Meme - Jonathan Kay: "It would be fun to send these people back in time, so we could watch what happens when they lecture Algonquin warriors on the Ottawa River about how they're not really "men," but actually a genderwang mashup of ladypenis and homovulva"
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa @cosminDZsS: "Watch this gender ideologue from SafeLink Alberta say that the male/female binary is a "colonial genocide" and that all homophobia is a "European import." This is the same group that gave out brochures to high school students about how to use a crack pipe."
"In the Spirit of Reconciliation. We would like to acknowledge that what we know as gender. or the binary today is a European colonial construct. Indigenous people who occupied turtle istand pre-contact acknowledged and valued what we call gender diversity today. This means that all homophobia or transphobia is also a European import"
Ontario First Nations get $10-billion windfall - "The money, set to flow early in the new year, is the biggest treaty settlement in Canada’s history. Understandably, there is excitement in the communities that stand to benefit, but also rumours and tension. Some members want a cheque, also known as per capital distribution (PCD): about $286,000 for each of the roughly 35,000 Indigenous people. But many local leaders believe a smarter path would be to invest the proceeds for the long-term benefit of the community and its future generations... A one-time handover may also not be good for those it intends to benefit. Other First Nations communities have seen what happens when a big sudden influx of cash is paid out to each band member. “We worked with (First) Nations where they decided to do a PCD,” one person with knowledge of these matters said. “There was a huge spike in alcoholism and drug addiction. The community goes through hell for a short period of time and then the money is gone.” In some cases, community members have sued the chief and council over such deals, essentially saying “you didn’t fulfil your duty to the long-term benefit of the community.” In other cases, a bank has negotiated a deal with a First Nation to set up a trust, but then the band holds an election, and a new slate of councillors wins on a campaign pledge to dole out settlement cash on a per-capita basis... Plans to invest settlement money in community facilities, however, slam up against a fundamental issue: many band members live off reserve. “Those people could say, ‘What are you going to do for me, chief?’” said Jamieson, whose company has helped Indigenous communities with financial literacy since 1997. “The member might say, ‘Gee, I might prefer a per-capita distribution because I am living off reserve.’ That is always the biggest tug of war on settlement money.”"
Clearly, both individual indigenous people and the community should get tons of money, and if anything goes wrong, it will be because they didn't get enough money, because the left wing solution is always more money
Supreme Court confirms that the Charter applies to Indigenous governments—except when it doesn't - "It is perhaps not a coincidence that the dissent, which is co-authored by the Court’s only Indigenous member, candidly acknowledges the elephant in the room: the “discriminatory nature of some Indigenous governance structures” and the need for Indigenous persons to have robust recourse to individual rights claims. Litigation brought by Indigenous plaintiffs, for example, has successfully challenged membership rules excluding some women and their children and the exclusion of women from debating constitutional reforms. Indigenous governance structures are no more or less prone to discriminatory policies and abuses of power than any other governance structure, and the notion that they should have special insulation from those whom they govern is morally repugnant. The dissent soberly advises against applying “Indigenous difference” so widely that discriminatory practices are treated as being sacrosanct."
Voice to parliament: Yes campaign received millions more than No vote - "The movement to create an Indigenous Voice to parliament was backed by tens of millions of dollars from Australia’s biggest corporations but eclipsed by opponents who had about five times less money to spend on the bitterly fought referendum."
Voice to parliament: Yes campaign received millions more than No vote : australian - "We should never forget that the Yes campaign had practically everything going for it. Overt support and rallying from basically every major corporation and media network (except Sky News), vocal support from basically every respected Australian celebrity, sportsperson and media figure, support from the governing political party, and unbelievable financial backing. And it failed spectacularly. They got utterly annihilated in one of the most humiliating upsets in Australian political history. It was over in an hour, and it wasn't even close. Every single person involved in the Yes campaign should've stepped back and taken a long hard look at themselves, the quality of their ideas, and their messaging to the Australian people. I don't think much of that self-reflection has been done though. I think they believe that they're the English cricket team and still secured a moral victory or something."
