“I remember an elder once told me on my healing journey that I should start with myself, my family, my community, and then our nation. I never understood that until the day my sister, another young man and I went to lay logs over the road.”
“This is the greatest gift we gave to you, the concept of freedom. You did not have this. Now that you have taken it and built a constitution and country around it, you deny freedom to us.”
“The way, and the only way, to check and to stop this evil, is for all the Redmen to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was at first, and should be yet; for it was never divided, but belongs to all for the use of each.”
“Métis scholar and writer Mike Gouldhawke visits with Sara Mai to unpack his take on The Globe and Mail front page news story on the ‘Water Crisis’ in Indigenous communities”
“We, the undersigned, are Métis citizens from across the homeland and supporters who stand in solidarity with Black abolitionist organizers and the families of Black and Indigenous people who have experienced police violence. Métis people taking a position of support for defunding the police are not the inconsequential dissenting voices.”
“This is the substance of decolonization; it is crucial that Indigenous peoples be free to develop and regain their relationships with the land rather than settlers taking it upon ourselves to do it in their stead.”
This Brief outlines the compounding crises, and the resistance, that have constituted Indigenous healthcare in this country.
“We, the native Americans, re-claim the land known as Alcatraz Island in the name of all American Indians by right of discovery. We wish to be fair and honorable in our dealings with the Caucasian inhabitants of this land, and hereby offer the following treaty…”
“From the vantage point of the colonial state, by the time the 78-day standoff at Kanesatake had begun things were already out of control in Indian Country.”
“We are inmates of not only institutions of incarceration, but every other institution that has dominated us for years. We are inmates of poverty, of high suicide rates, of disease, and of overrepresentation in the justice system.” – Cory Charles Cardinal
Categories
Police Brutality (2002)
Gerald’s Kaboni’s police custody related death reopened wounds in Victoria’s Indigenous community, as the family of Anthany Dawson, a 29 year-old Native man who was killed by Victoria police in August of 1999 continued to struggle for justice.
Challenging the BC Metis Federation’s (BCMF) recent statements regarding Secwepemc sovereignty and false claims to Métis territorial rights in BC; a link to an article about similar claims made by a different organization, the Metis Nation of BC (MNBC); and some personal-historical commentary about Métis in BC.
Since the September/October 2020 Land Back Issue of Briarpatch Magazine was published, there have been several podcasts that have had episodes expanding on the topics covered in it and on Briarpatch Magazine itself.
“Ce texte de M. Gouldhawke (2020) retrace l’histoire de la Gendarmerie royale du Canada, le corps policier fédéral aux racines coloniales, capitalistes et impérialistes.”
“This type of cultural genocide was intentionally planned by a more aggressive, power-hungry nation of people in order to further exploit a nation of people whose socialistic ideas could not be destroyed otherwise.”
“We are proud that the Métis Society of Saskatchewan was one of the few organization that supported the Native people of Kenora as they fight for justice.”
“We are a collective of community members, prisoner advocates, and penal abolitionists who stand in solidarity with prisoners at the Saskatoon Correctional Centre (SCC), where 130 people (107 prisoners; 23 staff) or roughly 20% of the population have tested positive for COVID-19 as of November 30, 2020.”
A short outtake from my interview with the Flash Forward Podcast (in reference to the Briarpatch Magazine LandBack issue), and a link to the full episode of the podcast.
“The white power structure has used every possible method to destroy our spirit, and the will to resist. They have divided us into status and nonstatus, American and Canadian, Métis and Indian. We are fully aware of their ‘divide and rule’ tactic, and its effect on our people.”
“The ‘nation’ among the white people is a recent concept. The U.S.A. was the first white nation as all the other countries were kingdoms.”
