Heavy on the granola

[ciroccoj]

• Boys went to Spanish school today, and loved it. ::crossing fingers:: Pleasepleaseplease let it work out this time.
  
  
• Aboriginal Law is tough, yo. Not so much the readings (though they're long and intense) but the moral soul-searching and constant examination of deeply held beliefs. Also? I expected a lot of it to be difficult and to engender feelings of anger and disgust, but not active nausea.
  
  Some really interesting stuff, too. Like, for example, the Algonquin speaker who told us her grandfather had always told her she should welcome strangers, so she welcomed us to Ottawa, "unsurrendered Indian land."
  
  Not sure how to feel about that. I know what my initial gut reaction was; now where to go with that?
  
  Reading about the Akwesasne raids from the 80's from the Native point of view has also been intriguing, and more than a little frustrating, especially as I remember how the media painted the events back then. The two points of view don't merge well.
  
  Also... no, I'll write about Native Creation stories (which I bit my tongue when I called them Creation myths, ouch) later, because that's been interesting too. And the Jordan case... nope, some other day.
  
  
• Becoming mildly terrified at the thought of home schooling Justin, as the start date looms ever closer. Especially when, as today, he's been happily screaming and thumping around in his room for about 90 minutes.
  
  
• Boys watched Star Trek (Old Series) for the first time yesterday.
  Chris: So what did they think of it?
  Me: Well, they liked it, but they also thought it was kind of goofy in parts.
  Chris: Which one was it?
  Me: The Apple. [Chris looks blank, so I describe it.] So yeah, they were right.
  Chris: Well, you know, they can't all be Spock's Brain.
  
  
• Finally watched An Inconvenient Truth. Myeah.
  
  I love how ExxonMobil is now concerned about global warming. After funding anti-global warming science efforts to the tune of $16 million between 1998 and 2005, after saying in an internal 1998 memo (warning: pdf file) that Victory Will Be Achieved When ... uncertainties in climate science become part of the conventional wisdom" for "average citizens" and "the media", and many other words of comfort of joy, now they claim that ExxonMobil takes climate change extremely seriously. We recognise that the risk of climate change and its potential impacts on society and ecosystems may prove to be significant and that actions are needed to address this issue.
  
  Yeah, thanks, guys. I'm sure glad I didn't go all hysterical and believe that global warming phooey y'all were trying to protect me from for the last eight years, and now I feel all warm and gooey inside to see that you're men enough to about-face as if nothing happened admit you were wrong show you care.
  
  Oh wait - it's the Rideau Skateway that's feeling all warm and gooey. My mistake.
  
  
• In other news, there's no snow outside.
  
  Y'know, I hate winter. I hate the cold. I give thanks to my parents for having had the wisdom to immigrate to Canada when I was a kid, and I'm a fiercely proud Canadian, but every freaking winter I wonder what the hell they were thinking as I dig my car out of the snow and ice, and I grit my teeth through from November to March and rejoice when everything melts in the spring.
  
  In the spring. This is January. I shouldn't see grass.

Comments

[snarkhunter.livejournal.com]

I'll write about Native Creation stories (which I bit my tongue when I called them Creation myths, ouch)

Um. Can I ask why? Why is it bad to call them Creation myths? Just...for reference?

(B/c I'm thinking, "But we call all Creation stories Creation myths, right? So...huh?")

Like, for example, the Algonquin speaker who told us her grandfather had always told her she should welcome strangers, so she welcomed us to Ottawa, "unsurrendered Indian land."

Huh. Yeah. Where *do* you go from that?

Can I say something totally un-PC and probably overreacting to the comment here? I have great sympathy, in general, for the Native American/Canadian situation. We did, in fact, steal their land, and I won't speak for Canada, but the United States leveled a disturbingly successful genocidal agenda against its Native population, which continued well into the late twentieth century, and which has yet to be fully acknowledged OR apologized for.

That said...it's an ugly reality, but the entire history of the world is made up of one group of people conquering another, time again and again. With great tenacity and luck, some groups survive with some level of cultural identity. Others are assimilated and eventually lost. (See Wales for an example of tenacious survival.) But there is a level between survival and assimilation where, at some point, you have to stop. You have to stop accusing and stop apologizing. Yeah. My ancestors stole the land. But, you know, they're dead. They did bad things, but...they're dead. And a lot of people have used that land since. Do you want us to give it all back? Should we all just move out and go to...well, there's nowhere to go, is there?

I think acknowledgement and apology are definitely called for. Maybe even reparation, though I have no real opinion there, b/c I don't know what I think. But being constantly reminded of blood guilt does little to bring us forward, you know?

After all, and this is a really dramatic and probably inappropriate comment (and not a fair comparison at ALL, since we are the dominant group), blood guilt has been held over Jews for two millenia, and look what it got them.

