# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Support for Internet Explorer ended on June 15, 2022

Internet Explorer 11 has been permanently disabled through a Microsoft Edge update on certain versions of Windows 10. If any site you visit needs Internet Explorer 11, you can reload it with Internet Explorer mode in Microsoft Edge. We recommend you use Microsoft Edge for a faster, more secure and more modern web browsing experience.

Get started with Microsoft Edge

There are several types of files you can download from the web-documents, pictures, videos, apps, extensions and toolbars for your browser, among others. When you select a file to download, Internet Explorer will ask what you want to do with the file. Here are some things you can do, depending on the type of file you're downloading:

Open the file to view it, but don't save it to your PC.

Save the file on your PC in the default download location. After Internet Explorer runs a security scan and finishes downloading the file, you can choose to open the file, the folder it's stored in, or view it in Download Manager.

Save as a different file name, type, or download location on your PC.

Run the app, extension, or other file type. After Internet Explorer runs a security scan, the file will open and run on your PC.

Cancel the download and go back to browsing the web.

You can also save smaller files-like single pictures-to your PC. Right-select the picture, link, or file you want to save, and then choose Save picture or Save target as.

Find files you've downloaded on your PC

Download Manager keeps track of pictures, documents, and other files you download from the web. Files you've downloaded are automatically saved in the Downloads folder. This folder is usually located on the drive where Windows is installed (for example, C:\users\your name\downloads). You can always move downloads from the Downloads folder to other places on your PC.

To view files you've downloaded while using Internet Explorer, open Internet Explorer, select the Tools button, and then select View downloads. You'll be able to see what you've downloaded from the web, where these items are stored on your PC, and choose actions to take on your downloads.

Change the default download folder on your PC

1. Open Internet Explorer, select the Tools button, and then select View downloads.

2. In the View Downloads dialog box, select Options in the lower-left.

3. Choose a different default download location by selecting Browse and then selecting OK when you're done.

Why some files won't open in Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer uses add-ons such as Adobe Reader to view some files in the browser. If a file that needs an add-on won't open, you might have an older version of the add-on, which needs to be updated.

About download and security warnings

When you download a file, Internet Explorer checks for clues that the download is malicious or potentially harmful to your PC. If Internet Explorer identifies a download as suspicious, you'll be notified so you can decide whether or not to save, run, or open the file. Not all files you're warned about are malicious, but it's important to make sure you trust the site you're downloading from, and that you really want to download the file.

If you see a security warning that tells you the publisher of this program couldn't be verified, this means that Internet Explorer doesn't recognize the site or organization asking you to download the file. Make sure you recognize and trust the publisher before you save or open the download.

There are always risks to downloading files from the web. Here are some precautions you can take to help protect your PC when you download files:

Install and use an antivirus program.

Only download files from sites that you trust.

If the file has a digital signature, make sure that the signature is valid and the file is from a trusted location. To see the digital signature, select the publisher link in the security warning dialog box that opens when you first download the file.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn how to download files from the web, change your default download location, and find files you've downloaded on your PC using Internet Explorer.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This article is more than 2 months old

This article is more than 2 months old

A dramatic location for Christian Newby's tapestries, rock'n'roll woodcarvings and ancient perfume bottles - all in your weekly dispatch

Christian Newby's Flower-Necklace-Cargo-Net at Collective, Edinburgh. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Crossing the boundaries between art and craft - the week in art

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This article is more than 2 months old This article is more than 2 months old A dramatic location for Christian Newby's tapestries, rock'n'roll woodcarvings and ancient perfume bottles - all in your weekly dispatch

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The increasing popularity of craft-oriented fairs like Collect Art Fair and Intersect 21 reflect the shift in the tastes and habits of a new generation of collectors.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
They've become so commonplace that you'll hear land acknowledgments at the start of hockey games, during academic conferences and even written at the bottom of corporate email signatures.

In an era of reconciliation, they're political statements meant to recognize First Nations, Inuit, and Métis territory, however many Indigenous people argue they've grown to become superficial, performative - and problematic.

