Indigenous Nationhood

I am caught right now between heeding or ignoring the usual advice about fanatics and their rantings. Most people figure it is better to ignore the hateful, ignorant ravings of people who spread nasty hate messages against other groups of people like Indigenous peoples or people from other cultures. I used to think that was good advice, because who wants to give those unstable few a bigger platform for their disturbed ideas. But then it hit me that this advice usually comes from the majority population, who, for the most part, are not the ones directly impacted by the end result of hate propaganda. It also hit me that in this age of social media and kids using the internet at younger and younger ages, that these very public media outlets have the ability to influence and brainwash our youth. Thus, even though there are far too many fanatical groups, commentators and media outlets to monitor (nor would I want to), there are some articles that require a response. Sun Media, which sho

It used to be that in the old days, it was only really disturbed or ultra fanatical people that would say overtly crazy, racist things in public. Today, if you read any of the online comments after news articles related to First Nations people, you will see a segment of Canadian society filled with anger, hatred and racism who lack any actual knowledge, context, history or factual basis for their opinions about our issues. That is to be expected given the lack of education in public schools, work places or society in general about who we are as Indigenous peoples. However, when it comes to educated and experienced Canadian Ministers and politicians - there are no excuses. In fact, each Minister has an army of policy advisors, lawyers, assistants, communications specialists and advisors that fully brief him or her about all the facts, history and context. They don't even have to think for themselves as they have issue binders, speaking notes and press releases written for them. On