Statue? Not me.

I don’t care about statues. I don’t feel that tearing down statues of John A. Mcdonald is going to do anything for me as an Indigenous person or for my rights as a Metis Person. It isn't going to do anything in the communities and out on the land and the water.  We don't have a big problem with John. A. statues we got a lot more important things to deal with.

There are a few statues that matter to me.

The statue of Louis Riel that was erected at the Manitoba Legislature in the 1970's. That statue, a twisted naked abstract of a man, raised controversy. I knew my parents were upset. "They are making him look crazy". My mom said referencing the twisted metal body as the state of his mind. 

This was so important to my parents. They had to push back against that assault. The mainstream narrative, "that he was not a great man, that he was crazy". It was in the statue, it was in the movie and in the books. My parents had to stand strong in that onslaught. Statues in the hurricane. 

I walked those legislative grounds a hundred times. My father worked in the legislature and for years before that I had friends that lived in an apartment building overlooking the grounds. 

I camped on those grounds for almost a week when my parents, Nellie and John  Morrisseau, were protesting the devastating losses to Metis during the building of the Grand Rapids Hydroelectric Project. They camped on those grounds for 47 days and received no support except from family a few friends and dozens of non-Native youth.  I walked the grounds many times during the day and during the night and passed many statues and I don’t remember one of them.

My parents and their last few supporters left the legislative grounds with a tear stained letter from then Minister Responsible for Manitoba Hydro Dave Chomiak. He got them off the property and did nothing after that perhaps his tears turned him to stone.

The other big one for me has always been the Goose at Lundar. I would be upset if they took down the Goose at Lundar. Even though Canadian geese are starting to be a problem. 

I also remember the Bull in the town of Ste. Rose Du Lac near our home in the historic Metis community of Crane River. Every year the graduating class in the small town would paint the Bull’s balls blue. That would be the highlight of the 45 mile gravel road ride to town.

I lived in Ottawa for about 5 years and I walked all over that town and there are statues everywhere and the only piece I can remember is the one for Indigenous veterans by Cree artist Lloyd Pinay.  We took pictures in front of it. I remembers walking in slowly and respectfully on a few occasions thinking about the sacrifices of my Metis Uncles in World War II.

The dozens and dozens of other statues that I walked by in those year have no place in my memory.

But to get back to John A. What does the A stand for?

This business of tearing down statues and acting like this is something for me as an Indigenous person is not accepted.

I never heard anyone. Ever. Say. Tear down this statue.

I feel like someone has taken capital earned from the hard work and sacrifices of our ancestors, parents and grandparents and pissed it away on this action that will only build animosity towards Indigenous Peoples and little else.

The story line that is coming across the media is that John A. Mcdonald’s statue is being taken down because of his role in setting up the Indian Residential School System and this has something to do with reconciliation. I am not aware of Mcdonald having a leadership role in creating that system. In fact, Indian Residential Schools existed before there was a Canada. 

If anyone asked me why Mcdonald’s statue should be taken down. It would be for his persecution of the Metis and for the hanging of  Louis Riel, the Father of Manitoba and a Father of Canadian Confederation. Nobody asked me. 

They say it's for reconciliation, but there is no reference to tearing down statues in the TRC's 94 calls to action. 

Perhaps some people in these institutions didn't like looking at old John A. because he made them think about themselves and not us.

Most of those academic institutions need to hire some living breathing Native people and let them teach instead of worrying about a statue to another dead white man.

Like Pulling Teeth

When I went into the University of Manitoba School of Dentistry to get my tooth pulled it wasn’t because I had a lot of options. I have been freelancing for years and I haven’t held a straight job since I left NCI-FM. That means no medical. No dental. No big deal. I lived my whole life like that.

Anyway at one of the last dental visits to an actual dentist I was told that the molar I had in the back was never going to get better. He was going to put a stem or screw or whatever he did and it would hold for as long as it would hold. It held a long time, although it hurt almost every day.  

When it would hurt really bad which meant some kind of infection or that I bit down on something hard usually a nut of some kind, some cheaper brand of baking walnuts for example will have a stray piece of walnut shell. At least twice it was a blueberry seed. The worst one was the dried blueberry seed that bugger was in deep for a couple weeks. I eventually got it out. My tongue skills are amazing.

I never stopped eating blueberries I just slurp them down. Why bite? You need those seeds.

I would treat by holding down an oregano oil pill and let it dissolve. Oregano oil is not only a pain killer but also an antibiotic so it is really a great treatment for an abscessed tooth or other toothy pain.