CBC Indigenous spoke with five First Nations people about the issues they see, what they expect when others make land acknowledgments and advice on how they can ring less hollow.

Make it meaningful

For Ta7talíya Michelle Nahanee, who offers workshops on how to give territorial acknowledgments, land acknowledgments shouldn't be copied, pasted and read statements but rather meaningful personal commitments. Nahanee is Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) from Eslha7án (Ustlawn) in B.C.

"I don't tell people which word to use, but I ask them to consider each word critically," said Nahanee, founder and CEO of the Vancouver-based business Nahanee Creative, a company that provides education and awareness to promote social change.

"I want people to be able to back up what you're saying, truly believe in it, and be ready to answer the question when someone criticizes you."

That also means taking the time to research specific names of nations rather than sweeping generalizations, and being cautious of subtext.

Even though they're called land or territorial acknowledgments, Nahanee said using the phrase "I acknowledge" can imply that it's not true.

"You wouldn't say, 'I acknowledge that my hair is brown, my eyes brown.' You just are on the land of these peoples," she said.

It's also important to keep the wording in the present tense, she said.

"A tool of colonialism is to keep us in the past tense," said Nahanee.

"To speak about your territorial acknowledgment in the past continues that dominant narrative."

Do the work

Hayden King, who is Anishinaabe from Beausoleil First Nation in Ontario, helped write Ryerson University's land acknowledgment in 2012. It's something he said he now regrets.

King said some of the problems he sees in Toronto is that land acknowledgments are simply inaccurate, include the same nation multiple times under different terms, or misinterpret treaty concepts such as the Dish With One Spoon into a metaphor of a "multicultural utopia."

"There's a ... sort of historical untangling that's required to do this right, well and in a genuine way," he said.

"It really actually becomes harmful to the actually existing Indigenous nations that are still trying to negotiate and unravel their diplomatic relationships with each other."
Watch the Baroness von Sketch Show's satirical take on land acknowledgments:
King wants to see institutions, organizations, or whoever plans on making a land acknowledgment to collaborate with and support Indigenous communities.

"A land acknowledgment should be an obligation," said King.

That doesn't always have to be something that is public, either, he said.

"Do the internal work before you decide to step out into the world with your reconciliation mime. Do something different, actually work with Indigenous communities in a meaningful way."

Action is required

That sentiment was echoed by Devon Saulis, a member of the Tobique First Nation who lives in Ottawa.

"It's the very bottom layer you can do," she said of land acknowledgments.

"Actions speak louder than words."

Like King, Saulis said she's personally not a fan of land acknowledgments because of their performative nature. Even when acknowledgments point to wanting to build better relations and future with Indigenous people, she said, often institutions or organizations fail to put action to those words.

"You can have the nicest, most beautiful and most respectful land acknowledgment of all time but if you have no actions to back up your words, then why are you bothering?" said Saulis.

"If you're going to explicitly say in your land acknowledgment that you want better relations, then you have to prove and you have to show consistency and that you're actually doing those actions."

For Claudette Commanda, an Algonquin elder from Kitigan Zibi, Que., the issue boils down to the concept of land back.

"Are they ready to give us back our land? There has to be absolute action behind it," she said.

"Not just saying that we're scoring a brownie point on our Truth and Reconciliation Commission report card. There's much more to just words."

A first step to building relationships

When it comes to action, Kahsennoktha George wants to see companies and institutions participating in systemic change.

She is from Kanesatake in Quebec and is the ambassador and education and mobilization officer for Mikana, a non-profit organization that works for social change by educating different audiences on the realities and perspectives of Indigenous peoples.

"A starting point would be to initiate some kind of sustainable relationship with the people that you're going to be acknowledging," said George.

"The problem is that there are people, groups, institutions and systems that are benefiting from the continued land dispossession of Indigenous peoples while making territorial acknowledgments."

Despite the problems with land acknowledgments, George wants people to continue making them. She views them as opening the door toward decolonizing practices, reconciliation, or bridging awareness into action.

