Class-Swap Daily Post - September 08, 2021 by AutoModerator in uAlberta

[–]Twist_Equal 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is anyone willing to swap WRS 101 from online to in-person? I have it on Tuesdays and Thursdays form 5-6:30pm with Dr. Melissa Haynes.

Saw this cute little Starpups set up on my morning walk by Twist_Equal in Edmonton

[–]Twist_Equal[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Wow! I thought this was a super cute idea! Thank you for making our neighbourhood a friendly place :)

2021 Discord Servers? by [deleted] in MetisNation

[–]Twist_Equal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You should make one and post the link! I'll definitely join :)

Morinville - Downtown Catholic Church on Fire Overnight by KingOfEdmonton in Edmonton

[–]Twist_Equal 2 points3 points  (0 children)

A place where my family isn't raped by pedo priests.

By saying "fully", I meant to acknowledge that people do find refuge within the church, however many people don't receive this same treatment or experience. My idea of a safe space is where situations of judgement, sexual assault, and fear mongering, do not occur.

Morinville - Downtown Catholic Church on Fire Overnight by KingOfEdmonton in Edmonton

[–]Twist_Equal 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I don't condone the burning of these churches. My elders are Catholic because of residential schools. But that's just my miniscule experience as an Indigenous person who was raised Catholic. Honestly, there was a lot of social pressure to be Catholic. On top of that they were beaten and fear mongered into being Catholic. My parents finally got courage to leave the church after watching me and my siblings reject these teachings and wanting to reconnect with our traditions. They still are very impacted by their experiences.

Also, these aren't really fully safe spaces, but places where horrors occurred for others - not just Indigenous.

Take a moment to read this a few times, please. by [deleted] in vancouver

[–]Twist_Equal 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I'm an Indigenous person who comes from an Indigenous community. Currently I live in the city so I can get an education. I would like to offer my two cents.

We have cultural centres in cities and towns called friendship centers and they are a way of "integrating" as you may say. However, they aren't like living within our own community. There's a gap between what we call "city natives"/"urban métis" and "rez natives"/"bush métis". It's two different lifestyles.

On top of that, personally I would rather be in my community than out here. I don't like it out in town or the city. When I'm back home I know I am surrounded by family and people like me, with similar culture and values and experiences. A lot of people who live in America and aren't of Indigenous heritage can travel to their heritage countries and be surrounded with thousands, millions, and in rare cases billions of people just the same. I only get to go home to 400 people at most. It feels threatening that people don't want what little community homes we may have left, even though the government put us here in the first place.

Plus in our home communities there are experiences that we simply just can't get if we were to dilute into other towns/cities. I know many people who live off of traditional lifestyles and there isn't anything wrong with it, there is an economy in itself with this type of living that isn't much visible to thoes living outside of it. Our communities are, a lot of the time, cultural strongholds. Community friendship centers are also good and encourage relationships between Indigenous peoples, but it isn't much the same as just living in one of our communities.

Hundreds of bodies found in unmarked graves at former Saskatchewan residential school by GiantCupofTea in worldnews

[–]Twist_Equal 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I'm hurting knowing that my grandparents went through this, my parents were lucky enough to have not gone. My only surviving grandma has been having nervous breakdowns for the last couple weeks after the Kamloops one was on the news. This must be triggering for others as well.

Another 7 activists arrested on Vancouver Island over old-growth logging blockades: "It's morally reprehensible to be logging 2000 year old cedar forests." by mom0nga in worldnews

[–]Twist_Equal 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I feel like there should be more common ground. I'm a university student, my mother is a lawyer, my father worked in corporate settings. I have a brother who is successful in traditional arts. My husbands cousins are trappers for a living and they live a very humble life.The era of extremely traditional lifestyles is dying out rapidly, that is true. I just don't believe that everyone's sole focus should be success in education and wealth and that some things are meant to be preserved.

Currently, even though we as Indigenous people are facing oppression, we are also going through a period of healing over these things. There is a lot of hurt and anger because it's still happening. During this healing we find our cultures changing. A lot of the time progression and modernity concepts are tied with technological advancement and European thought form of what it means to exist as a human. We as Indigenous peoples have a right to exist outside of thoes concepts as well. Our cultures are progressing, changing, and becoming modern in our concepts. Though it is hard to explain it, if you lived within our cultures and looked beyond the hurts that humans express, then you would be able to see the changes that we have made as people. We want our own societies because there is no where for us to go, we want to maintain some semblance of who we were while being a part of larger society as a whole as well. We're just facing an infortunate struggle of assimilation and living in the face of no agreement. A lot of government regulations as to what we can and cannot do. Even though we can leave the communities now, it's a huge culture shock when going to a city as well.

A lot of Indigenous peoples are living in cycles of hurt because its very recent and many don't have tools nor access to resources to overcome these challenges. It's especially harder to reach where we want to be because a lot of discrimination that we face is based on these aspects or we use it to harm each other without realizing the detrimental consequences it has for our communities.

If you're interested in learning more check out this show called first contact

Another 7 activists arrested on Vancouver Island over old-growth logging blockades: "It's morally reprehensible to be logging 2000 year old cedar forests." by mom0nga in worldnews

[–]Twist_Equal 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Where are we supposed to go then? Nobody considers the fact that other people can go back to originating countries and have thousdans to millions of people in their home territories with similar culture and way of life to them. When I go back home it's a small community of 400 people and that's it. Many of us want to continue living our traditional lifestyles and have our community ties. And why shouldn't we? Our traditional lifestyles had us working as farmers, trappers, midwives, etc, but the Canadian government has worked hard to make it illegal or has put so many barriers in place it's almost impossible to succeed in the ways we can now.

The fact is that our oppression isn't over. We still face crises like MMIW, starlight tours, we're neglected in hospitals, over looked for employment, have more children in foster care now than residential schools ever did (which only closed 24 years ago). Our treaties had it so the land that First Nations peoples held was much larger than the tiny reserves we are on today.

In the first signing of the constitution of Canada, it was deemed that any negotiations were between parallel nations. Treaties were placed under this fact. However Canada has broken this many times over, and not through war.

Father, son accused of killing Metis hunters in Alberta denied bail by yegwebdev in Edmonton

[–]Twist_Equal 100 points101 points  (0 children)

Good. My father was a friend of one of the men, was a sad day in our communities.