Miseducation of the colonized
by Aly McConnell
Mount Mercy University
Aly McConnell attends Mount Mercy University, and is an English Major and Creative Writing minor. She will graduate in Spring 2023.
Miseducation of the Colonized
“This land was unoccupied before the white settlement.”
Terra nulles policy
Native to this land, they were here first
Children taken, reeducated to fit the mold of their oppressor
Women stolen from their homes, raped, discarded
Innocence lost to the greed of colonization
“Don’t you know I am trying to save you from your primitive ways?”
5 year old Maori boy (Ngataua Omahuru) kidnapped and renamed William Fox- exposed to the superior culture to "improve" him.
Light skin good, Brown skin bad
We’ll breed the dark looking ones out, eradicate the ‘ethnic’ parts of them
Sometimes you find yourself on the wrong side of the fence
Sometimes you are born the wrong color
“Tongue bleeding, don’t speak that language its not English.”
"Physically tortured by his teachers for speaking Tsheshat: sewing needles through the tongue, a routine punishment for language offenders." Randy Fred
Stolen generation the mission school syndrome, raped of their culture
Children returned the same but different, some never return
They are in unmarked graves decaying as their family wonders
“Where’s my baby? Where’s my child?”
“A rising tally of these graves - more than 1,100 so far - has triggered a national reckoning over Canada's legacy of residential schools. These government-funded boarding schools were part of policy to attempt to assimilate Indigenous children and destroy Indigenous cultures and languages.”
Talk like the Colonizer
Walk like the Colonizer
Betray to the Colonizer
Die by the Colonizer
References
Honderich, By Holly. “Why Canada Is Mourning the Deaths of Hundreds of Children.” BBC News, 15 July 2021, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57325653.
Noyce, Phillip, Christine Olsen, John Winter, Everlyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury, Laura Monaghan, Gulpilil, Ningali Lawford, Myarn Lawford, Deborah Mailman, Jason Clarke, Kenneth Branagh, Peter Gabriel, and Doris Pilkington. Rabbit-proof Fence. Sydney, New South Wales: Australian Film Finance Corp, 2003.
Bull, Simone, and Valerie Alia. “Unequaled Acts of Injustice: Pan‐Indigenous Encounters with Colonial School Systems.” Contemporary Justice Review, vol. 7, no. 2, 2004, pp. 171–82. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.1080/1028258042000221175.