Brianna Jonnie's letter "If I Go Missing" uses personal narrative, emotive language, and statistical comparison to highlight the systemic neglect and racial bias faced by Indigenous communities, emphasizing the need for social justice and equity in the cases of missing First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples. Brianna Jonnie begins her letter by thanking the WPS for finding a missing boy, and highlighting the collective efforts of the media, police and community to help find him. She brings up the point that Indigenous people, specifically girls, are not given the same attention. She implements logos and statistics to support her points, bringing up missing calls regarding missing Indigenous kids and them being reported missing to the public …show more content…
Doing so, she uses her ethos to establish her credibility by expressing her role in the community as she states “I am not involved in drugs, alcohol, prostitution or other illegal activity. I am not a runaway, nor am I involved with Child and Family Services. I am an honour-roll student, a volunteer, a coach, [and] a dancer.” Following this she employs logos, by providing statistics, pathos, by appealing to the reader's emotion and repetition by stating “I am more likely to go missing than my peers. I am more likely than my friends to be murdered by a person unknown to me. I am more likely to be raped, assaulted, or sexually violated. I cannot take public transportation or go for a walk without being approached.” Once again she contrasts the higher levels of risk she faces compared to her friends and others in the community. Approaching the end of her letter, Brianna Jonnie takes a step she feels obliged to take, providing a picture of herself and a statement in the event that she does go
This distance can lead to confusion and a feeling of being lost in life, which can overwhelm a child and introduce mental health complications like depression. Statistically speaking, almost one in four Métis youth struggle with mood disorders (Statistics Canada). However, this adversity is not simple to overcome, and requires them to develop new experiences in order to foster strength and make confident decisions. Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm is the author of “Sturgeon”, the second poem being analyzed, and a member of the First Nations community. Known for disproportionately high illicit activities, research shows nearly 62% of First Nations members have experienced abuse at least once, compared to only 42% in the rest of the population (Statistics Canada).
The book I choose for the book talk is “Dead and gone” written by Norah McClintock, this book talks about a murder mystery of Tricey Howard. The main character of the story is Mike, an orphan whose parents got killed in a car crash. He lives with his foster father named John Riel, who was once a police officer. During a swim meet, Mike see Mr.Henderson is staring at a girl name Emily without stopping. Then he informs Emily about what happened in the community center. However, as return Emily blackmails Mike to investigate Mr. Henderson. During the investigation, Mike finds nothing suspicious, but realize Emily is the daughter of Tricey Howard. Tricey Howard was murdered years ago, but the police still haven’t find the real killer. At the meantime,
Her book focuses on the myriads of issues and struggles that Indigenous men and women have faced and will continue to face because of colonialism. During her speech, Palmater addressed the grave effects of the cultural assimilation that permeated in Indigenous communities, particularly the Indian Residential School System and the Indian Act, which has been extensively discussed in both lectures and readings. Such policies were created by European settlers to institutionalize colonialism and maintain the social and cultural hierarchy that established Aboriginals as the inferior group. Palmater also discussed that according to news reports, an Aboriginal baby from Manitoba is taken away every single day by the government and is put in social care (CTVNews.ca Staff, 2015). This echoes Andrea Smith’s argument in “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy: Rethinking Women of Color Organizing” that colonialism continues to affect Aboriginals through genocide (2006, p. 68). Although such actions by the government are not physical acts of genocide, where 90% of Aboriginal population was annihilated, it is this modern day cultural assimilation that succeeded the Indigenous Residential School System and the Indian Act embodies colonialism and genocide (Larkin, November 4,
The main character in this story is a Jewish girl named Alicia. When the book
The issue of identity also emerged in her commentary on how many Native American women are forced to prove their ethnicity for equality in health care and school: “For urban Indian women, who are not registered in federal government records, social services and benefits are difficult or almost impossible to obtain” (page 222). This governmental requirement for people to prove themselves as being “indian enough” can be damaging to one’s sense of self, and is proof of ongoing colonialism because the oppressors are determining whether one’s identity is legitimate.
Ana’s home is safe and she feels safe in it, however, she lives in a dangerous neighborhood. Anan’s living situation is a source of resilience as she enjoys the family unity. Ana is aware of community services available to her; Ana uses the public transportation system to get around her neighborhood. She says that she is aware of services available to her community.
