Monday, July 08, 2019

[150 acts of reconciliation]


One of the 150 Acts of Reconciliation posters. Text says, "Understand and acknowledge that Canada's first Prime Minister, Sir John A. MacDonald, was an architect of genocide."

Crystal Fraser and Sara Komarnisky have written 150 Acts of Reconciliation. "Many of these are small, everyday acts that average Canadians can undertake, but others are more provocative that encourage people to think about Indigenous-settler relationships in new ways." 

The act in the above poster would be one of the more provocative ones. I had already previously been disillusioned about Canada being better than our southern neighbour after reading about our own "lack of human rights" record. Now, seeing our first prime minister was key in starting the Indian residential schools sure puts a different perspective on our country. You can read more about that in this article by Sean Carleton, a professor in Calgary.

Get a printable list of the 150 Acts here.

Read more about this project here.

Order posters here.

Thursday, July 04, 2019

update from Rob

You may have noticed that I am posting far less often than before. That's mostly because of other projects I'm involved in:

  • Diversity and Inclusion initiatives at my workplace, including co-leading the development of Employee Resource Groups
  • Part of the Reconciliation Committee at my parish
  • Reading a lot about Indigenization, Reconciliation, Decolonization, etc. (mostly from Indigenous academics) -- plus reading about Two Spirit peoples (mostly articles by Two Spirit academics). When do I read, you ask? Mostly on the bus to and from work.
Not sure how all this will result in blog content, but I am definitely keeping it in mind.


Rob