"It's still the beginning of some kind of conversation," she said.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What's wrong with land acknowledgments, and how to make them better | CBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
They've become so commonplace that you'll hear land acknowledgments at the start of hockey games, during academic conferences and even written at the bottom of corporate email signatures. In an era of reconciliation, they're political statements meant to recognize First Nations, Inuit, and Métis territory, however many Indigenous people argue they've grown to become superficial, performative - and problematic.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A Mi'kmaw community in Nova Scotia is addressing a decades-old conflict head-on. Last week, the Sipekne'katik First Nation launched its own Mi'kmaq-regulated, rights-based lobster fishery in St. Marys Bay, about 250 kilometres west of Halifax - believed to be the first of its kind in the province.

It came 21 years to the day after a Supreme Court ruling that affirmed a treaty right to hunt, fish and gather in pursuit of a "moderate livelihood." That decision affected 34 Mi'kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (also known as Maliseet) First Nations in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and the Gaspé region of Quebec.

The problem is, "moderate livelihood" was never clearly defined.

And so the Sipekne'katik's move last Thursday sparked anger, protest and violence in nearby Saulnierville, N.S.

Here's what you need to know to understand the current tensions.

What did the 1999 Supreme Court case decide?

The landmark case involved Donald Marshall Jr., a Mi'kmaw man from Membertou, N.S. In August 1993, Marshall caught and sold 210 kilograms of eel with an illegal net and without a licence outside of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) regulated season.

On Sept. 17, 1999, the court ruled that Marshall was justified in doing so in pursuit of a moderate livelihood - under the Peace and Friendship Treaties signed in the 1700s. It became known as the Marshall Decision. But in it, the court did not define "moderate livelihood."

What are the Peace and Friendship Treaties?

Between 1725 and 1779, the British signed several peace and friendship treaties with various First Nations, including the Mi'kmaq of what is now Nova Scotia. The treaties established peace and commercial relations. They guaranteed hunting, fishing and land-use rights for the descendants of the Indigenous signatories.

What is Marshall 2?

The 1999 Supreme Court ruling failed to solve everything. In the days following the ruling, Mi'kmaw fishers began to harvest lobster outside the commercial season, as was their understood right under the ruling.

Opposition was swift and fierce. Violence between non-Indigenous lobster fishermen and the Mi'kmaw fishermen broke out. The West Nova Fishermen's Coalition applied for a rehearing, stating that the Marshall Decision would not only affect the eel fishery, but others, too, including lobster.

That led to a rare clarification from the high court, issued in November of the same year.

The clarification, known as Marshall 2, essentially said that the federal government could in fact still regulate the Mi'kmaw fishers if there were concerns about conservation, providing there was consultation with the First Nations groups and the government could justify its concerns.

"Moderate livelihood" remained undefined.

In the past year or so, the Trudeau government has reached "moderate livelihood" agreements with three bands - one in Quebec and two in New Brunswick.

Federal Minister of Fisheries Bernadette Jordan said earlier this month that another rights and reconciliation agreement, as they are known, is near in New Brunswick, but that there are no deals close in Nova Scotia, despite optimism earlier this year that an agreement would be reached.

What is the Sipekne'katik First Nation's rights-based fishery?

The Sipekne'katik launched their own self-regulated fishery on Sept. 17. It grants fishing licences to its band members who meet requirements set out by the band management plan.

Sipekne'katik Chief Mike Sack told CBC's Information Morning in Nova Scotia that their licence authorizes 50 traps per fisher and that they will be monitored.

"We have our own guardians that will enforce our rules and regulations, so there's no need for anyone to interfere at all," he said.

Licences and lobster trap tags were granted to seven harvesters on the fishery's first day.

Normally, there are 979 inshore lobster licences in this fishing area - known as LFA 34 - which is one of the most lucrative in Canada.

Sack said the Mi'kmaq of Sipekne'katik are concerned about conservation themselves and take less than five per cent of the lobster in the area.

As for the definition of "moderate livelihood," Sack said it is "unknown," but that "the average Nova Scotia income should be at least the starting point."

Why are non-Indigenous commercial fishermen angry?