Jerilynn Webster; also known as ‘JB The First Lady’, is an Indigenous Vancouver based beat-boxer, hip-hop artist, activist, aboriginal youth educator and a single mother (News, CBC). Jerilynn is a proud Indigenous member of the Nuxalk and Cayuga (Six) Nation (Jb the First Lady) who immensely contributes to her community. She was born in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan in an impoverished ‘single-parent, Christian home” (Warner). Upon her arrival to Vancouver; at the age of 14, she was flooded by a culture-shock of experienced racism and discrimination as people negatively labelled her with elements of her race and culture (Hong). It was after this incident that she began to become aware of the profound issues living in a white-dominated city. She often attended the friendship centre where she felt at home and began her own career as an emcee, director and actor (Hong). She also began recording in a studio called KAYA (Knowledge Aboriginal Youth Association) (Hong). Seeing that her childhood memories restricted her from listening to music with the exception of Christian or ‘50s music (Warner), in her lyrics, Jerilynn delivers messages of racism, discrimination, effects of residential schooling, female empowerment, female experiences, and other politicized topics (JB The First Lady). Jerilynn states, “Using my words to go upwards/ not backwards”, she strives to empower, motivate and encourage the Native culture to fulfill their dreams and achieve the unachievable(Jb the First Lady). More importantly, Jerilynn’s motive is to “...capture the moment and the environment that we’re in, but come with a female perspective”(News, CBC). Thus, drawing on feminist and intersectional theories, this paper will highlight JB The First lady’s demonstration o...
Canadians are just recently beginning to realize the detrimental aftermath of the years of trauma experienced by Indigenous peoples of Canada, such as the survivors of the residential school system. It is often difficult for these people to overcome the impact that follows. Undoubtedly, it requires help and support from others, but these people must make their personal healing journey themselves. The passages “Rock Bottom” by Steven Keewatin Sanderson and the “Legend of the Sugar Girl” by Joseph Boyden prove that although trauma can significantly undermine groups of people, they can overcome their difficulties. Both authors illustrate how trauma negatively affects characters, causes them to fall victim
Many people go missing in a day, although you might not realize it because you are not aware of your surroundings. How many people actually go missing in a day? In the United States every 40 seconds a child go missing, that makes about 800,000 children a year. This number of children missing is outrageous and we need to do something about it. This is the case of Brianna Maitland, a seventeen year old girl who went missing in 2004. I believe that Brianna was kidnapped but other theories include that she ran away by herself and that she was killed by known drug dealers in her area.
At a young age Danielle’s mind was set and all she wanted to do was help her community
In the novel Missing Sarah by Maggie deVries she writes and illustrates a sad tribute to the memory of her sister, Sarah. The author Maggie deVries makes a clear connection between Sarah's adoption by her family and Sarah's incredibly sad life. Adoption of children from another background, heritage and race into white families sometimes doesn't go well, despite the best efforts of the family. Sarah deVries was one of at least 21 women who could only be identified by DNA found on a pig farm in Port Coquitlam, BC. The women were all sex workers or prostitutes who were killed, and the cause of their vanishing was not investigated promptly possibly because they were engaged in selling sex to survive. Even the choice of whether to refer to these women as 'prostitutes' or 'sex
After watching Finding Dawn, my impression of the film documentary had hit me hard, especially due the fact that I am a female and strikes me to empathize with women who have who are treated like a ghosts by the government. No one wants to be have that treatment to them. You have to have no ounce of humanity in you to ignore the issue, specifically indigenous women, who have to put their lives at risk in order to survive because of a systemic discrimination that constantly ignores this part of society that where recognition is lacking.
...tely acknowledging missing/murdered Aboriginal women. For example, the infamous Pickton murders emphasize the extremity taken by local police forces to mask the violence and exclusion that Aboriginal women have faced. In this case, the perpetrator was the notorious Robert Pickton who became a global figure in mass media as the most atrocious serial killer in Canadian history. Jiwani and Young (2006) identify that when the bodies were discovered on the Pickton farm, many of Aboriginal descent, newspapers and journals were empathetic and seized the chance to illustrate the atrocity and horror of the crime. Yet, altogether the media failed to take advantage of any “opportunities for re-inscribing Aboriginality and relating these women’s experiences of alienation and abuse to systemic issues such as intergenerational trauma and residential schools” (Jiwani & Young 910).
“Reclaiming Culture and the Land: Motherhood and the Politics of Sustaining Community” is about a mother who is a Native American activist who has two children, she wants them to be raised and go to school in an Indian community. “I put my children in that school because I wanted them to be in the Indian community.” She explains that she is not sure if her children know what she is doing is common, but they know that what she is doing is right. “My children do have the sense that what I do is not necessarily common. Recently my daughter started asking me if I’m famous.” She has fought for her children to have a good life, full of community, ritual, and an understanding of who they are and where they come from.
A constant sight on the news or internet is of a missing person. Studies by the crimelibrary say that over 800,000 people go missing every year (4). Of those, a little over half are men, half are ethnic minorities and around 50,000 are adults. For such democratic statistics, one would imagine that there would be an equal amount of media coverage for these demographics, yet that is not true. If we observe carefully, we can see that the media tends to follow a certain pattern with who they pick to report on. Usually they are young, pretty blonde girls. At the very least they are likely to be women. Going by what we see, it would be a fair assumption to say that most individuals who go missing are female, youth or Caucasian, yet the statistics speak otherwise.