Bennett – impacts on Indigenous families - part 2

And we did at one time have very, very big families, and certainly today we see that the role of men in our families is not there anymore. And the burden of dealing with systems like child welfare are on the shoulders of our women. So our men, well where are they? We know that our men are in prison and they’re over-represented in the prison system. They should be involved in their children’s lives but unfortunately they’re not. 

That’s not to say that all of our men aren’t involved in their children’s lives. They certainly are but quite often the system doesn’t recognize the importance of our men in the role of their children’s lives. But also too, you know, just extended family members, aunts and uncles, cousins – I mean in my family, my brother was the firstborn. He went to live with our grandparents. That was just the way in our family. All the firstborns went to live with our grandparents as a means of making sure that our grandparents were looked after as they got older. 

Epigenetics recognizes that we inherit DNA from our parents and our grandparents. And sometimes in the process of inheriting that DNA we also inherit memories. Our people have always known that. We call it blood memory. And we’ve inherited some traumatic incidents. We carry that in our blood, in our DNA. And if you don’t resolve some of those things that cause the trauma you will see it carry on in the next generation. 

And that has happened for our people. It’s taken many years when you consider, I mean Canada is still a very young country and we have indigenous populations that are trying to heal from the violence that has been inflicted on us through the process of contact. And so it’s going to take a while for our people to get to a level of healing. So, but we’re in that time now. Our people are awake and we’re reclaiming who we are, so it’s recognizing there were harms that were done in the past but we can recover from them. And certainly developing stronger relationships with settler populations will be important to that healing. 

I want to believe that there are going to be positive opportunities that result in the future and that we’ll see numbers come down. But the thing is we need to put more resources into the hands of our families and I think that that’s an area that’s really important to recognize, that we’ve sacrificed a lot. And you know, not just by sharing the land but everything that we’ve gone through with residential schools in the ‘60s Scoops and living through poverty. 

I want to see that there is going to be positive opportunities but also we’re waking up. I’ve seen more and more of our people participating in ceremony and they’re bringing forward beautiful ideology that comes from our indigenous ancestors. These are things that have been around; these are practices that are changing people’s lives. And you’re seeing people becoming much more stronger and asserting their right, and you know that I think is positive for the future. 

And I know right now that our people are challenging systems, and that resurgence, that reclaiming of our culture and the beauty and the strength that come with it makes our people stronger. And so if we guide more of our young people, more of our families to understanding that they come from a long line of very strong people, and that they can affect their future – so I think we’re seeing a lot of change in that direction happening. 

So it takes time. But it’s about developing relationships. I think that is really key too, is educating people to understand the beauty and the strength and the knowledge of our own ways of being and doing,