Notes from a blind man.

The community support and strength is inspiring. In contrast, the ignorance, cover-up, illogicality, and botched police work is reprehensible.

Why Chanie Ran

While I was aware that status rights were stripped from women who married white men and from those who moved off the reserve, I was astonished and angered to learn that status rights had to be relinquished in order to join the Canadian Armed Forces, get a post-secondary education, or to vote. This amounts to not just limiting, but ensuring little future success of people and keeping them in a state of uneducated poverty without the means to improve themselves, their families, or their communities.

The thought that cruel dietary experiments were performed on these children is absolutely devastating and is reminiscent of Nazi treatment of Jews in concentration camps.

I am seething in anger that the recommendations of the coroner’s inquest – which, astoundingly, were enlightened and in the best interest of the children – fell on deaf ears and people unwilling to act on good advice.

When the Wolf Comes

This chapter was devastating. I cannot comprehend the callous treatment towards Dora and her family given by the police at the time Jethro went missing. and truly what amounts to dereliction of duty.

Reflection

Admittedly, as a white person from Southern Ontario, I know little about the Indian Act and much of the history that Talega covers. That is why I wanted to take part in this shared reading. I am learning a great deal, much of it difficult to digest due to the horrendous suffering and unjust actions described, but I still look forward to learning more.