First Nations Grave found in Kamloops, BC

Over the Victoria Day long weekend using a ground-penetrating radar a mass grave of 215 children from the Tk'emlups te Secwépemc First Nations (and likely others from surrounding area) in Kamloops, BC ,on the property of one of the largest Residential Schools in our country of Canada was found. Our parliament had an apology in 2008 admitting to rape, beatings, death etc of Children from First Nations at the hands of these so called schools to the survivors. The last school closed in 1996 when I was only 13 years old and it was entirely legal to own a native child up to possibly even the 1960's with the Indian Act being in place. See the Indian Act  for more info and a closer,more accurate timeline. It's horrifying and disgusting what they have done. What our, my ancestors have done and gone through. A lot of people don't know that I am part Native American, that I have even 1/6th Native heritage and that I feel this too. I know that I'll likely get that I'm white and I won't understand and maybe part of that is true , yes , because I have had privilege of being white. I accept that. However,  that then makes it my responsibility to do better and make sure that things like this don't happen again. Ever! I know I'll get that "oh well my ancestors stood by the Natives and were kind to natives , they never owned one or beat them " etc.,  you don't know that. You don't because unless you have a time travel machine you can't say that. All you know is the now and what we have to go by of oral and written history which was and is controlled by the government or corporations and always has been by the people in power. 

Critical Thinking and Complications of Older Children's Stories

 So I came across an article about changing children’s books and their endings to more appropriate ones that speak to modern times. It's called 'Writer Reworks 'Love you Forever' To Take Out The Creepy Parts'

This particular story: ‘Love you Forever’, as a whole is a cute story about a parent’s love for their child. However, you take the context, the times and what I’ve experienced and what others have experienced and you see that the ending is basically a child complying with a parent’s wish to have control or be overbearing and spying on their child which has multiple psychological effects on both parties. As one that had no privacy growing up until I was the age of 25 (other than when I was away in college), I understand the need to also set boundaries with loved ones both in home and outside of home. I also know even while dating, I became complacent in allowing my boyfriend to just drop by whenever it suited him and that’s not love and that’s not caring that is abuse with minimal me time. I was so used to not being alone because of lack of privacy that I just allowed it. 

Addressing how Black Lives Matter

I wanted to write details and support it with news documentation etc. however after hard thought on all that’s gone on since the pandemic and after all that’s now going on in the states, I just want to write on the black lives matter versus the all lives matter subject and what is making me upset. There will however be links to further articles I read near the end of this article. This is going to be a long post and before you suddenly call judgement I’d like you to listen and read. All lives matter but more importantly Black lives DO matter because they are our foundation. Scientifically speaking we have proven archaeologically that we come from Africa, the wellspring of life. We went into the vast unknown separated and developed in different regions. We white people, of all nationalities, have in some way built our countries on the backs of slaves and the backs of coloured people. I am not proud of my ancestors in this way. I don’t know if any of them stood up to it or refused to own slaves etc. I know that I am one fifth Native American Indian and I am proud of that. I would like to hope that my ancestors were accepting. 

Shaming during a Pandemic

During the pandemic I’ve seen a great number of posts regarding being “fat” after and eating too much and being stationary. I get it we may all gain a little; even I did as I’m not walking to and from work every day. There are many memes online regarding the weight gain and how we’ll all be looking like balloons unable to fit through doors and so on. 

But I’ve noticed something about my friends and family and myself. We are all concerned about how we look and we’ve gotten to the point where this is not healthy. This is depressing and we feel bad and we bad talk ourselves and then others. We say doing this or that is not enough. We eat too much. We don’t exercise and we’ve been watching too much television.  Those people who have depression I’ve seen sleep all day because they have nothing to do or the feel they don’t because they don’t like themselves. This is a mental issue. 

Masks and Vaccine

Let’s talk about masks and a vaccine today.

So I have heard multiple people tell me even in general conversation out on the streets that they would rather be shot, held down at gunpoint or thrown off a rooftop before they ever wear a mask or get a vaccine. I ask why and they say “if it’s my time it’s my time and I won’t be forced to do it and do you know what’s in those things? I don’t want to be like China and be forced to wear a mask”

Well there are some pretty disturbing things in those statements alone. 

Firstly you’d rather die than save your own and another person’s life such as your family? This is also coming from people that are immune compromised. I get it, you’re afraid but personally I would be afraid more of the repercussions of getting this disease more than anything and also risking the lives of my family entirely where they could suffer because seeing someone suffer, as I have with cancer, is not a pretty thing. 

The Closing, The Opening and the Why and Medical Care

Reopening, it sounds almost scary. I admit that these days hearing things like “they exposed themselves” or even hearing the sirens, is not the same as it once was. We’ve all be encouraged and told to stay inside. We have, for the most part done so.  

In my earlier post I posted about safety versus tyranny. So let’s really look at the dictionary definitions shall we?

Opening of the Economy

 It’s been hard times. There are a lot of things I’d like to talk about. I forewarn you though, that some of you, well you might get angry; you might feel you’re being singled out and get offended. If that’s the case then maybe it does apply to you and you should be the ones to listen up! Keep in mind this is also strictly my opinion and yes I’m calling on you, my readers to speak up on some of these topics.

So I’m going to address some social media and government callings to go back to work first and my opinions and what I’m seeing. Some parts of the Canadian Government are putting a call to go back to work and open the economy and same with the States where there is an uninformed and uneducated president child who does not want to do his job. You see they all want the money flowing instead of helping others they want to help themselves. They want handouts to the big companies. Now here’s my beef with this part, first have we not learned anything from our history or from the medical advice given that this thing is going to be coming in waves? Apparently we have not and we clearly aren’t looking at historical evidence of the Spanish flu whereby in early 1900’s they had outbreaks, reopened for one day and then another wave happened and more people died. So we’re going back way too soon if we don’t do it in stages. Luckily there are parts of government that are listening and even willing to roll it back if the numbers don’t go down. 

It's a time to be kind

Today I’d like to write more about mental health during this time of crisis. I know there are a lot of you out there that are suffering at different stages. 

Some are already suffering from illnesses, or family members are causing great loneliness, anxiety, grief, sadness and even anger. There are those that don’t normally suffer from it that are feeling the “cabin fever” and in that wanting to do more things that in the end could do more harm than good. There are those caught up in conspiracies and the controversy of our times and of the information we are receiving that let it get so bad that they think of nothing else. 

Day 16 of Isolation - It's getting super serious!

This is day 16 of isolation and I’d like to talk about a few things today.  One is the seriousness of this pandemic and secondly of mental health. 

So to start off there are things I’ve seen or heard since this pandemic started including things such as “I’ve had the flu”, “I’ve had the flu shot”, “I’ll wipe things down repeatedly” , “You can’t self isolate because you’re scared of a virus”, “I have never gotten sick in my life I won’t now” , “I have a strong immune system it won’t get me”.  Well I have news for you all saying this, you are the likely ones it will infect or it’ll infect those that you love. Yes you can take precautions but what if the person down the hall or down the street hasn’t? What if you run into them at the grocery store because they don’t take precautions? 

It's day 9 - Slow down

It is day nine in isolation and today I stepped outside to grab some essentials. I admit that I went with a friend who is also self -isolating for the same reasons as I and we used our own carts and avoided public transit and stood 6 feet apart and did all that we were supposed to. However, allow me to tell you further about my experiences in the outside vs what once was only two to three weeks ago.