Indigenous Justice

Overlooking the beauty that is Badlands National Park this summer, I remember feeling at peace. Our group of 50 spread across the breathtaking landscape and took about 15 minutes to just sit in silence, take in the sights, and reflect on our expectations for the week ahead.

Yet this time of reflection and awe came at a price—a price that I was not aware of until later that evening.

That night, our group listened as a Lakota Native American shared his people’s troubling story.

Children are the centre of our communities; it is of utmost importance that we create a better world for them to live. We must build and yes, sometimes fight, for their opportunity to thrive rather than be the statistics that show otherwise. We have to create opportunity in which equality is no longer questioned.

What Thanksgiving story do you know? As our American sisters and brothers celebrate Thanksgiving we listen to a sister's retelling of "the first Thanksgiving". 

What does hair have to do with anything? For Navajo people, it can mean a lot. “I have often heard that, for Navajo people, hair is our memory.” Many families still have to make the decision to keep their hair, and the memories and identity tied to it, or sacrifice it for more societal mobility.

I’m no art critic, much less a patron of the arts, but on the principle that even a blind squirrel finds an occasional nut, I managed to stumble across Jungen’s striking work.

These are the kinds of conversations Aboriginal women are having. It is not normal and shouldn’t be routine. It is scary but necessary. Do other women have to have these conversations?

Two years ago marked the first time I heard the acronym "CAMC." After responding to a posting for the need for camp counsellors to go to a First Nations reserve in Northern Ontario on the ServiceLink website, I became instantly connected to some amazing CRC staff that were passionate about social justice and had their sights set on developing and growing reconciled relationships with their Indigenous neighbours.

My colleague Shannon Jammal-Hollemans recently made a powerful statement, saying Christians tend to focus on the Fall at the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil, rather than focusing on the Tree of Life. I believe this cuts to the core of the “burden” of injustice, shedding light on the frustrating, paradoxical occurrence of disempowered Jesus followers.

I was so self-conscious. I felt like everyone was looking at me, at my blue eyes. I am not Native American, and these were not my ancestors we were honoring at this cemetery.

It’s a bit one-sided. They share their pain, and we listen (and hopefully are changed and respond). But are we willing to be vulnerable with them? Or with other marginalized people?