Tag: #TruthAndReconciliation

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Anti-Oppression Anti-racism work collaboration community decolonization national indigenous peoples day Trauma

National Day for Truth & Reconciliation: Action is Our Collective Responsibility

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text title=”National Day for Truth & Reconciliation: Action is Our Collective Responsibility” css=”.vc_custom_1727115223782{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”]In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada announced that its investigation into the inter-generational trauma caused by the “Indian Residential School” system that the Federal Government of Canada operated in partnership with Christian Institutions between about 1880 and 1996 was complete. The commission published a final report that made 94 Calls to Action. Many Indigenous experts believe that completing these Calls to Action is an imperative aspect of rectifying the harm that settler colonialism has done to Indigenous people.

It’s been nine years since the commission published its report. The concept of Truth and Reconciliation is that repairing the damage can only be achieved with honesty. The truth is that the federal government has not done much to change outcomes for Indigenous peoples since the report’s publication.

On the 8th anniversary of the final report’s publication, the federal government issued a statement claiming that 85% of the calls to action were either complete or well underway. Indigenous Watchdog paints an entirely different picture. According to their analysis, only 66% of the Calls are completed or in progress. Twenty percent of the calls are stalled, and 20% have not yet started.

At the time of this writing, Indigenous communities across Canada are mourning and speaking out about injustice. Over 2 weeks this month, 6 Indigenous people were killed by police, with the RCMP responsible for 4 of the deaths. This overt violence at the hands of the police is a stark barometer for the level of violence Indigenous people are subject to in other institutions, including health care.

When it comes to the federal government’s action on the 7 health care calls, it is slim to non-existent. None of these urgently needed calls have been completed. This lack of action shows in the numbers. A 2023 study found that 18.6% more non-Indigenous women had a regular healthcare provider during pregnancy than Indigenous women. This was connected to statistically lower access to primary and specialized care. This applied to rural and urban settings, and disparities remained when socioeconomic status was controlled for. Similarly, the infant mortality rate is twice as high for Indigenous babies as for non-Indigenous babies. The studies’ authors conclude that racism and the resulting deep mistrust of the system are to blame.

Given the ongoing violence that Indigenous people face at the hands of institutions, mistrust is entirely justified. If our government were serious about establishing trust, it would be honest about its accomplishments on the Calls to Action and get the work done.

The Call to Action that has the most direct impact on how we should practice as doulas is number 22, which calls upon us to recognize the value of Indigenous healing practices and incorporate them in healthcare delivery. When engaging with Indigenous clients seeking perinatal support empowering and facilitating their reclamation and implementation of Indigenous teachings if desired is essential. For non-Indigenous birth workers, this looks like making referrals to an appropriate Indigenous doula where possible and doing the work of managing our colonial unlearning proactively and independently when not. We should also listen deeply and with humility to the teachings the client would like to impart.

As a training Institution, we are committed to enacting the 24th call: ensuring that all students who will be working alongside the healthcare system take Indigenous culture and awareness training. The goal of our Truth & Reconciliation module is to ensure that all program graduates are prepared to fulfill the 22nd call in their practice. We recognize that the module is a work in progress and we are paying close attention to feedback from our Indigenous students on how the module can be made more relevant and impactful. As our program grows to include students from more and more countries, we are exploring ways to connect the oppression of Indigenous people on Turtle Island to experiences of colonization, displacement, and resistance around the world.

We know our work is far from complete and that our spheres of influence are small. However, each small organization’s actions to fulfill the Calls to Action is an example and a challenge to our Federal government and other powers to step up and honour their commitments. We trust our actions will ripple out, and we look forward to continuing this essential work in our community.

 

Keira Grant (she/her) Inclusion and Engagement Lead – Racialized CommunitiesKeira Grant

Keira brings a wealth of experience to the Online Community Moderator role. She is a Queer, Black woman with a twenty-year track record in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) education, projects, and community building initiatives.