The non-Indigenous commercial fishers who work in the area say the Sipekne'katik fishery is illegal and accuse it of being used as a cloak for a large-scale commercial fishery.

The Mi'kmaq reject that claim.

The non-Indigenous fishermen want the DFO to enforce regulations that prohibit a commercial lobster fishery when the season is closed.

The non-Indigenous fishers say the off season - which runs from late May until late November - gives the crustaceans time to moult and reproduce.

The dispute boiled over this past weekend after about 350 lobster traps were removed by non-Indigenous fishermen in St. Marys Bay. Fishers with the Sipekne'katik First Nation allege the non-Indigenous fishermen vandalized their equipment and vessels.

Megan Bailey, a Dalhousie University professor who studies fisheries management says the Mi'kmaw fishery won't harm lobster stocks.

Bailey, who supports the Sipekne'katik fishery, said science doesn't back the claim that it will pose a risk to conservation. She said the commercial effort in the area is normally hundreds of thousands of traps and the number of traps going in right now would be "a negligible impact on the stock."

"I don't think it's a conservation concern at this scale," she told CBC's Information Morning on Tuesday.

What has the federal response been?

Chief Sack attended a meeting with Fisheries Minister Jordan, Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett and other chiefs on Sept. 21, during which they discussed the ongoing dispute.

Following the meeting, the two ministers released a statement affirming that the Mi'kmaq have a constitutionally protected treaty right to fish in pursuit of a moderate livelihood. The statement said officers from DFO, the RCMP, the coast guard and from public safety are being deployed to help with any dangerous situations.

A spokesperson with the fisheries department said in a Sept. 22 email to The Canadian Press that a conservation and protection team is "monitoring activity in southwest Nova Scotia."

"If charges are warranted based on the findings of the investigation, the matter would be referred to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada."
WATCH | Fisheries minister says no one disputes right to fish for moderate livelihood, but 'it has to be within the Canadian framework':
To properly address the unfolding situation, Sack said, the government needs to step up and keep non-Indigenous fishers from interrupting their work.

"The government could uphold our treaty and respect our moderate-livelihood management plan and keep those commercial fishermen from interfering with what we're doing," he said.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Livelihood or profit? Why an old fight over Indigenous fishing rights is heating up again in Nova Scotia | CBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A Mi'kmaw community in Nova Scotia is addressing a decades-old conflict head-on. Last week, the Sipekne'katik First Nation launched its own Mi'kmaq-regulated, rights-based lobster fishery in St. Marys Bay, about 250 kilometres west of Halifax - believed to be the first of its kind in the province.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"Whiteness studies" have so proliferated in the last two decades that historians might be forgiven a yawn in response to being told that racial divisions are fundamentally arbitrary, and that deciding who is white has been not only fluid but also heavily influenced by class and culture. In some Latin American countries, for example, the term blanquearse, to bleach oneself, is used to mean moving upward in class status. But this concept - the social and cultural construction of race over time - remains harder for many people to understand than, say, the notion that gender is a social and cultural construction, unlike sex. As recently as 10 years ago, some of my undergraduate students at the University of Wisconsin heard my explanations of critical race theory as a denial of observable physical differences.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"Whiteness studies" have so proliferated in the last two decades that historians might be forgiven a yawn in response to being told that racial divisions are fundamentally arbitrary, and that deciding who is white has been not only fluid but also heavily influenced by class and culture.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
​The Memegwesi (Little People) can do magnificent things whenever they wish. Legends say that they can fly through the air and even live underwater if they want. Other stories say that they can dig deep into the earth and through the rocks as they please. If a person sees a Memegwesi and is kind to them, the Memegwesi will bring them good luck.

It is said that there are three tribes of Memegwesi - those that live in the banks beside streams and lakes, those live near the flowers and plants, and those who guard the lands under the earth.

​The Memegwesi who live in the banks are very strong. They can uproot trees and can hurl great rocks with ease. Sometimes they will challenge people to tests of strength; the Memegwesi who live with the plants help the berries to grow fat, make flowers bloom and medicines to grow, and can show how these can be used to help the people; and the Memegwesi who live under the earth guard against serpents and monsters who live in the darkness below from coming to the surface and harming people.