"Maybe if they had called everyone racist a few more time it would have worked"
Weird. I thought money controlled politics
Money in politics is only a problem when it threatens the left wing agenda
Senator Jacinta Price reveals racist mobile phone messages after number was leaked | The Australian - "In one message, a man calls her an Uncle Tom and a ‘Coconut’, a racist trope meaning a person is allegedly brown on the outside but white on the inside. “Hate your own people. You know, what a disgrace. Absolutely disgraceful, disgusting human being you are. Uncle Tom, coconut,” the man says. In other messages, a man tells her to “f--k off” while another man says: “You’re a f--king b--ch, woman”. Senator Price said the messages weren’t the “worst” she had received. “It’s just remarkable how human beings feel they have the right to be aggressive and abusive and disgusting and horrible,” she said. She called out the use of the term ‘coconut’ and said she and other No supporters, including Nyunggai Warren Mundine AO, had been targeted by the abusive racial term. “We can’t just be seen as human beings in our own right, people like to look at us in terms of colour, and there’s no place for it,” she said."
The left hate indigenous people who don't push the left wing agenda
Malcolm Harris on X - "Is there some cure for that part of the left that hears "Indigenous" and starts scoffing and rolling their eyes? Like a serum?"
Leonard P Cover on X - "Yeah - it’s called not frequently saying incredibly sophomoric nonsense either side of the word “indigenous” cos you think that some noble savage narrative or ethno-essentialism has literally the first fucking thing to do with actual leftist thought or policy."
Matt Lichti on X - "The way it's currently used is often just repackaged far-right soil and blood nationalism."
Roy on X - "Maybe purge it of all the baggage of Rousseau and latent ideas of the Garden of Eden and then look at the sprcific indigenous community in question, note the singular here. But most of all recognize that you are applying an ahistorical term."
will the real victim please stand up on X - "Stop using it like it's a trump card that makes one side automatically right?"
Harrison Bergeron on X - "Yes, I would rather seek answers from cultures that have discovered metalworking and the wheel."
Dan D 🌎🌍🌏 on X - "Like "authentic" and "natural", "indigenous" is too often used for emotive conjugation rather than true description. You're just supposed to like it more. Also, biology would say that H Sapiens is only truly *indigenous* to the Ethiopian Rift Valley. Maybe the rest is narrative?"
Thread by @Tyler_A_Harper on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "The reason people scoff is that, at least in academia, "indigeneity" has become a magic word that is evacuated of both historical and cultural specificity, flattens all differences between indigenous groups, and is accompanied by exoticizing appeals to pre-rational "wisdom". Indigenous people are reduced to vehicles for timeless, pre-historical knowledge – wish fulfillment for white progressives dreaming of a prelapsarian age before capital and industry – a form of sentimental racism that excludes indigenous people from both history and modernity. I've been in the environmental humanities for a decade, and in the last five years I've seen a HUGE shift in how (mostly white) people talk about/teach indigenous texts/ideas. It's not just "land acknowledgement" nonsense. It's magical negro bullshit but for native people. We spend endless amounts of time talking about "indigenous wisdom" and pretending that it's a magic bullet that will solve capitalism, climate change, and everything else. Just like the magical negro, magical indigenous people will be our spiritual guides in a time of crisis.The focus is rarely on indigenous communities, their cultures or their homes or their problems. Instead, the question always seems to be how can indigenous ideas – ripped out of context, cobbled together from a hodgepodge of different tribes and traditions – solve OUR problems. I think traditional ecological knowledge should be taken seriously and deserves a place in higher education or left politics. But in my experience it rarely is taken seriously. So yeah, I often roll my eyes at the people who invoke "indigeneity" because they often deserve it."
The Amazon Rainforest Was Profoundly Changed by Ancient Humans - The Atlantic - "For more than a quarter-century, scientists and the general public have updated their view of the Americas before European contact. The plains and the Eastern forests were not a wilderness, but a patchwork of gardens, they’ve found. The continents were not vast uninhabited expanses but a bustling network of towns and cities. Indigenous people, we’ve learned, altered the ecology of the Americas as surely as the European invaders did. Now, an expansive new study, published Thursday in Science and bearing the names of more than 40 co-authors, suggests that the human fingerprint can even be seen across one of the most biodiverse yet unexplored regions in the world, the Amazon rainforest. For more than 8,000 years, people lived in the Amazon and farmed it to make it more productive. They favored certain trees over others, effectively creating crops that we now call the cocoa bean and the brazil nut, and they eventually domesticated them... That cultivation eventually altered entire regions of the Amazon, the study argues. Levis and her colleagues found that some of these species domesticated by indigenous people—including the brazil nut, the rubber tree, the maripa palm, and the cocoa tree—still dominate vast swaths of the forest, especially in the southwest section of the Amazon basin... Though conservationists still speak of the Amazon as a “pristine” region, Levis says that its environmental allies should talk about it differently. We can look to it, she says, as an example of how human influence can enrich the Amazon... Some geographers, anthropologists, and indigenous people have all rejected the idea that the Americas were an untouched wilderness—“the pristine myth,” as they call this tale—since the early 1990s."
