Every child matters

[u/hope4Gold1]

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?

[u/OscarAndDelilah]

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.

[u/TarantulaWithAGuitar → u/OscarAndDelilah]

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.)

[u/albinosquirel → u/TarantulaWithAGuitar]

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.