Case Study: Tina Fontaine

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On August 17th, 2014, the body of a fifteen-year-old female was found wrapped in a duvet weighed down by rocks in the Red River. The body was later identified as Miss Tina Fontaine, who is from Sagkeeng First Nation. This disturbing story was covered by CBC in an article titled “Tina Fontaine, 15, found in a bag in Red River” and underneath the title is a photo of Alexander Dock on Winnipeg’s Red River. Spread on the dock is small memorial towards the deceased aboriginal. The article then continues to explain that under the circumstances her body was found in, the police are treating the case as a homicide. In the article, Miss Fontaine is described as “petite little thing” who weighs 100 pounds and that she had only been in the Winnipeg …show more content…

In this context structural violence is defined as the violence that results from the way that political and economic forces structure risk for various forms of suffering within a population (Schultz YEAR, 372). Fontaine was forcibly removed from her family and community. Furthermore, “Aboriginal foster parents are absolutely essential to prevent a continuation of practices from the colonial past that have served to separate Aboriginal children from their families and communities.” (Browns et al. 2013, 364) and this thus adds another limiting factor to her agency and endured structural violence. In the words of Browns, foster care is reproducing residential schools in the sense aboriginal children are being taken and assimilated into western society. CBC article briefly explains “…she was rebelling in that care she was in. She was running away and had a history of that, but obviously, she was in danger doing that” (CBC News 2014), and with this being the only explanation of Tina’s situation, one would think that it is wholly her decision to run away. Without Tina’s history in the media article, one’s idea of Tina, and aboriginals, in general, becomes false, and a negative stereotype that aboriginals are runaways, problem creators and criminals are maintained. This generates a “us and them” dichotomy where society is reluctant to resolve social injustices, and this is why it is critical for media outlets to accurately portray the given

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