Looking Back at the ‘Unmarked Graves’ (homes, schools)
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A new book tries to explain how millions of Canadians became convinced that the bodies of 215 ‘missing’ Indigenous children had been discovered in British Columbia.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau set the tone of the public response on May 30, 2021, by ordering Canadian flags to be flown at half-mast on all federal buildings, so as to honour the “215 children whose lives were taken at the Kamloops Residential School.”
It’s now been almost three years since the story first broke. During that time, no formerly unknown graves have been found at any of the locations identified by GPR scans, Kamloops included. Most of these “soil anomalies” have not even been excavated, and so what, if anything, lies beneath the surface remains unknown. In the few cases where excavations have taken place, no burials related to Residential Schools have been found.
Owning a powerful narrative is much more favourable than just running after the naked truth and dealing with nothing more than facts. Facts have no ideology, facts might be unhelpful or even harmful if they don’t prove a point the narrative is trying to make. So forget about that, we’ll never know. If they didn’t need facts to make authorities eat out of their hands, if they didn’t need facts to justify burning churches to the ground, its logical that they will never really care about the facts.
Owning a powerful narrative is much more favourable than just running after the naked truth and dealing with nothing more than facts. Facts have no ideology, facts might be unhelpful or even harmful if they don’t prove a point the narrative is trying to make. So forget about that, we’ll never know. If they didn’t need facts to make authorities eat out of their hands, if they didn’t need facts to justify burning churches to the ground, its logical that they will never really care about the facts.
No, they did have some facts. It's a fact that indigenous children were taken from their homes and It's a fact that many suffered terribly at the hands of priests. Burning down churches didn't just arise out of the false claims that there were "mass graves" - it was the last straw. And as far as indigenous people are concerned, given their treatment, not just by religious people, but by Canadian society as a whole, why wouldn't they believe it?
There are no mass graves. It's ridiculous to believe that priests and nuns were in the business of killing people amd tossing their bodies into graves.
That article was slanted. There may be more in the book but that article was trying not only to address the mass graves fiction, but also to negate the terrible enough things that did happen.
No, they did have some facts. It's a fact that indigenous children were taken from their homes and It's a fact that many suffered terribly at the hands of priests. Burning down churches didn't just arise out of the false claims that there were "mass graves" - it was the last straw. And as far as indigenous people are concerned, given their treatment, not just by religious people, but by Canadian society as a whole, why wouldn't they believe it?
There are no mass graves. It's ridiculous to believe that priests and nuns were in the business of killing people amd tossing their bodies into graves.
That article was slanted. There may be more in the book but that article was trying not only to address the mass graves fiction, but also to negate the terrible enough things that did happen.
Facts are good. Let's not twist them.
There was for sure some second and third hand misreporting, but the LIDAR technology confirming unmarked grave locations and the numbers of these graves is accurate. International media mostly used the “mass graves” headlines. The headlines I saw on the CBC and in the National Post were “unmarked graves in Kamloops, Brandon, etc”. It’s not a big conspiracy that these LIDAR images confirming and bringing new publicity to these unmarked graves lead to such a huge dialogue about them. The residential school system was wrong, full stop. It may have been in line with colonialist thinking at the time, but it was a systematic attempt to assimilate indigenous people into Anglo/Franco Canadian culture at the expense of their own. It was involuntary and abusive. The conditions were horrible. Accuracy in reporting is important, but the graves exist and are real. It’s the “mass grave” headlines that were inaccurate as these did not fit that definition.
There was for sure some second and third hand misreporting, but the LIDAR technology confirming unmarked grave locations and the numbers of these graves is accurate. International media mostly used the “mass graves” headlines. The headlines I saw on the CBC and in the National Post were “unmarked graves in Kamloops, Brandon, etc”. It’s not a big conspiracy that these LIDAR images confirming and bringing new publicity to these unmarked graves lead to such a huge dialogue about them. The residential school system was wrong, full stop. It may have been in line with colonialist thinking at the time, but it was a systematic attempt to assimilate indigenous people into Anglo/Franco Canadian culture at the expense of their own. It was involuntary and abusive. The conditions were horrible. Accuracy in reporting is important, but the graves exist and are real. It’s the “mass grave” headlines that were inaccurate as these did not fit that definition.
the First Nation clarified the findings as the confirmation of “the likely presence of children, L’Estcwicwéý (the Missing) on the Kamloops Indian Residential School grounds” in “unmarked burials.”
Quote:
The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation had already identified 51 student deaths at the Kamloops school using church and state records.
No problem Netwit. It’s difficult to fact check with today’s partisan media landscape. I trust Conservative media like the National Post to have accurate reporting, but sites like Rebel News, True North and the Post Millennial are all conspiratorial tabloids with a far right agenda. I wouldn’t trust anything I read on there unless it’s confirmed by a reputable newspaper or evening news program.
They are not physically digging up bodies, they are confirming the LIDAR images using existing records. Who here is comfortable with the idea of excavation teams physically digging up the bodies of their deceased aunts and uncles, when the non invasive LIDAR images combined with school records has already confirmed their existence and location? Not everyone would be, that’s why this is the process being used.
No problem Netwit. It’s difficult to fact check with today’s partisan media landscape. I trust Conservative media like the National Post to have accurate reporting, but sites like Rebel News, True North and the Post Millennial are all conspiratorial tabloids with a far right agenda. I wouldn’t trust anything I read on there unless it’s confirmed by a reputable newspaper or evening news program.
They are not physically digging up bodies, they are confirming the LIDAR images using existing records. Who here is comfortable with the idea of excavation teams physically digging up the bodies of their deceased aunts and uncles, when the non invasive LIDAR images combined with school records has already confirmed their existence and location? Not everyone would be, that’s why this is the process being used.
Thanks, I'll have a longer response later. But if I thought a relative of mine might be in an unmarked grave, I would DEFINITELY want that grave dug up. I would want some sort of confirmation.
I may have said this in the original thread on this subject but I know of many disappeared graveyards around my area. In some cases the stones were removed as the people had died too long ago for anyone living to have an emotional connection to them and a cairn listing the names of those buried was put in their place. In other cases farmers just cultivated over the grave sites.
My great aunt approached the Hutterite colony owning the section of land in which the family graveyard was located and asked for permission to fence it in. Two or three of her little brothers were buried there, and I think a set of grandparents as well. So she fixed it all up. My aunt is deceased but I've been meaning to ask my cousin to take me there.
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