“Several of our Young People were formerly brought up at the Colleges of the Northern Provinces; they were instructed in all your Sciences; but when they came back to us they were bad Runners, ignorant of every means of living in the Woods, unable to bear either Cold or Hunger, knew neither how to build a Cabin, take a Deer, or kill an Enemy, spoke our Language imperfectly; were therefore neither fit for Hunters, Warriors, or Counsellors; they were totally good for nothing.”
—A Chief of the Six Nations (1783)
This, unfortunately, is where the U.S. via its ‘educational system’ is today.
I’ve always said that racism and genocide aren’t just part of a “dark chapter” in Canadian and American history. They’re the entire god damn plot line.
We can’t afford to stop talking about it. Many Conservatives are now peddling the lies that Residential Schools were very safe and anything else is a conspiracy theory made up by Indigenous Peoples trying to take power from Settlers. The reality is that colonizers will stop at nothing to erase their wrongdoings and rewrite history as the good guys.
Funny how the people calling it a ‘conspiracy’ are the same ones who never opened a history book that wasn’t written by colonizers. What’s terrifying is how quickly people are trying to scrub that from collective memory and paint Indigenous truth as ‘propaganda.’
A friend’s father lived through an ‘Indian’ school—somehow, in Texas/OK. He didn’t talk about it much till much later in life and she also heard about it from things he’d told her mother. It’s simply amazingly awful. When ‘they’ erased info in the National Archives about the Choctaw code breakers (he was one) during WWII she got really upset, and rightly so. She does a podcast on Substack, fictionalized, about a small TX town and covers really important information, through her fiction. When I read The Nickel Boys, same ideology. Human atrocity takes so many forms.
This gave me chills. The fact that Choctaw code breakers—literal war heroes—were erased from the record speaks volumes about who gets remembered in this country. I’m grateful your friend is using fiction to bring real history back into the light. That’s how we fight back.
Her Substack podcasts are simply incredible. She’s a former actor and her husband was a producer and they started playing around w/ instead of Lucinda just writing it, they’d do as podcast. She reads them, exquisitely, and Alan’s sound effects are bonkers. Her stack is “Corvairs and Horny Toads.” She grew up in TX, and uses fictional Dixon, TX, as the locale for her very funny, sad, poignant and relevant, historical tales. They are all stand alone sop you can just go to one and while taking a walk, listen to an enchanting story. She’s very Eudora Welty-like. Impressively great.
I just looked up Corvairs and Horny Toads and I already know I’m going to be hooked. I love when creators turn personal history into something immersive and meaningful. Adding this to my walking playlist immediately!!
It all started a long time ago.
“Several of our Young People were formerly brought up at the Colleges of the Northern Provinces; they were instructed in all your Sciences; but when they came back to us they were bad Runners, ignorant of every means of living in the Woods, unable to bear either Cold or Hunger, knew neither how to build a Cabin, take a Deer, or kill an Enemy, spoke our Language imperfectly; were therefore neither fit for Hunters, Warriors, or Counsellors; they were totally good for nothing.”
—A Chief of the Six Nations (1783)
This, unfortunately, is where the U.S. via its ‘educational system’ is today.
I’ve always said that racism and genocide aren’t just part of a “dark chapter” in Canadian and American history. They’re the entire god damn plot line.
We can’t afford to stop talking about it. Many Conservatives are now peddling the lies that Residential Schools were very safe and anything else is a conspiracy theory made up by Indigenous Peoples trying to take power from Settlers. The reality is that colonizers will stop at nothing to erase their wrongdoings and rewrite history as the good guys.
Funny how the people calling it a ‘conspiracy’ are the same ones who never opened a history book that wasn’t written by colonizers. What’s terrifying is how quickly people are trying to scrub that from collective memory and paint Indigenous truth as ‘propaganda.’
100%!
A friend’s father lived through an ‘Indian’ school—somehow, in Texas/OK. He didn’t talk about it much till much later in life and she also heard about it from things he’d told her mother. It’s simply amazingly awful. When ‘they’ erased info in the National Archives about the Choctaw code breakers (he was one) during WWII she got really upset, and rightly so. She does a podcast on Substack, fictionalized, about a small TX town and covers really important information, through her fiction. When I read The Nickel Boys, same ideology. Human atrocity takes so many forms.
This gave me chills. The fact that Choctaw code breakers—literal war heroes—were erased from the record speaks volumes about who gets remembered in this country. I’m grateful your friend is using fiction to bring real history back into the light. That’s how we fight back.
Her Substack podcasts are simply incredible. She’s a former actor and her husband was a producer and they started playing around w/ instead of Lucinda just writing it, they’d do as podcast. She reads them, exquisitely, and Alan’s sound effects are bonkers. Her stack is “Corvairs and Horny Toads.” She grew up in TX, and uses fictional Dixon, TX, as the locale for her very funny, sad, poignant and relevant, historical tales. They are all stand alone sop you can just go to one and while taking a walk, listen to an enchanting story. She’s very Eudora Welty-like. Impressively great.
I just looked up Corvairs and Horny Toads and I already know I’m going to be hooked. I love when creators turn personal history into something immersive and meaningful. Adding this to my walking playlist immediately!!
You will love it! And Lucinda is the perfect ‘voice’ to accompany on your walks. She’s incredible and her writing, you will absolutely love!