 

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Anti-Oppression Anti-racism work Canada decolonization

Emancipation is a collective State of Mind: Birthworkers need to talk about slavery

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1717529438169{margin-bottom: 0px !important;}”]As a child, I loved the “Heritage Minutes” on CBC. These memorable 60-second spots about Canadian history stand out more in my mind today than most of what I learned in Canadian history classes. One of the most notable stories was the Heritage Minute about the Underground Railroad which chronicled the moment when an escaped, enslaved African American family realizes they have successfully made it to freedom in Canada. “We’s free! We’s in Canada” exclaimed the family as they embraced each other tearfully.

Like many Canadians, I was unaware of Juneteenth until a few years ago when President Biden proclaimed it a national holiday. June 19th is a significant date in US history because it is when the last group of enslaved people were emancipated approaching the end of the Civil War. As a nation with a strong tendency to congratulate itself for being the nation that American slaves escaped to, it can be difficult to see what this emancipatory celebration has to do with Canadian history or society.

In fact, slavery was a normalized way of life in the colonized territories that eventually became known as Canada for over 2 centuries. In the early days of the colonial process, Indigenous peoples were enslaved, along with Black people brought to the Americas by the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It ended in Canada in 1807 when slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire. In contrast, Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, fifty-eight years later.

So why is it important to talk about slavery today, and why is it relevant to birthworkers? To enslave people, you must first dehumanize them. The transatlantic slave trade codified beliefs about Black people that can’t be eradicated as easily as laws. These beliefs are alive and well, and responsible for much of the suffering experienced by Black people globally today. For example, on May 25, we commemorated the 4th anniversary of the brutal murder of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer. This is despite the many years the Black Lives Matter movement has raised awareness of similar incidents.

This is relevant to birth workers because this dehumanization is enacted in the health care system as well. We shared an article about “The Mothers of Gynecology” in February. The dehumanization that these enslaved women experienced as they were experimented on without anesthesia is the direct ancestor of the horror stories described by prominent Black figures such as Beyonce, Serena Williams, and Tatyana Ali. Their stories represent the stories of countless others who don’t have the same kind of platform, including many Canadian Black women and birthers.

As health researchers and policy-makers in the US struggle to combat the Black maternal and neonatal mortality crisis, growing evidence emerges that culturally competent doulas have a significant positive impact on Black maternal health outcomes. This evidence has led to an ever-increasing number of US jurisdictions providing public funding for doula care to ensure that this support makes it to families that need it most.

These strides forward are connected to a broader trend in US culture of acknowledging its racist past and that racism is still a part of the fabric of its nationhood.

Frankly, my observation as a Black woman who has lived in Canada for over 40 years is that as a nation, we are still stuck in denialist whitewashing. For example, while I had long since debunked the mythology of the underground railroad heritage minute, I had no idea that Indigenous people had been enslaved in Canada until I started researching this article.

We know that reconciliation cannot exist without truth. The path to collecting the same level of data that has made publicly funded doula care possible in the US begins with acknowledging that racism is as baked into our history and as prevalent in today’s social fabric as it is in the US.

Canadians observing Juneteenth can use today to learn about the history of Black and Indigenous enslavement in Canada and reflect on how it impacts the modern day. I highly recommend looking at the work of Black Canadian scholar and historian Dr. Afua Cooper. In particular, her book “The Hanging of Angelique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montreal” is a great read.  It chronicles the tragic tale of an enslaved Black woman in Lower Canada (now Quebec) who was scapegoated and tortured into confessing to the great fire of 1734 in Montreal. Cooper’s prodigious research captures the nightmare of Canadian slavery and the early colonial period. Drawn largely from copious trial records, Angelique’s words are considered the earliest known first-person account of slavery in the New World.

 

Keira Grant (she/her) Inclusion and Engagement Lead – Racialized Communities

Keira brings a wealth of experience to the Online Community Moderator role. She is a Queer, Black woman with a twenty-year track record in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) education, projects, and community building initiatives.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]