There was a point when I did that oregano oil thing for over a month. Usually it would be a couple days to a week.

I made this bit of comedy about the first time I was told I needed a root canal and that it would cost $600.00 (this was a while ago).

Anyway my Grandpa was still alive and I did this bit as him at my age then going off on the idea of paying that kind of money.

He had this wonderful accent rich with the Metis patois of French, English and Saulteaux.

“$600 for you fucking Teese! Boy boy boy you shtupid!”

Grandpa never really swore but he would definitely get righteous about wasting money on something that you don’t really need.

If you want to argue the need for every single tooth, you could not do it back when I was growing up in the historic Metis community of Crane River, Manitoba.

My mother’s best friend in the community, Florence Spence never grew teeth. She was toothless her entire life and yet raised an amazing family in a poor oppressed marginalized community and was the only person my mother trusted with her most precious possessions, her children.

You can’t argue for a tooth in that world.

Anyway I ended up under the light of a UofM dental student because the pain gave way to the actual movement of the tooth. I could wiggle it back and forth.

This was in January of 2018. I had driven home with my parents to bury my Mother’s baby brother, Don. He was known to us affectionately as The Don.

“The last of the old Sinclair boys” , Shane would say. We would take turns watching fire at the gravesite in -45 and colder windchills in order to be sure that the ground was thawed.

We heard the news on Christmas Eve and had to begin driving that day. My mother told me that we could wait until Christmas Day. I told her that we had to start driving right away. I did not have a passport and I was not a Status Indian, I could not cross the border. We would have to drive over the lakes on the Canadian side.

It was -37 and colder (before wind chill) for the drive and for the ceremony.

It was a very stressful but as with all family gatherings wonderfully affirming.

We are family.

Death always brings blame and anger. This is the truth.

Forgive everything during the mourning period.

It was not meant to be so cruel. It was not meant to be taken so cruel.

My tooth began to wiggle.

I was not going to be making as much money on this last part of the project as I had hoped. They wanted more from me. It would take travel and time and that took away money.

My family members offered different dental options.

I went with the University of Manitoba. It was not going to be more than $150.00 to pull that tooth.

I had $200.00 in my pocket.

When asked about medical conditions. I told the dental student that I didn't go to the doctor and took no medication but I believe I had high blood pressure. He asked how did I know and I said that the blood pressure machines at Walmart and Shopper’s Drug Mart told me so.

He checked my blood pressure.

His eyes were as wide as could be, he said, “We can’t do any work today. You are in what is called a hypertensive crisis and you should be in a hospital bed.”

A hypertensive crisis is anything higher than 180 over 120, my numbers were 237 over 167.

They sent me on my way to emerg. On foot. So I knew I was not dying at the moment despite the young dentist to be’s face.

I got the same face from the young doctor at emerg. I was supposed to be near death.

These numbers were really high.

Pretty high for a White Guy.

The Doctors in emerg realized that I was not dying and then gave me pills to ensure that I would continue not to die despite not dying without the pills they were going to give me.

I took the pills for a couple of weeks and then I wasn’t really feeling myself, if you know what I mean. I was maintaining my part of the marital bond but I wasn’t really feeling myself. 

"How long would it be?"

 A shudder ran though me. 

"Until I could no longer take care of my part of our mutual marital obligations."

I looked up the side effects of the “medicine” I was taking and one of the major side effects was erectile dysfunction. I threw the “medicine” right in the garbage.

I do not want to live that long.

That did not solve the tooth issue. In fact the sister tooth on the other side was now wiggling.

I didn’t know which one was the one that I remember being threatened but I knew they were both dying eventually and now they both dead. There was nothing to do with them but pull them out.

I didn’t have the money to get one tooth pulled. How was I going to get two teeth pulled?

I googled. How do you pull adult teeth?

The advice was “The same as you would pull a loose tooth as a child, keep wiggling it back and forth until it gets loose enough to pull out.”

I worked it for months. There were many times I thought I was wasting my time.

One day our granddaughter Brynn got another loose tooth. This one in front, not the buck teeth but one to the right.

This was perhaps her sixth or seventh tooth. She knew the deal. Tooth loose. Wiggle it. Wiggle it.

Real loose. Pop out. Money.

But it’s not really about the money. We remember it that way. That’s not it.

She also knew that magical thing about teeth and gums that we seem to forget when we get old. After the first big splash of blood, the healing begins immediately. Despite removing a chunk of bone from flesh and blood we do not pour blood out of our mouths.

I knew she had a wiggly tooth and then one day she just turned to me and her Grandma and she said, “look”!

