More about changing the world

You may be wondering whatever happened to my own "one little thing to change the world." It seems that I've been blogging about everything but the topic that was my original intention for this space.

Let me begin by sharing my idea for making the world a better place. The thing that I have chosen to do is to help change mainstream society's view of aboriginal peoples. It seems to me that we in the Western world who decry the atrocities taking place in other parts of the globe have managed to turn a blind eye to the third-world we have created in in our own backyard. I believe that we can do better and that we want to do better, but don't know what to do.

Part of my attempt to succeed at my goal, will be to highlight bits of history, share information about treaties and -- when I am lucky enough to get these -- stories about Native peoples in modern times. I will also share ways that we can all help, as I find opportunities for this.

There are two books that I highly recommend you read.

The first is the classic, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. Written more than 30 years ago, the book presents a compelling tale of the settlement of the U.S. and the failure of the conquering society to live up to its own promises. Wounded Knee is exceptionally well-written and includes accounts from official government records and first-hand accounts as evidence.

The second book is I Have Lived Here Since the World Began, by Arthur J. Ray. Ray is a professor of history at the University of British Columbia and works as a consultant on Native claims cases. His book looks at the impact of European settlement on Native peoples from first contact to modern times.

Reading both books gave me a better appreciation of native cultures, treaties and how poverty on reserves has been created and perpetuated. It is on this last point that I think many white North Americans are ignorant. How would we know? It's something that has been left out of most of our history books. Instead, we drive by reservations, see decrepit housing, hear about welfare levels and think poorly of the people who live there.

The truth is that the realities of Natives would have provided endless fodder for Kafka.

Did you know, for example, that native peoples were not allowed to participate in emerging economies following the fur trade? That, at certain points in history, it has been illegal for Native peoples to hire lawyers to argue on their behalf in Court? Or that the education offered in the residential school system was geared toward creating labourers and domestics rather than providing the same educational opportunities that white children were given?

But for those of us who haven't been impacted by this bit of history, how can we know about it? It is part of our past and present that isn't taught in school.

When my son was studying ancient history last year, I was delighted that, in the section on Sparta, the author pointed out that Sparta got the short-end of the stick historically speaking. As we know, Athens -- Sparta's enemy -- was the eventual winner of the battles and -- again as we know, the winner gets to write the history books.

It's a lesson that has been repeated continuously since early times and should teach us all to view history books with an analytical eye.

I hope you check out the above-noted books or visit a few web pages to develop your own understanding of what's going on in our neighbourhoods. I'll provide links to sites as I find them.

Hope you continue to tune in.

Colleen