Sometimes, deep in the woods, you find a tree around which no grass will grow. These trees are sacred to the Memegwesi and are places where their dance ring has been formed. Care must be taken not to cut these trees down or the Memegwesi will curse you.

​If you see a Memegwesi, you should thereafter leave a plate of food for them from your table at the spot where you saw them. This will show respect to them and they will favor you with luck for the rest of your days.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
​The Memegwesi (Little People) can do magnificent things whenever they wish. Legends say that they can fly through the air and even live underwater if they want. Other stories say that they can dig deep into the earth and through the rocks as they please.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
----
When did you start your practice as an artist?
"I have always been artistic, since I can remember, and always wanted to be an artist but I didn't know what that meant to me for a long time. It's only been in the last few years that I have figured out HOW to be a practicing artist. Time-management, charging what I'm worth and saying 'no' are all things I have learned in the last few years and because of that I finally feel comfortable calling myself an Artist. I am a full-time student but outside of that I am also creating lots of work."
Where do you draw inspiration from?
"I draw inspiration from everywhere: the land, stories, my loved ones, history, etc. Talking out loud really helps me work out my ideas. My spouse helps me a lot to work through problems and making them fully realized ideas and designs. He's got great taste and an amazing eye for color."
I've heard you use the Anishinaabe term "taybanock" before (lol). Can you explain for our readers what that means and how that may play into your art practice?
"Tebinaak!! Haha it just means "good enough" but we use it as slang in a bit of a negative way to poke fun at each other or things. It's like meeting the requirement, lol, which is fine sometimes! I think my school work at times and commissions I have done that are super specific (that I wouldn't necessarily pick) are tebinaak, but I hope my Caribou Connections work isn't tebinaak, I think it's fly AF."
What project are you most proud of?
"I am currently working on a tikinaagan (cradle board and beaded moss bag) and it is the most thought-out, special, and meaningful piece I have ever created. I have the beading complete and am just working on putting the board together. It is meant to be for my future child, so it is very important to me, although I am not pregnant right now."
Why is it important for our community to support and be involved in the arts?
"Art makes people happy. On a personal level, creating art is just good for your soul - art is calming and it also helps people express feelings they may not have the words for. In a broader sense, good art tells a story. Take Kent Monkman for example - all of the sociopolitical issues present in his paintings are unavoidable. You can't talk about his work without acknowledging the injustices here in Canada and the great thing about that is it's also open-ended: not only is it saying something, it is saying something different to each person. I think it's incredibly important to support those people making big changes but also support those people making art for themselves as self-expression and healing."
What's something that most people wouldn't know about you?
"My dream in life is to live off-grid. My grandparents live on Rainy Lake and their place is only accessible by boat, ice road or four-wheeler. It's solar-powered, heated by a wood stove and still has an outhouse. That is my dream."
What do you envision for your future?
"All I want to do is live on the water somewhere in Treaty 3, make art, love Bear and have a few cubs."
I may start a territorial war with this question...Treaty One or Treaty Three?
"Treaty 3 obvs!! The most beautiful place in the world."
I know your love for boujee native lewks. What's your number one go-to outfit for a night on the town?
"I'm pretty casual with my clothes. I can usually be found in a pair of camo pants or jeans, a graphic tee and some Timbs, but for going out it's all about accessories! My go-to is a camo green hat with 2 beaded bands, this pair of beaded green earrings with matching necklace, and a bold a** Fenty lip! And my ankle-length faux fur jacket of course."
What's on your playlist these days?
"So much female hip hop! Meg, Teyana Taylor, Ari Lennox, Young MA, Jhene Aiko, Kash Doll, City Girls.... And whatever Cole and Dreamville are putting out."
What advice do you have for other up-and-coming artists?
"Just go for it! I thought there was only like 2 jobs for artists when I was younger, but there are so many opportunities. Also, charge what you are worth! Not what people tell you others are charging."
Jan 29th update: In light of the success of our first blog post, we added a final question for the original Boujee Aunty to answer and really drive the Aunty movement home. What do you love about being an Aunty?
"I love kids! I love how they soak up everything. I love seeing little bits of yourself in them. Being an aunty is the best of both words; these little humans look up to you so much, plus they are usually on their best behaviour because you're 'the fun one'. You get to spoil them, get them jacked up on sugar and fun, then drop them off to their parents. I was seriously born to be an aunty too; fun and nurturing til you start acting up! Then watch out. I just love kids, and lucky for me, these ones are stuck with me."