Then she twisted the front tooth that is next to the buck teeth on the right hand side and she twisted it and I could hear it snap and I saw that triumphant look spread from her eyes across her face and through her entire body and across everything in the room including me and my wife.

I marveled at the will of the smallest among us.

I could take that tooth now. For the next couple of days I worked it hard. I did not use any pain pills or even oregano oil. I just smoked that sweet God Bud that a good friend had shared with us only with the promise we get him back one day. 

My mind was focused. My pain had been put in it’s right place. I wiggled and when it crunched free I almost melted.

In that brutal moment all the pain that lived with that tooth was gone.

I took the tooth out with one hand and with the other hand pressed hard with the gauze I had at the ready. Tears went down my face. They must have, though I can’t remember any, if there were, they were tears of joy. This pain was finished.

I had defeated it.

I folded another gauze and when I pulled out the first one there was less blood than I thought there would be, I looked at the rotten tooth in my hand and smiled, it wasn’t going to bleed much. It did not.

The same tooth on the right came out within the month. This time it was a little more complicated. The tooth was broken in half. A big chunk came out on a Friday night and even though it wasn't the whole thing -  it was still glorious. There was a big chunk of pain connected to that piece of tooth and that was gone forever.

It felt so good that I decided not to remove the second piece that night.

I put my cotton gauze up in the hole that was there and sure enough it healed up like nothing had happened.

On Sunday night I had a bath and I said I was going to bed early. In the darkness I methodically removed that last half of the tooth.

It was wonderful.

I Gorilla glued the two pieces together and put both molars in an empty pill bottle.

For a few weeks after, I would lay down on the bed and I would stare at the teeth. It would make me feel so warm and satisfied that I would fall asleep.

A couple of times my wife found me passed out with the teeth on my chest or on the bed beside me. More than a few times she found them on the bedside table.

Every time she was not impressed to look at my big rotten teeth.

So one day she threw them away and never left me a dime.

-30-

   

Somewhere in Canada

Somewhere in Canada

A young brown man and a couple of friends drove into a white man's yard.
The white man pulled a handgun and shot the young brown man dead.

Pointing a handgun is threatening death.
He threatened death.
He delivered death.

In the court room he pleaded innocence.
He was not responsible.

The white man said
the gun malfunctioned.
The white man's son said
he was just trying to scare them.

What is the basic responsibility given to any child who uses a toy gun?
Never point it at another person.

The Justice system says "he is not responsible."

A jury of peers indicts the society.

*

Gerald Stanley

A killer walks among you and lives within you.
Gerald Stanley

Behold the killer as he pumps his gas.
Gerald Stanley

Behold the killer as he drinks his Timmies.
Gerald Stanley

A killer lives among you and lives within you.
Gerald Stanley

*

Stuff

This is my stuff.
I have the right to protect my stuff.
I earned all my stuff.

There is insurance paid on all that stuff.
No one will take my stuff.

I will kill for my stuff.

The jury will say
It was not murder
He was just protecting his stuff.

How much did you pay for your stuff?
How much do we pay for your stuff?

How much must we give up?
For your stuff.

How much stuff is enough?
.

*

Walk out of the Treatment Centre - Kanehsatake 28 Years Later

I've been thinking a lot about the people walking out of the treatment centre in Kanehsatake at the end of that hot Indian summer of 1990.

I see them walking proud. 

The image fills my heart.

I know there was violence and screams. 

I know that is true. 

In my mind, I see them walking proud.

"We are going home."

+

It takes me time to get things. 

I was angry. (I'm still angry, but I am not crying while I write that so it's not that bad anymore.) You get hurt in this life. Especially by those you love and those you trust.This is the part of life that is hardest to take. Yet, we know as Indigenous people awake in Canada that this is not our way. 

This is not of our making. 

This is malicious malignant manifest destiny.

Hidden in their science

Darwin's racist master work spoon fed to children. 

Dreams of living on the moon.

+

I had written a piece about Genocide. (I posted it here, but it not here anymore).

After that. 

It was like I couldn't get out of bed. I didn't know what to do. I could no longer write and the truth is it has been a struggle ever since. 

I could not get passed this idea. This dangerous idea. What is the response to Genocide? 

War.

That is the answer. That is the only answer.

I couldn't move. 

I couldn't get passed this idea. 

It was like a sickness of the mind. A madness. It was heavier than my younger thoughts of suicide because it kept sounding right. I wanted to pound the war drum.

I drank hard. 

I could not say this thing. 

+

I found my way to Sundance. I made sacrifice for this life of mine. I learned to be grateful again for this life and all my many blessings.

