Residential school deniers tried to dig up suspected unmarked grave sites at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, not believing a May 2021 announcement from the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc that as many as 215 Indigenous children had been buried there, according to a new report.
I can get not wanting to believe that the horrific and systemic treatment of kids in residential schools happened, but what I don’t get, is that how denailists like this think that indigenous groups have something to gain by raising awareness about this genocide.
While not explicitly stated in the article, I can almost guarantee it was some bigots trying to prove themselves right, permitting continue to marinate in their own farts.
White supremacists have a view of history that revolves around, well, white superiority. That includes the idea that white people, and especially white institutions, would not engage in genocide.
They need to shut down talk of stuff like this - like, desperately need to - because it threatens their identity and entire world view. They’re taking the idea that white people, and particularly white Canadians, and especially white Canadian religious institutions could be associated with a known bad-ideas like “genocide” and “child murder” as an existential threat.
And it kind of is, at least to their understanding of the world.
It’s horrifying that my country is full of so many of these bigots who firmly deny the truth that Canada genocided the indigenous populations. And RECENTLY.
I don’t think enough people realize just how recent this happened. The last residential school closed down in 1997.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_residential_schools_in_Canada
Nor do I think they understand how long it went on for, and how many generations were subjected to these schools. According to the Wiki, the first opened in 1828, with a boom of new schools opening from the 1860’s onward.
From the the time the first school opened to the time the last closed: 169 years.
I’m horrified.
