If I’m being blatantly honest, I’m getting rather irritated with the lack of discussion and media coverage pertaining to the victims of residential schools here in Canada.
When news first broke about the discovery of children’s bodies buried in the ground beneath a former residential school in British Columbia, the country of Canada, collectively, along with most of the world gathered together to share feelings of shock, anger, horror and dismay. It was an atrocious finding and painted a picture that was long overdue regarding the disgusting history of Canada and certain churches. Indigenous children were taken from their homes and families, thrust into a curriculum that attempted to strip them of their rights, beliefs and culture, and were abused, tortured and murdered. To top it off, the Canadian government and certain churches covered up and even denied their involvement in this act of mass murder.
Since this first discovery a few months ago, the grounds of several other once active residential schools in different provinces were searched, and more bodies were found.
Just yesterday, I read that the total number of bodies found where residential schools once ran has exceeded 7,000.
Why has media apparently lost interest in covering the consistently growing story of victims of residential schools? Further, why are we, the people, not discussing it anymore and drawing attention to it? These children, their families, friends and culture deserve recognition and advocacy throughout this investigation, and we simply aren’t granting them with either. Instead, we permit the media to dominate all news stories with COVID-19 information, information we are all well aware of by now and don’t need daily reminding of.
We need to bring awareness and attention to the number of children who never made it home again simply because authoritative figures deemed their culture and identity to be problematic. We owe them that.
ontheedgeofeverything 