A Long Rant on FaceBook

A long Rant:

Thousands of Canadians are declaring their Aboriginal ancestry and would accept a Treaty, Metis or Inuit status card in a heartbeat. Why?

Is it the perceived funds from tax payer dollars we natives supposedly get for health, education and reserve parking? Think again - we get shorter lifespans if we survive infancy, are predisposed to chronic and fatal diseases, receive substandard education and supports, own the highest rates of addictions, suicide, domestic violence, and incarceration, and have experienced racism and prejudice from birth. I understand many of our relations have worked hard to escape the realities and the stereotypes and good on them, but the rest of us are still over-represented in all of the above.

So my question is for all of those who are clamouring for that titanium laser-etched status card, would you still want it if there were no dollars attached? If there were no piece of that pie for you? Good grief, there is barely enough for the existing survivors. Would you still wear that Got Land t-shirt or let your women out at night without worrying if she will ever come home again?

What if it meant a life of poverty and discrimination, substandard housing and toxic drinking water? What if there was fracking 2 miles from your house, tar-sands poisoning your very existence, uranium tailings, mutated food sources and no escape except to urban ghettos?

There are no real dollars. They are a myth. A Royal Commission on Aboriginal peoples estimates it will cost trillions of dollars and many decades to heal the damage to our lands, bodies, and spirits. That's not going to happen when everyday there is a new and vulgar erosion of our sovereign rights and treaty obligations. You can sign up if you want but its unlikely you will get a cent.

On the other hand if you are declaring your identity because of the pride that swells up in you when you hear a drum beat and singers, if a powerful orator inspires you when talking about universal peace and justice, when you feel in your heart and veins that killing the earth and planet with greed, violence and garbage is SO SO wrong that you cry, when you know caring for and loving others is what will save us all - then you don't need a card to prove you are Indigenous, you already are. And its your kind of Aboriginal peoples we need coming home.

I feel like Jerry McGuire but so be it. Signed the Badge