Meaningful Outrage
The recent discovery of a mass grave holding the bodies of 215 Indigenous children at the site of the former Kamloops Residential School has raised a lot of verbal outrage. For Indigenous people it was another sword in their collective heart and should be in anyone who has one. For years we have heard various leaders (political and religious) speaking of a new and improved relationship with Indigenous people all the while continuing policies that continue to harm the lives and livelihoods of the original inhabitants of colonized lands. We see passing outrage for one atrocity after the other: residential schools, suing to pay less for the healthcare and education of Indigenous children, over incarceration of Indigenous people, racism in healthcare, on and on. Yet nothing changes on the ground (or under the ground). If governments really mean what they say adopt, then implement the United Nations Charter on the Rights of Indigenous People, especially the right of “free, p