I am a First Nations politician. Our chiefs and leaders must be held more accountable - "Effective governance is critical for our communities, where overcoming challenges like addiction, poverty, housing shortages, crime, and unemployment hinges on strong leadership and administrative integrity. Yet, many First Nation communities face serious issues of corruption, nepotism, and collusion. In 2022, the chief of Westbank First Nation stepped down over corruption concerns within his band. At Seabird Island First Nation, a finance department employee was sent to jail after embezzling $2.3 million between 2005 and 2013. In Peters First Nation, an investigation into leadership revealed nepotism and prompted an RCMP inquiry into the misappropriation of funds. Similarly, concerns arose in Frog Lake First Nation when $120 million in net assets went missing. First Nation struggles are complex, with roots in historical injustices. Yet, as leaders, we must also look within and recognize our role. We are not just caretakers of the land but agents of change, tasked with the sacred duty of uplifting our people. Unfortunately, the silence around the fulfillment of our own electoral promises is deafening. As leaders, we should be starting conversations about our progress and actively seeking feedback... We all know the critical role journalism plays in local government. In one well-known Brookings study, researchers found newspaper closures had a direct causal impact on local government public finance. A loss of local newspapers meant a loss of accountability. The study showed that when newspapers folded, it led to an increase in government waste, corruption, and less informed voters. With 630 First Nation communities in Canada and journalism on the decline, one wonders how many investigative stories are simply being missed... I hear from members of other First Nation communities in my region who say their political leaders are not doing enough to address staffing issues or improve housing conditions. They add that some leaders are merely acting in their family’s own best interest. First Nations’ socio-economic success stories are celebrated because they are still the exception rather than the norm. An Indigenous cultural shift is overdue. We need an environment where media scrutiny is routine, where community engagement is vigorous, and where stakeholders are held accountable. Leaders should welcome this shift, as it strengthens our strategies and reinforces our commitment. I envision a culture of accountability, where leaders don’t just lead but also answer to the community. Where success is not just celebrated but also measured. Where every community member feels empowered to question and demand answers. Increased accountability and community engagement can lay the groundwork for First Nation communities to share their wisdom and culture, enriching Canadian society."
Expecting accountability of indigenous peoples is racist, ethnocentric and ignores the history of white supremacy and colonialism
Indigenizing Mount Royal's Curricula: The Threat to Academic Freedom, Freedom of Inquiry and Academic Standards - "The ill-conceived nature of “Indigenizing Mount Royal’s Curricula” is shown in the section “Why Indigenize?”. MRU should Indigenize, we are told, because “Indigenous people remain underrepresented among postsecondary students, staff and faculty, and indigenous content remains marginalized”. Indigenization is also necessary, the document asserts, to respond to the demands for Indigenization that were made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. These reasons are political in nature, and are a distraction from examining the academic implications of the initiative. The reference to “Indigenous underrepresentation” just assumes that there should be proportionality without considering the qualifications of applicants. It is well known that educational levels in the indigenous population are lower than the Canadian average, and so discussions about artificially increasing indigenous representation should consider this. Furthermore, it is not clear what is meant by increasing “Indigenous content”. Does this concern subjects that include indigenous people, such as indigenous history and indigenous politics? Or is it a plea to include “indigenous perspectives” regardless of whether or not they have been shown to increase empirical knowledge and theoretical understanding? Finally, should anything that the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the UN Declaration says be accepted? For example, the document states that the TRC asserts that universities should “ensure all