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A review by nini23
Keetsahnak: Our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Sisters by Maria Campbell, Kim Anderson, Christi Belcourt
This is a sobering read and I'm not even sure if I should rate it.
Many of the articles are written by First Nations people from an academic perspective but also peppered with personal accounts. Frankly, the life stories are brutal and heart-breaking. The systemic violence and oppression of First Nations women is astounding for how under-reported it is. As a Canadian, I am ashamed of how scant my knowledge is and wondering how my apathy and my countryman's apathy towards the First Nations people and their plight has contributed to their misery. For example, while we generally know about residential schools, I did not know the nuns physically abused the kids who had already been separated forcefully from their parents. Residential schools, violated land treaties, systemic oppression, racism, sexual violence, police indifference to reported cases of missing women ... the list just goes on and on. As a whole, this body of work makes me understand the antipathy and hostility that First Nations have towards what they call the Canadian state.
Many of the articles are written by First Nations people from an academic perspective but also peppered with personal accounts. Frankly, the life stories are brutal and heart-breaking. The systemic violence and oppression of First Nations women is astounding for how under-reported it is. As a Canadian, I am ashamed of how scant my knowledge is and wondering how my apathy and my countryman's apathy towards the First Nations people and their plight has contributed to their misery. For example, while we generally know about residential schools, I did not know the nuns physically abused the kids who had already been separated forcefully from their parents. Residential schools, violated land treaties, systemic oppression, racism, sexual violence, police indifference to reported cases of missing women ... the list just goes on and on. As a whole, this body of work makes me understand the antipathy and hostility that First Nations have towards what they call the Canadian state.