When we think aboriginal we think of the hard-core casino goers, drunks, smoke shop owners, and of course their luxury of tax exemption. If this is all we associate the aboriginals with we are ignorant and most definitely wrong! Many of us have this view because the aboriginal nation severely lacks media attention. We do not know anything or we know the wrong thing, simply because we never hear about it!
Darren Thomas, a gentlemen part of the Seneca bear clan, presented some history on his degraded nation to the journalism students of Laurier Brantford on Monday October 5th. He brought many of his emotions to the table as he spoke to the students and wanted to stress his point that we “must take interest to know, or else [we] will know nothing about aboriginals.” All the negative stereotypes and demeaning news articles presented about aboriginals are drowning their reputation in Canada. He asked the Journalism students to think of one positive news story about the aboriginal community. In a class of over two hundred students only one individual could reference an article on aboriginals and nature, nothing very positive though.
The love and emotion he shared for his people, culture and Canada was very moving and definitely a motivation for the journalism students to get to know what is really going on. Thomas stated that “Canada is one of largest human rights violators in the world,” hearing this brought reality into the lecture hall. This is serious stuff! Its a shame that this is not made obvious to all Canadians, and when it is it certainly is a shock.
We should be praising the aboriginals for being the origin of this amazing country. Instead Canada sends their children off to residential schools miles away from home, easily strips them of their status, literally cages them into their reserves, and sadly forces the aboriginal community to disengage from Canadian society.
The cries of the aboriginal people need to be heard; there is no more time to waste on announcing their point of view on this violation. Yes they are aboriginals, but most importantly they are Canadians, and Canada needs to remember that!
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/91-003-x/2007001/figures/4129880-eng.htm
The link above will lead you to a graph from statistics Canada. This graph provides information of the aboriginal population in Canada for the years of 1996, 2001, and 2006. By looking at this graph we can come to the conclusion that the aboriginal population grows each year. Ironically the bigger it gets it seems to attract less and less media attention. This is a growing population people! We need to know more about them, we do live in the same country after all!
With proper media attention and coverage the struggles as well as joys of being an aboriginal will be heard. Our wicked stereotypes of the first nations people could have the chance to be corrected. We just need to know more! Perhaps the media feels like this issue is simply a lost cause and not worth the time to investigate. But I say it is! The aboriginal people started Canada lets give them the coverage they deserve!
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