Canada to apologize to native students

[flashl]

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will seek to make amends for the schools that for a century plucked Indian children from their homes in order to wipe out their language and culture.

OTTAWA -- For eight years, Thomas Louttit was forced to attend a residential school whose mission was to "Christianize and civilize" Canada's native people. He doesn't remember much of what he learned, but he is keenly aware of what he lost.

"They gave us a number. That's all our name was. We didn't speak their language, and we were not allowed to speak ours," he said. Like other students, he said, he was sexually abused, a secret that filled him with shame and remained untold until many years later.

"You forget how to cry, you forget how to show your feelings," he said, staring out of his window. "We were never taught to say, 'I love you.' We were never taught to forgive."

Now, 12 years after the last residential school shut down, Canada is asking the 150,000 students and their descendants if it is indeed possible to forgive. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will formally apologize to Canada's aboriginal people and declare his support for a truth and reconciliation commission.

LA Times

[applegrove]

1. About time.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. If only they would do this here

I have Choctaw friends who were subjected to this--beaten if they spoke their native tongue, their whole culture thrown away as Christianity was forced down their throats.

[Brewman_Jax]

3. Here's the NPR story of the Indian boarding schools in the US

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16516865

There are Parts 1 and 2.

[rainydaywomyn69]

4. Systematic abuse

I studied about this at the university and it is absolutely heart-breaking.