What is the response to Genocide?

Life.

What is the response to Genocide?

Live.

+

So when I think about the Warriors walking out of the Kanehsatake Treatment Centre, I am grateful that the people chose life. 

They would not be goaded into bloodshed. Bloodshed that we could still be cleaning up today. Most Canadians don't understand that there were people ready to strike out, who wanted to hit back hard against a racist society that stripped and raped away their lives and lands. 

It could have gone so bad. If those Warriors did not have the courage to chose life.

Ekosi

Hiy! Hiy!

*

(The following are being reprinted as originally published on this blog.)

22 Years Past

It's been 22 years since the Oka crisis took the issue of Native land rights to national and international attention. It was the most important resistance to colonization in Canada since Louis Riel's Northwest Rebellion in 1885. In the years since July 11, 1991 it seems as though it was the last stand. There has been action in defense of traditional lands, burial sites and sacred places since then, but none have resonated across the  country and around the globe. None have galvanized Native people and inspired them to stand up for themselves.

To get the full story, I would suggest you view, Alanis Obomsawin's documentary, 270 Years of Resistance. The basic story is this, the town of Oka, PQ wanted to develop a golf course on lands that contained burial grounds of the Mohawks of Kanehsatake. The Mohawks set up a barricade and after months were attacked by the Surete du Quebec. The ensuing standoff would last over 70 days.

Those who look back on that time, think that what happened was that the eyes of Canada were opened to the realities of Native rights. That's not really true. To some it was. To most it was just really engrossing television. I don't recall a great outpouring of support by Canadians to stop the Canadian Army from rolling into Kanehsatake. There may have been some gnashing of teeth, but there was no great debate in this country about what to do. They just sat there waiting for something to happen. Those calling for the Army to roll in and crush the resistance was much stronger than those crying out for a peaceful and just resolution.

For us, for the Native People of Canada, it was a moment in which the cry for Freedom and Justice was right and true. When the People of the Pines stood up and said, this is the line that you will not cross. They were standing up for all of us. It was supposed to be the moment that changed everything, we were never going back to the way it was before.

It didn't happen like that. It was like George Orwell's Animal Farm. Once the animals gain self-government it is decided that they have to have someone in charge so the Pigs take on that role. Before long the pigs are living in the house and eating the man's food and playing cards. That's how it happened. People were bought out and sold out. Some don't even know how or why. Not just the political leaders, but the militants and the warriors; there were a lot of them who abandoned their convictions for a few crumbs.It wasn't just the leaders it was a lot of us. Just floating along the river of assimilation, drifting wherever it will take us.It seemed as though the only thing we learned from Oka was how to golf. I don't remember Native people golfing before Oka. There were a few, but it has just exploded since then. You get the feeling that after watching endless loops of the golfers during media coverage of Oka that some of our leaders just kept thinking, "That looks fun!"

In the time since Oka, could you imagine our world, if our people put the same effort into learning our traditional ways, languages and cultures as they put into their golf game. If our leadership put the same resources into funding for education as they spend on the golf course and organizing golf tournaments.

It's been 22 years since Oka and nothing has changed. The only thing that has improved is our handicap.

 *

ON THE 20^TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE OKA CRISIS

It was 20 years ago today. That the Oka Crisis, as we know it, began. Although the barricade had been up for months, the land issues had been ongoing since contact, it was the armed raid by the Quebec police, the death of Cpl. Lemay, and the resistance by the People of the Pines that marked the beginning. I wish things were different now. That something had been learned. That things had changed. I know so much has gotten worse. I see the evidence on a daily basis. Could the Oka Crisis even happen today? The governments and the police and the army all trained that summer and in the years since to make sure to never create the same situation. In all honesty, that's not what concerns me. What concerns me is how would we respond as Aboriginal people.

20 years ago, it felt that this country might boil over in acts of armed militancy and revolution. It felt like if the army rolled in on the people in the camp that Native people everywhere were ready to strike back. In the end, thankfully, the people of the pines, decided, that was it. We are going home. They cut through the razor wire and started walking back home. Singing. Of course they were arrested, locked up.That act, may have saved us all. 

As I said, people were ready. We were all sick and tired of the oppression, the loss, the neglect, the violence and the racism. If the army would have rolled in and people were killed. Acts of what are called terrorism, the final act of one who has nothing else, would be common. I feared this then. I understood it completely. I am grateful that today, this is not the world we live in. Yet, I feel, within myself, within our people, that we have swung so far in the other direction, that the example and the vision shared with everyone 20 years ago has been lost.I remember the people of Kanehsatake today. I remember the David family and my friend Dan. I said to him as we remembered those days, "the David family gave me a bed when there wasn't a bed to give, that's the David family." To all the warriors, the women, the elders, the medicine people, the family, the supporters. Thank you for what you did. I hope we can still learn what to do with it.