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

Sum-up response to your entire comment: Hello, Me From January 4, when I started this class!

This is why I'm finding it a tough course. I thought I knew how I felt about all of this, and figured I was missing a few salient points here and there and should learn them in order to further refine my granola credentials. Now I feel... kinda like I signed up for an Advanced French class so I could maybe get a job at the French Embassy, but have discovered that French people in reality communicate 90% of their meaning through Sign Language, and I really don't know jack-merde.

And part of what's quite disorienting is I'm not willing to toss out everything I know/believe just because I've been shown another POV and have read some disturbing stuff, but it's a tough spot to be in, no longer sure of my previous beliefs but not yet secure with what I'm currently being told.

Um. Can I ask why? Why is it bad to call them Creation myths? Just...for reference?
Ah, hahahahaha, that's... a whooole other entry.

They did bad things, but...they're dead. And a lot of people have used that land since. Do you want us to give it all back? Should we all just move out and go to...well, there's nowhere to go, is there?
Believe it or not that part's probably got the shortest response: it's not just our ancestors, it's us, right now, and no, they're (mostly) not asking us to leave.

The readings I was doing re. the Akwesasne reserve (which straddles Ontario, Quebec and New York State) were hitting really hard. I remember reading the news about stuff going on there when I was in high school, and thinking it was really disgraceful that the Mohawks were saying that they had a treaty right to smuggle guns/drugs into Canada and cheap cigarettes/booze into the US just because their grandparents had decided to pick that land to live on and Canada and the US had said it was OK. That was land meant for them to live and hunt on, not run criminal organizations out of. And it was too bad that Canada and the US had had to send in RCMP and NY cops to take control, but hey, if the Mohawks refused to control themselves, what were the rest of us supposed to do?

...except that apparently the Canadian authorities flat-out refused to allow the Band government to do anything to stop the criminal activities, turning down (good, sensible, hard-hitting) proposal after proposal after proposal on the basis of budget restraint, or bureaucratic difficulties, or disapproval of the manner in which the decisions had been taken, or mistrust in the lack of clear delineation between the Canadian Mohawk v. US Mohawk authorities, or mistrust in the lack of clear delineation between Mohawk wildlife conservation forces and Mohawk anti-drug-smuggling forces, or insistence that Canadian Native criminal matters remain the in the jurisdiction of the Canadian Federal Government...

...and suddenly that situation is not so clear any more. And that kind of thing keeps coming up over and over, challenging or putting a new spin on stuff I've learned in Property, Constitutional & Admin Law, Environmental Law, etc, not to mention the media, a granola-heavy social milieu, and four years working in the prison system with its over-represention of Native inmates.

It's a highly unbalancing place to be.

[snarkhunter.livejournal.com]

Sum-up response to your entire comment: Hello, Me From January 4, when I started this class! Hee!! Excellent point!

I see what you're saying--and I know that I'm horribly ignorant of so much of what's really going on. Your example is precisely the kind of issue that I don't know about, and that I think many, many people don't know about, and it makes the whole discussion of Aboriginal Rights sticky. (I think, in the US at least, people prefer to ignore the Native population except when they want to gamble or buy fireworks. Or bitch about gambling, fireworks, or fishing rights.)

I guess my comment was mostly directed at your speaker's comment--"unsurrendered Indian land." Yes, thank you for pointing that out. And? In some ways, I wonder if it might not diminish the seriousness of the myriad other crimes and injustices being perpetrated daily, at least in the eyes of others, to continue harping on the land theft.

On the other hand, pointing out that Ottawa was never surrended, but was, in fact, taken by force, like much of North and South America, does highlight the extent to which we are dealing with a seemingly endless cycle of abuse. So. Yeah. Sticky, confusing mess.

[snarkhunter.livejournal.com]

And part of what's quite disorienting is I'm not willing to toss out everything I know/believe just because I've been shown another POV and have read some disturbing stuff, but it's a tough spot to be in, no longer sure of my previous beliefs but not yet secure with what I'm currently being told.

Can I just say that I hope to one day have that kind of effect on students? I think disorientation is one of the best effects of education. It proves you're engaging in critical thinking.

I kind of felt that way when I took my Third-World Feminisms class. B/c, on the one hand, I could see all of the evils caused by global capitalism, and I harbor socialist beliefs, and blahblahblah I still shop at Wal-Mart. And I don't actually think capitalism is bad. I'm actually still floundering in that whole mess, really, and if I were a better feminist and a better global citizen, I'd work it out in my head. But I'm not, I guess. Partly b/c I don't feel like I have the authority to develop a real opinion yet, and so I need the floundering in the mire to really understand things, if that makes any sense at all.