Telling it like it is

Racism is hardly confined to intolerant, right-wing curmudgeons.

Part 2 of 2

The phrase “telling it like it is” has become the blanket defence for racists defending their bigotry. Calling black NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem “sons of bitches” and countries with predominantly black and brown people as “shitholes” is dismissed as “telling it like it is.” Except it’s not.

It’s telling it like prejudiced white people want it to be, to elevate their own status and privilege.

Sadly, that’s not solely an American trait. It’s as common in Canada as it is south of the border. In the land of the glorious and free, “telling it like it is” targets visible racial minorities in general and Indigenous peoples in particular.

“Telling it like it is” is rooted in a human trait the Noble Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman dubbed WYSIATI, which stands for “what you see is all there is.” This inherent bias means unless you consciously strive to think slower and smarter, you only see what confirms your worldview and you don’t see anything that doesn’t match your personal beliefs.

In places like Prince George, saying First Nations need to move on from the past, take responsibility for themselves and get with the times ignores the past and present reality of Indigenous peoples.

For anyone who even partially believes the previous statement, just ask yourself one question: how do you think you would be doing if your land had been seized from your ancestors by an invading force, your great-grandparents were forced onto reserves, your grandparents were sent to residential schools as part of a genocidal attempt to wipe out your language and your culture, your parents were addicted to drugs and alcohol to dull the pain of the sexual and physical abuse they received as kids and you grew up within that environment while support for your health and education was chronically underfunded by federal and provincial governments fighting over who should pay?

Now let’s see you get over it, pull up your socks and get a job.

Although Tanya Talaga’s excellent book Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City focuses on the deaths of seven Indigenous high school students in Thunder Bay, the similarities between the northwestern Ontario hub and Prince George are striking, from the tragic loss of young Indigenous teenagers to the racism and the hard truths that run through both cities and the entire country.

The hard truth is that despite Stephen Harper’s apology to residential school survivors for Canada’s act of cultural genocide and Justin Trudeau’s followup apology to groups left out by Harper, the federal government still shortchanges First Nations, still enforces the Indian Act with bureaucratic cruelty and still opposes key parts of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The hard truth in Prince George, as in Thunder Bay, is a long history of systemic discrimination, starting with the whitewashed Canadian and B.C. history taught in local schools and running through everything from equitable access to health care and other government services to applying for work and renting a place to live.

WYSIATI extends to Canada’s big cities, where Indigenous peoples are mostly invisible and First Nations history and culture is largely ignored, except when it can be conveniently romanticized for commercial purposes.

Canada’s Indigenous peoples only make up about five per cent of the national popu- lation and most of them live in isolated, northern rural communities that few urban dwellers will ever visit, never mind even be able to locate or identify.

Racism is hardly confined to intolerant, right-wing curmudgeons. Urban environmentalists are often blatantly racist – so blinded by their good intentions to save the empty wilderness beyond city limits that they willfully ignore the rights of the people who have lived there for thousands of years.

Thunder Bay and Canada need Talaga’s book. A Toronto Star reporter, she is the daughter and granddaughter of the First Nations residents in northern Ontario. Her book will hopefully help that city and this country move forward, to reconcile its racist past and present.

Prince George and Canada also need Angela Sterritt’s upcoming book. The awardwinning Gitxsan journalist with the CBC is working on a book about missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls on the Highway of Tears.

Canada needs these women, along with many more artists and writers like them, to really tell the stories of First Nations in this country. For anyone who really wants to hear from knowledgable people “telling it like it is” about the state of Canada, this is where they should start.