We are way overdue...

.... In this city, for an initiative aimed at educating white settlers (like me) in Regina about indigenous issues, past and present.

It makes me sick to see some of the posts here. It's not surprising, though -- I've heard the same and worse from people's mouths. "It's not MY fault they're doing drugs!" "We gave them civilization and roads -- we brought them into the 20th century!" "I shouldn't be blamed for what my ancestors did."

We need EMPATHY and LISTENING. We need those YESTERDAY. It's WELL past time for us to shut the **** up, sit down, and listen, and then ACT.

We can listen and know that indigenous peoples have been here on Turtle Island for time immemorial. Before colonization, they had community; robust trade routes and economies; restorative justice systems; their own structures for leadership; spirituality that's not just a religion, but a way of life, baked into the language and teachings and how they interact with land and people.

Now we're here. Our cultural genocide of the people who were here first was almost completed. Now we have communities fractured; family units broken from trauma; languages lost; teachings lost.

Residential schools are NOT ancient history. There are people in our city NOW who went to those schools -- mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, aunties and uncles -- who were abused for speaking their language, and still can't pray in their language without the horrors coming back. They wear scars on their body from where they were injected with substances kept secret from them.

Regina DESPERATELY needs consciousness raising and education about these topics. And then we need action.