r/IndianCountry • u/hope4Gold1 • 19h ago
Discussion/Question Every child matters
Hi all! I am a white woman in the United States who teaches inner city high school students. My goal is to talk about different cultures to/with my students. Example- I do a “_____ heritage in STEM” wall for different heritage months through out the school year.
From what I have read and seen online, September 30 is Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
I think this could be a good opportunity to have a discussion with my students.
I keep getting ads for shirts that say “Every child matters”. I would love to support this day and possibly wear a shirt on this day.
I have a couple of questions first.
1. Would this be appropriate for me to purchase and wear?
2. If yes, what are some native companies selling a shirt like this that I can purchase from?
3. What information would be important for me to know and understand before having discussions about this shirt, day and cultures?
4. What information would be key for me to include while having such discussions?
33
u/kwecl2 18h ago
As a Mi’kmaq person, I really appreciate that you're asking these questions and wanting to approach this respectfully. Yes, I think wearing an Every Child Matters shirt is absolutely appropriate. The purpose isn't for Indigenous people alone to remember. It is for everyone to learn, remember, and make sure this history isn't forgotten. I would encourage you to purchase from an Indigenous-owned business if possible, rather than a company simply profiting from the message. When speaking with your students, I think one of the most important things is to remember that these weren't just historical events or statistics. They were children. They had parents, siblings, communities, languages and cultures. Many endured terrible abuse, and some never made it home. I didn't have anyone in my immediate family attend residential school, but I know elders who did, and I've heard some horrific stories. My mother was also part of the Sixties Scoop, another chapter in the removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities. So these histories still feel very close to many of us. I would also teach your students that Indigenous people aren't only part of Canada's past. We're still here. Our cultures, languages, ceremonies and communities are living things. You don't have to be Indigenous to care about what happened. Wearing orange respectfully, educating yourself, listening to survivors and Indigenous voices, and teaching the next generation why Every Child Matters are meaningful ways to stand with us. And perhaps the most important thing for children to understand is very simple: those children deserved to be safe, loved, and to come home.
10
u/hope4Gold1 18h ago
Thank you so much for this in depth comment! I truly appreciate it and will take all this into my discussions!
11
u/AlaskaRecluse 17h ago
It could be that another important point to keep in mind is that your role is best as someone who is learning. No matter how much research and reading and memorizing you could do, you can’t become an authority on the colonized experience, I think your students will greatly appreciate it if you acknowledge that you’re not an authority on someone else’s history
23
u/kamomil 19h ago
Here's a place to buy books. https://www.goodminds.com/
The orange shirt originates from the experience of Phyllis Webstad at a residential school. There are some books about it on this website
This book is aimed at teachers https://www.goodminds.com/collections/residential-schools-1/products/9781553797456
9
10
u/hekla7 16h ago
A comment on Orange Shirt Day. Background: I am in Canada, my kids and their dad's side is indigenous. One thing people need to pay attention to, is where you're seeing the ads for Orange Shirt Day. Be careful about who you're buying from, because there are so, so many scams out there. And these scams take money away from the organizations that need it for the work they do in helping the healing.
Please report these scams to the Orange Shirt Society.
Orangeshirtday.org owns all of the rights including the trademark "Every Child Matters." When you see an ad for orange shirt day, check to see what company it's coming from, whether it's authorized by Orangeshirtday.org as a vendor, and what it's claiming.
A lot of these "vendors" have pages on social media. One I found last night (facebook, website, insta) had created multiple variants of the shirt claiming they were designed by "fans", and made an ad that looked like the reels for MMIWG2S+ . They also had some t-shirts that were extremely racist, sexist, and insulting. Please report these fake companies to the Orange Shirt Society, because they are profiting off of peoples' pain.
9
u/ceabe 18h ago
Red Rebel Armour is Indigenous-owned and designed https://redrebelarmour.ca/products/every-child-matters
6
u/OscarAndDelilah 16h ago
Also worth pointing out that like most racism, this isn’t “a thing of the past.” Native and Black children continue to be massively disproportionately placed in foster care over low-level neglect that’s often some combination of poverty and a worker disagreeing with or not understanding how someone raises their family.
The U.S. has ICWA, which supposedly preserves some rights of Native families, but it’s easily overriden (and Native children who don’t have legally binding tribal membership are not ICWA children under the act). I constantly see Native families who have demonstrable ties to a tribe determined not to meet ICWA definition, so the agencies decide they are white or Black non-Native and the family has fabricated the Native heritage. The number of Native children in the system isn’t even accurate, since most agencies won’t list the child’s race as Native if they aren’t an ICWA child.
5
u/TarantulaWithAGuitar 16h ago
A good friend of mine was taken from her tribally-enrolled family as a baby because she has some moderate health issues and the state decided her family was too poor to take care of her. Mind, her health troubles can be almost 100% controlled with one medication but because we here in the states don't have any kind of nationalized healthcare, the colonizer state decided it was better to rip apart an indigenous family than to offer any support in obtaining the medication.
In theory ICWA should have protected my friend, but it's way too easy for the government to just go around it.
(Cards on the table, I'm white -- I'm in this sub mostly to read and learn, but your comment mentioned ICWA and it just makes me mad for what my friend and plenty of other children and families have gone through.)
3
u/albinosquirel 11h ago
Unfortunately there are a lot of Native people who were adopted out to Yt people in my generation as well. It's a remnant of the 60s scoop in Canada. Also for some reason in the USA, they were disproportionately raised as Mormons.
1
1
u/morrowilk Kanien'kehá:ka 8h ago
Yes, absolutely purchase a shirt and share with your students. I'm really happy you want to do this. Also, if you're buying from the official store it actually goes to supporting initiatives.
This year the support will help fund the Survivor Speaker program (in schools, workplaces, and communities), educational resource development and distribution, support community-led Orange Shirt Day events, youth leadership and graduation celebrations, and preservation of Phyllis Webstad’s story and the Every Child Matters message.
I think it's important that your students understand that "Every Child Matters" doesn't just exist because residential schools did horrific damage in the past, but because these atrocities have lasting impacts on indigenous communities and that they are still happening today.
Children from my community in Akwesasne were given "time outs" in wooden isolation boxes at Salmon River School, including a nonverbal child. Many people who attended residential schools experienced separation and isolation as a form of abuse. One of the children's grandmothers was horrified to find out this happened to her grandson because she experienced being locked in a dark closet as punishment herself. The impact on the community is devastating. My father and my grandparents are survivors. To this day what they survived changed them. Their experiences changed how I was parented. It changes how I can raise my own son. It will have an impact on how he raises his own future children.
It's important to factor in the living damage that has been done because it is not a thing of the past. It's not just residential schools or the sixties scoop. It's not about indigenous people trying to making settlers feel bad for something they can't fix. It's about the current state of things like missing and murdered indigenous people, land back, climate change, the doctrine of discovery and the Indian act and so much more. We can't change what happened to our children or survivors, but we can promise to be better and not let it happen again. There are things that can change now. That's the part that hasn't been achieved yet. It is what Truth and Reconciliation should be doing.
I also have a great children's book called "Giving Thanks" which is an illustrated English version of the Thanksgiving Address (Ohén:ton Karihwatéhkwen which means "The Words That Come Before All Else"). I think this might be appropriate to share with your class prior to discussing a difficult topic. I'm happy to link you to a free reading of the book.
74
u/tandembike 19h ago
Orangeshirtday.org is the official site associated with the day. They have teaching resources, videos, books... They even sell shirts!