waking up every day to that same reality with no conclusion.   I can’t imagine that I would survive that - emotionally, spiritually.  I believe it would destroy me.   I know the only way I got through my experience was with the support of my family, my friends and my community. I can’t imagine how I would have survived without that support.   A big question that has repeatedly popped up throughout the global pandemic of this past year is how we can continue to support each other when we ourselves are drained.  Taking solace in the thought that ‘we are all in the same b