At the time, the threat loomed that if the Meech Lake Accord was not passed, the country would fall apart. Quebec would no longer accept being left out of the constitution and would simply vote for seperation and pursue independence. How then, with so much at stake, could this one lone Indian man, stand against this? How could he be so selfish as to risk the entire country? I can't say if the message ever got through; but it was never about Quebec. The Meech Lake Accord ignored the Native peoples of Canada and that was no longer going to happen. Not today. NO!

It was beautiful. I remember being on the lawn of the Ledge (what locals call the Manitoba Legislature). There were thousands of us, singing, drumming, dancing, holding signs. Proud. Happy. Overjoyed, really. Inside one man, one of us, was telling the whole country that they could go no further and they had to listen. One of the great days of my life.

Then a few weeks later on July 11, the Quebec Police raided the barricade at Kanehsatake. This was another No.

Kahesatake was the culmination of those events. The people were saying no and they were going to defend this no, with military tactics and weapons. It looked like it looked. My friend Dan David who is from Kanehsatake said on the talk radio program The Word that the people were scared, they were not prepared that first night. All they had was the determination, not to step back, not to back down. In the days to come they would fortify their perimeter, set security and rotations and prepare for the next attack. Ex-military were part of team, how could they not be, First peoples have volunteered for service, in higher numbers than any other nationality for decades. The majority of those Warriors, that would hold the line for 75 days were men who came to stand up for the rights of the people. They were regular men, construction workers, artists and students, some too young to drink. The fresh faced boy who becomes a man in the trenches, it was all there.

In the days, weeks and months to follow the tension grew. You couldn't escape it. There was no burnout, it just keep twisting and twisting. Frustration, anger and a sense of helplessness grew across the country. Random acts of destruction of government and public property were popping up. I heard rumours of factions growing and gathering arms. The idea seemed to be growing, with talk and without. If the army were to roll into Kanehsatake, if people were killed. Armed acts of violence and destruction would spill out everywhere. What other option could there be? This was the line that cannot be crossed. This is the end of that. Push us around, ignore our rights, ignore our history, act like we do not have basic human rights. Not special rights. ABORIGINAL RIGHTS. Human rights, the right to live as we please on our own land, raising our families and building a community is peace.

In the twenty years since, not much has changed. The ongoing attack on the traditional lands of the First Peoples continues, in the past the churches worked hand in hand with the governments, now it's the corporations. Same religion, different God. What do we do? What now?

20 years ago it seemed that we were on the brink of revolution. Now, it doesn't seem that Kanehsatake 1990 would never happen. Not just because the government, police and armed forces have changed tactics but that we changed. At that time the issues, concerns and reality of the First Peoples of Canada were generally ignored by the Canadian public, media a government. The events in Akwesasne during the so-called Gambling Wars held the country spellbound. The images were visceral. The men in fatigues and masks shooting at each other with high power automatic weapons. It was internal, it was between them.

The images were reminiscent of what all Canadians had seen for years, in other countries, in central and South America. Images that are safely judged and filed away. "Oh, it's terrible in those countries".

It's hard to remember what it was like. That Indian Summer of two decades ago. Only weeks before the event at Kanehsatake, Elijah Harper had killed the Meech Lake Accord in the Manitoba Legislature. Holding an eagle feather and saying that one word that had been said so many times before, but this time, this special time, it could not be ignored. No. No, you can't do this. No, you can not ignore who we are, our history, our place in this country. No. No more. Enough.

The media coverage was constant. There wasn't anything else that mattered that summer. I was 25 years old and working at the CBC radio as the National Native Affairs Broadcaster as part of their syndication service, Infotape. We provided stories to all the local and regional stations across the country. On my way to work, I was gearing up for what I assumed would be my inevitable assignment to Kanehsatake. I was mistaken. 

At that time, and I would hazard to a certain extent today, it was accepted within the corporation that Native journalists could not be trusted to cover Native stories. We could not help but be bias towards the Native side of the story. Everyday, I went to work and asked my producer when they were going to send me. Everyday, I was told that they didn't need me to go. Eventually, the decision was made outside of Toronto. Producers in regions across the country began calling the office, asking when I was going to be sent to Kanehsatake. It was the only story that mattered and their audience could not get enough of it. So 10 days after the crisis had started, I was on my way to Kanehsatake.