___________

If you'd like to learn more about Cassandra Cochrane and her recently launched label Caribou Connection, check out her Instagram pages @cassandracochrane17 and @caribouconnection.

Chi-miigwech Chuck, for your ferocity and candor. Can't wait to see what you put out next!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Boujee Aunties and the Resurgence of Indigenous Matriarchy - Niiyobinaasiik | Danielle H. Morrison

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We all have that one Aunty. She shows up to every event or family gathering fully decked out in fox fur and head-to-toe beadwork, just asking to be roasted by her relatives for "acting good".

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
PETIK138: Situs Slot Gacor Hari Ini & Daftar Judi Slot Online Maxwin

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
PETIK138 adalah situs judi slot gacor hari ini terpercaya 2024 gampang maxwin. Daftar slot online terbaik sekarang juga untuk meraih kemenangan sensasional.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
These days we've become wearily accustomed to depictions of Brexit Britain as oppressed by a villainously imperial Europe. Annexed "without permission", Nigel Farage claimed melodramatically, defending Brexit party MEPs against charges of "disrespecting" the European Parliament. In a particularly far-fetched comparison, Ann Widdecombe MEP has compared Brexit with the resistance of "slaves against their owners" and "colonies against empires". Prime ministerial frontrunner Boris Johnson too has spoken of Britain's supposed "colony status" in the EU though, with a familiar double standard, he also believes that it would be good if Britain was still "in charge" of Africa.

These bizarre comparisons can be made and go unchallenged because the stark fact remains that most Britons know very little about the history of the empire itself, still less the way in which its long afterlife profoundly shapes both Britain and the wider world today.
Teach British tourists the truth about empire - they can take it | Afua Hirsch
This great amnesia or "shocking lack of understanding" has led a respected race equality thinktank, the Runnymede Trust, to call this week for the teaching of the intertwined histories of empire and migration to be made compulsory in secondary schools. Migration and empire are "not marginal events", its report rightly notes, but "central to our national story".

Most students would welcome this move. Mine often tell me, regretfully, how little they were taught about the empire at school or, when it was addressed at all, how selectively. They want to know more and to know the truth. While some Conservative politicians, such as former schools secretary Michael Gove, have also stressed the need to teach the British empire, their preference is for mythology over history, a drums-and-trumpet "island story" in which Britannia munificently scattered "British values" across the globe like so much imperial confetti. The enormous scale of resistance to empire and the terrifying bloodshed it took to quell that resistance are either hidden or deliberately played down.

My new book, Insurgent Empire, shows how this resistance and repression influenced another strand of British history few Britons know anything about - criticism of empire and colonialism within Britain itself over centuries. There is much to be proud of here, especially those clear-sighted Britons who refused mythmaking and insisted on solidarity with those at the receiving end of exploitation and dispossession, whatever their skin colour.

Brexiter ideology is contradictory. It simultaneously insists on pride in the British empire (accompanied by the delusion that former colonies are eager for a close bond with their erstwhile masters) and stokes harsh anti-immigrant sentiment. The Runnymede Trust's report, however, points to the simple fact that the history of migration cannot be separated from that of empire. The presence of African, Caribbean and Asian communities in this country is tied to the great and lasting upheavals of British colonialism including economic hardship, land dispossession, ethnic and social cleansing, labour exploitation and wealth loss, often caused by the migration of large numbers of Britons to colonial possessions where they sought to escape poverty in Britain or to enrich themselves further. As late as the 1950s, advertisements were encouraging Britons to move to Kenya for cheap land and farm labour. The British Nationality Act of 1948 was intended mainly to facilitate immigration from the "white" dominions of New Zealand and Australia but also enabled the arrival of black and Asian migrants such as the "Windrush generation" who came here from the Caribbean as British subjects and filled a desperate labour shortage. Some understanding of this backstory would help when black and Asian Britons are asked to account for their presence in Britain as they all too frequently are.