Canadians have a basic understanding of…this country’s history of cultural genocide”, when many would question this interpretation of the past. Should we not be analyzing the claims being made, rather than assuming that these political bodies created sacred texts that must be obeyed?... Although it could be argued that individual professors don’t have to participate in these Indigenization initiatives, and therefore it is not a threat to academic freedom, this ignores how Indigenization processes are creating a hostile climate for open inquiry. This has been a problem from the beginning, as is shown by the Indigenous Strategic Plan’s directive that the university “honour Indigenous experiences and identities.” As a result, “territorial acknowledgement” statements pretend to be factual, when their content is contested and a matter for academic investigation. It is noted in “Indigenizing Mount Royal’s Curricula”, for example, that Treaty 7 “included a commitment to crosscultural education that has not been honoured”, when there is no evidence that this is the case. These kinds of statements, apparently handed down from the university’s “Ministry of Truth”, indicate that the Indigenous Strategic Plan is intent on building a “culture of celebration” at MRU rather than one that encourages critical thinking and rigorous methods. Even worse, it is tacitly assumed that anyone who has reservations about Indigenization is not an “ally” of indigenous people. This has created huge difficulties for faculty who question the hype. My criticisms of Indigenization, for example, have resulted in accusations that I am a “pathetic racist” with a “hateful perspective” who is damaging Mount Royal University’s reputation... On January 18, 2018, one of the Office of Academic Indigenization’s Co-Directors, Renae Watchman, invited Robert Curley, a Diné elder, to give a presentation on “Western Medicine vs. Traditional Healing Medicine”. This elder was asked a question from the audience as to what he recommended for the “gut problems” her child was experiencing. In response, the elder stated: “Rub corn pollen on his feet and do a sunrise ceremony”. Is this the kind of “indigenous knowledge” that should be incorporated into our nursing program? The second example concerns an indigenized course that was developed at MRU. When a non-indigenous professor attempted to teach the course, the indigenous students enrolled said that a non-indigenous professor could not talk about indigenous spirituality, which was perceived to be an essential part of the course. As a result of student opposition, the course was transferred to an indigenous professor. Does Indigenization mean that some courses cannot be taught by non-indigenous professors? A third example concerns the biology program. At General Faculties Council on May 17, 2018, it was noted that the biology degree would have an indigenous component. This component consisted of the department “working with numerous community Elders and Knowledge Keepers” to ensure that biology students would obtain “a diverse knowledge base that includes the traditional Indigenous knowledge.” As Paul Johnston, an MRU professor in Earth Sciences, stated at the time: “[t]he difficulty here is that we are asking students to accept or at least be exposed to what I suspect is largely non-peer reviewed information or ideas in the science classroom. We don’t do that with any other ideas about biology from around the globe, for example ‘scientific creationism’, an idea espoused by millions, and so I am not sure why we would do it here. It may be that the Biology Program IS incorporating peer-reviewed traditional Indigenous knowledge, and if so that needs to be clearly stated in the letter. But, the statement I read, as it now stands, sends the wrong message to students, whether indigenous or non-indigenous, that some information presented in the biology curriculum at this university is exempt from scientific rigor and scrutiny as practiced in science globally. I suggest that this can be somewhat remedied with a modification to at least the third sentence in this paragraph to read: ‘By including this course as a core requirement for the BSc Biology, all students will get an awareness of how Indigenous knowledge, as subject to systematic observational testing and/or experimental verification, helps to inform our understanding in biology.’” Dr. Johnston’s attempt to ensure scientific rigour in the biology degree was defeated, and this was due to the fact that Indigenization has encouraged the view that faculty should unconditionally support “indigenous knowledge” and “ways of knowing”."
