Korean Job Discussion Forums

crusher_of_heads · Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 12:25 am Post subject:

Time to make it illegal for Natives to purchase and consume alcohol like the USA circa 1955.

MrsSeoul · Joined: 31 May 2007

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NightSky · Joined: 19 Apr 2005

ajgeddes · Joined: 28 Apr 2004 Location: Yongsan

MrsSeoul · Joined: 31 May 2007

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blaseblasphemener · Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 4:54 pm Post subject:

Mooseknuckles is American. She has no personal experience with Canadian natives.

AJGeddes is from a large Canadian City (Montreal) and has never had a Canadian Native friend. He has not interracted with Natives in any meaningful way, and believes that racism is wrong, and that people that generalize against Natives are horrible people.

Blaseblasphemener has interracted with Natives on a daily basis for most of his adult life in Canada. He had a best friend who was native, had classmates in university who were native, worked as a court reporter in a town with three indian reserves, and had a brother who worked as a police officer near Canada's largest Indian reserve (sq. km), and lived in a city that had two indian reserves bordering it. He formed his opinions about the Indian COMMUNITIES in which he interracted with, based on hundreds of experiences over more than a decade.

Please share with us, Moosekhead and AJGeddes, some personal experiences, both good and bad, you have had with Canada's native population. I think in all likelihood, you will be speaking from an ideological, not personal, perspective.

ajgeddes · Joined: 28 Apr 2004 Location: Yongsan

Wow, so wrong about me. I am not from Montreal, but a small town in Ontario where there are 3 reserves within an hour of my house. As well, we grew up going to my grandma's cottage which was on a reserve. Yeah, we had plenty of negative experiences but most of the people are fine. In fact, my one cousin is also married to a native.

Anyways, point is, while yes, there are a lot of problems on the reserves, most of the people that live off the reserves are perfectly normal. As well, they have had a pretty rough go of it and are discriminated against quite often. Also, they don't have everything as good as you seem to think, and don't get a free university education.

Draz · Joined: 27 Jun 2007 Location: Land of Morning Clam

Mr. Pink · Joined: 21 Oct 2003 Location: China

ajgeddes · Joined: 28 Apr 2004 Location: Yongsan

blaseblasphemener · Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 6:37 am Post subject:

Just want to apologize for going overboard in this thread.

It may not seem like it, but I have an affection for native people. They were treated horribly, and I wish it weren't so. I don't believe the correct word for what happened to native children is 'genocide', as I don't believe children were deliberately killed, but I think from the sounds of it, there was gross negligence, apathy, and overt racism involved that caused thousands of children to die needlessly in residential schools.

I feel a level of frustration at what I've seen in native communities. I know it is not at all the fault of the children, and so when they grow up, it doesn't really make sense to point the finger at them. So, who do we point the finger at? The government of Canada has been trying to better the conditions of natives for the last 40 years. I do believe this. Have they made mistakes? many. Have native governments made just as many mistakes? yes.

I feel that many Canadians, myself included, would be happy to have more money go to reserves, if they felt it would be used productively. But, there is a sense that reserves are corrupt and that money seems to disappear. I know of one lumber company in Lethbridge that always kept a supply of a cheap kind of hollow door. Why? because the Blood reserve would buy 20 a month, as during big weekend parties, the doors would be burned in the homes for firewood, and the reserve would pay for a new one.

I know of one provincial court judge who was very aware of native issues and did his best to use community sentencing procedures, where elders participate in the sentencing of natives convicted of a crime. Of course, this is at the discretion of the judge. While that judge was on vacation, a elderly replacement judge gave a native man a $1000 fine for stealing a $5 bottle of lysol (it was his 3rd time doing it). The store that was stolen from was very happy with that decision, but of course, they could have done what the town of McGrath does outside of the Blood reserve, and put the products that contain alcohol behind the counter.

I don't know how reserves will be cleaned up, but the ones in my neck of the woods are in a horrible state of affairs. Some are being helped by casino funding or oil rights, but money doesn't necessarily mean a healthy reserve, and actually can be quite the opposite, as the Morley reserve can attest, rich with oil, and rife with alcoholism.

What can be done to make things better? I don't know, and actually, I think solutions will have to come from natives themselves. I genuinely wish them well, but honestly, I don't see a whole lot of reasons for optimism. Perhaps things are different in other parts of the country. I certainly hope so.

Peace to my native brothers and sisters, and to moosehead and ajgeddes, and to all the others I may have offended with my hyperbole. It does seem that things have been getting way out of hand on this board, and I think living in Korea can bring out the aggression, but not in a healthy way. I'm going to try and chill, and I hope things can come down to a more civil level, starting with me.

MrsSeoul · Joined: 31 May 2007

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