James Craven Clark College, 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. Vancouver, WA. 98663 (360) 992-2283; Fax: (360) 992-2863 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.home.earthlink.net/~blkfoot5 *My Employer Has No Association With My Private/Protected Opinion* -----Original Message----- From: Craven, Jim [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 1999 11:17 AM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'; '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'; '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: [PEN-L:9684] "The Circle Game" Part I Part I The following are exercepts from a Speech by Dr. Roland Chrisjohn, member of the Iroquois Confederacy (Oneida), Healer ("Psychologist") delivered in Edmonton, Alberta (date unknown) ...."Residential schools were one of many attempts at the genocide of the Aboriginal Peoples inhabiting the area now commonly called Canada. Initially, the goal of obliterating these peoples was connected with stealing what they owned (the land, the sky, the waters, and their lives, and all that these encompassed); and although this connection persists, present-day acts and policies of genocide are also connected with the hypocritical, legal and self-delusion need on the part of the perpetrators to conceal what they did and what they continue to do. A variety of rationalizations (social, legal, religious, political and economic) arose to engage (in one way or another) all segments of Euruocanadian society in the task of genocide. For example, some were told (and told themselves) that their actions arose out of a Missionary Imperative to bring the benefits of the One True Belief to savage pagans; others considered themselves justified in the land theft by declaring that the Aboriginal Peoples were not putting the land to 'proper' use; and so on. The creation of the Indian Residential Schools followed a time-tested method of obliterating indigenous cultures, and the psycosocial consequences these schools would have on Aboriginal Peoples were well understood at the time of their formation. Present-day symptomology found in Aboriginal Peoples and societies does not constitute a distinct psychological condition, but is the well-known and long-studied response of human beings living under conditions of severe and prolonged oppression. Although there is no doubt that individuals who attended Residential Schools suffered, and continue to suffer, from the effects of their experiences, the tactic of pathologizing these individuals, studying their condition, and offering 'therapy' to them and their communities must be seen as another rhetorical maneuver designed to obscure (to the world at large, to Aboriginal Peoples, and to the Canadians themselves) the moral and financial accountability of Eurocanadian society in a continuing record of Crimes Against Humanity. I'm not denying that people in the Residential Schools--some of them-- are having troubles today. But I don't want to talk about the pathology, the alcohol and drug abuse, and the suicide of people who went to Residential School when that takes us away from talking about the real issues, and that is, what are the political, the economic and the legal ramifications of what occurred to First Nations People in these schools. We keep talking about how sick we are but we never ask: how sick were these people who created these things? Why is the sickness on our side? Why is it we have to prove how sick we are in order to get something done about these kinds of things? I was in a room, early on in the Royal Commission work [Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples], and everybody was telling me oh, well, all this great work you are going to do, that is going to talk about the healing and the therapy that is necessary with Residential Schools. And I'm looking around, there's a former Supreme court Justice, there's a lawyer, there's another judge over here, there's another person with legal training who has written law books or whatever, they're sitting around telling me all of this and I said "it sounds like I'm in a room with damn psychologists." In a room full of judges and lawyers does nobody recognize that crimes have been committed here? And why aren't we talking about crimes? No, no that's not even a fit topic for conversation. What we have to talk about is how sick the damn Indians are; and well we are going to take care of them. Right. Let's see how that game works; how the "Therapeutic State" works here. Well the Indians are sick, so do we do? We're going to take some money, we're going to give to largely, white, anglo-saxon protestant Eurocanadian therapists, and they're going to visit with these people for 20 fifty-minute hours, after which time they're going to be cured. So isn't interesting that we're going to transfer white people's money from one pocket to another pocket and we're going to call this 'money spent on Indian People.' The same game is being played in the education system. Where what we do, is if weve got a child with some difficulty with education, we send them to a psychologist, and in the Province of Alberta, that psychological assessment costs $4,500. That's $4,500 that goes from the Federal Government to the pocket of a white, anglo-saxon, protestant psycholgist who writes a report and says 'kid is not learning very much.' Oh, well thank you for clearing that up. That's $4,500 that is counted as 'money spent on Indian Education', but it's money that we merely get to authorize the transfer of from the Federal government to the private pockets. Now does anybody point out, does anybody wonder that the fact that the assessments are not validated, the statistical properties are not established for First Nations children, means that such an assessment is an ethical violation of Canadian and American psychological testing standards? Oh, no, nobody bothers to bring that up; there's money to made here. Notice what happens, when, uh--Dr. Hanson was saying about blame the victim-- look at how the system reacts to a child who is having difficulty in school: there's got to be something wrong with the child. We can't ask the question: Is it possible that maybe there is something wrong with the curriculum?; Is it possible that there's something wrong with the way that the structure of learning is set up so that some idiot stands up in front of a large group of people and talks, so somebody hears a loudspeaker, and everybody else is a tape recorder, and this is how education is supposed to behave? This is how it is supposed to take place? We're not allowed to inquire into the dynamics of the educational system. What we have to do is accept that there's something wrong with us. We're the problem. The Residential School does exactly the same thing: the treatment of alcoholism as a disease that First Nations People have as a genetic thing or learned behavior that we don't seem to be able to get around. Time and time again, the same process is taking place, and that process is, let's not ask about the systemic kinds of things, let's not ask about larger factors, let's not ask about other responsibilities that may be entailed, let's find what's wrong with the specific case, what's wrong with the Indians in this particular instance." transcribed by Jim Craven (end part 1) James Craven Dept. of Economics,Clark College 1800 E. McLoughlin Blvd. Vancouver, WA. 98663 [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Tel: (360) 992-2283 Fax: 992-2863 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------- "The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards Indians; their land and property shall never be taken from them without their consent." (Northwest Ordinance, 1787, Ratified by Congress 1789) "Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor and could not have existed had not labor first existed. Labor is the superior of capital and deserves much the higher consideration." (Abraham Lincoln) *My Employer has no association with My Private and Protected Opinion* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------