No wonder she got fired despite having tenure. Defying the left wing agenda is dangerous
The Problem With ‘Indigenizing the University’ - "it has become clear that different academics mean different things by the word “Indigenization.” In some cases, advocates for Indigenization have evaded the question of how their initiatives will further the development and dissemination of knowledge in a way that is consistent with a university’s academic mission. Moreover, some Indigenization initiatives may actually hinder the creation of knowledge by stigmatizing certain areas of inquiry or prioritizing political objectives over rigorous scholarship. Such outcomes would not only have a negative impact on academia overall, they would also specifically harm the Indigenous population by encouraging Indigenous scholars to apply themselves toward projects that are narrow, and sometimes even anti-scientific. In its invitation to participate in an Indigenization workshop, the Canadian Political Science Association’s Call for Proposals noted that there are at least three different meanings of the term “Indigenization,” as it’s applied to universities: 1) symbolic recognition of Indigenous cultures; 2) greater inclusion of Indigenous peoples and content in existing university structures; and 3) a top-to-bottom “anti-colonial, antiracist reconstruction of education through revision of curriculum and institutional processes.”... symbolic commitments have sometimes generated controversy, as at the University of Winnipeg in 2015, when presiding Indigenous elders declared that it was in keeping with their traditions that women in attendance should wear long skirts. (Two years earlier, at the University of Saskatchewan, a poster promoting a similar event instructed women to skip the ceremony if they were menstruating.) It also has become common for these symbolic ceremonies to be used to promote contested political claims in regard to Indigenous land rights and historical treaties... At Laurentian University in the northern Ontario city of Sudbury, for example, Indigenization ran up against academic freedom when the decision of a Geography-department hiring committee was overridden to ensure that a (less qualified) Indigenous candidate was appointed. Because the process created acrimony, there were fears that the imposed candidate would not be treated collegially, and so departmental members were actually directed to sign a statement asserting that they would work co-operatively with the hired candidate... Some Indigenization activists even suggest that less radical Indigenization measures can actually harm Indigenous groups because “when Indigenous people participate in efforts to make Indigenous thought coherent for university scholars, and consequently the colonial state, they spend less time engaged with institutions of knowledge in their communities.” And so the only solution, they conclude, is to overhaul university curricula entirely so as to prioritize Indigenous pedagogical methods in a way that properly reflects their status as “heirs to vast legacies of knowledge about this continent and the universe that had been ignored in the larger picture of European invasion and education.” Under this conception, which often blurs into broader doctrines connected with anti-colonialism and anti-racism, it is simply impossible for many Indigenous people to be culturally and intellectually authentic while suffering under “elite western canons and with institutional mechanisms [that] function to erase the radical transformative potential of indigenous thinkers in universities.”... In its most expansive conception, the drive to Indigenize universities is linked to a global campaign against oppressive white values... In some cases, it is argued that the very idea of a universal conception of knowledge is incompatible with the anti-colonialist mission... it is difficult to see how a system of knowledge built on unfalsifiable faith-based assertions about the universe can be accommodated within the modern secular intellectual tradition. Indeed, even published academic defences of Indigenous epistemologies often make claims that are either explicitly religious appeals to a “Creator,” or are indistinguishable from the somewhat vague claims about human interconnection and binding forces in the cosmos that have long been a mainstay of popular non-Indigenous spiritual movements... when I attended an “Empowering Indigenization Symposium” a few months later, an elder said that his “knowledge” included the belief that trees come out of dormancy in the spring because birds sing to them... What is even more of a problem is the idea, which has gained considerable currency in Canadian academic circles, that critiquing Indigenous epistemologies as anti-scientific is itself an offensive act that reinforces racist power relationships. Kuokkanen, in fact, explicitly challenges the idea of academic freedom on the grounds that it may serve to permit “racist remarks and colonial attitudes toward indigenous people,” and “has become a tool for some to plunder indigenous knowledge.” Historian J.R. Miller has noted that, even as early as the 1980s, self-censorship had become a fact of life for academics working on issues connected to Indigenous history or culture in Canada, and that “among some native organizations, there is a strongly held view that scholars are like politicians: those that are not with them are against them.” The political scientist Alan Cairns, likewise, has written that the pressure on academics to present themselves as opponents of colonialism has caused them to take on the role of “academic missionary.”... Everyone, Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike, is free to explore their own spiritual beliefs, of course. But the university is not the place for such exercises. And to imagine otherwise will hurt Indigenous peoples more than anyone, because educational achievement can be improved only if people are able to refine their understanding of the world around them. And such an understanding cannot emerge if ideologically and spiritually encoded forms of obscurantism are celebrated for political reasons. No good engineer or doctor imagines that revelation supersedes a scientific understanding of biology or physics. And so Indigenous scholars who are encouraged to prioritize the spiritual beliefs connected to their identity will inevitably be shunted to disciplines where such conceits may be protected—which is to say, intellectual ghettoes. This not only denies them the opportunity they deserve, but deprives the rest of us of the contributions they can make to intellectual life. Many harms have been done to Indigenous peoples over the centuries. This should not be compounded by preventing them from joining as full members in the project of knowledge production that will always remain one of the keys to human progress."
When the left demand that religion be kept out of education, they mean Christianity