Here's the irony. While discussions of the British empire invariably generate toxic divides, it is in fact this very history that can provide sought-after "common ground" on which to examine the necessarily complex question of what it means to be British today. All Britons, white and ethnic minority, are touched every day by imperial legacies, from what we eat and drink - coffee, cocoa, sugar, tea - to the multinational corporations and banks we work for or buy from, to our basic assumptions and categories of thought including concepts such as race, development, free trade and globalisation which were forged in the crucible of empire. Colonial history also provides context for many contemporary British concerns from identity, multiculturalism and humanitarianism to foreign aid, hard borders and sovereignty.

Moreover, the history of the empire shows us not only that there is nothing especially "British" about values such as tolerance, freedom, human rights or democracy but that often what we call "British values" were influenced by both empire and resistance to empire. The oft-told story of a benevolent Britain "bestowing" freedom on her colonies when they were deemed ready for it is largely myth. In reality, resistance, often violent resistance alongside famous non-violent movements, was a central part of the story. Colonial subjects often had their own ideas about the meaning of "freedom" - like the Jamaican rebels of 1865, who rejected the notion that they were "free" to sell their labour to plantation owners after being released from bondage, and demanded small plots of land in which they could be truly independent. "Freedom", it became clear, has many meanings and today we are often presented with a rather narrow version mainly to do with consumer choice.

It's not just Cambridge University - all of Britain benefited from slavery | Myriam François

An honest and informed understanding of the British empire and its afterlife is also vital because it can help us go beyond the questionable model where ethnic and cultural minorities in Britain are required to "integrate" into a static model of "Britishness" owned by white Britons.

The enslaved and the colonised were not merely either victims or beneficiaries of empire but agents who actively contributed to Britain. Their labour, often extracted for nothing or little, underlies the wealth that was created in this country, while their resistance to oppression underscored the universality of values such as equality, human dignity, tolerance, justice and freedom. In many ways, they made Britain.

* Priyamvada Gopal's latest book is Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent, published last week
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Britain's story of empire is based on myth. We need to know the truth | Priyamvada Gopal

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
These days we've become wearily accustomed to depictions of Brexit Britain as oppressed by a villainously imperial Europe. Annexed "without permission", Nigel Farage claimed melodramatically, defending Brexit party MEPs against charges of "disrespecting" the European Parliament. In a particularly far-fetched comparison, Ann Widdecombe MEP has compared Brexit with the resistance of "slaves against their owners" and "colonies against empires".

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Land acknowledgement | Baroness von Sketch Show

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Sen. Murray Sinclair, who is the former chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, is this year's recipient of the Symons Medal to be presented on Friday.

The Symons Medal honours a distinguished Canadian who has contributed to the larger conversation surrounding Confederation.

Sinclair, who has served in Canada's justice system for the past 25 years, will also be delivering the Symons Medal lecture, which he's called Confederation: We Could Have Done Better.

He said he's hoping to use the award as an opportunity to explore the lasting repercussions of the formation of Canada on Indigenous Peoples.

"It's one of those subject areas, it just easily gets skipped over, is the fact that despite the number of years that were spent on Confederation dialogue from 1861 till it occurred in 1867, there was never any consultation with Indigenous people," he said.

He said the lack of consultation with Indigenous people in the years leading up to Confederation has had a continued impact on Indigenous communities, their autonomy, and their rights in Canada.

A deeper look at Confederation

"They weren't made part of the Constitution of Canada and therefore the lack of legal sophistication and legal advice that Indigenous people were burdened by at the time came to be seen as a limitation upon their rights," he said.

For Sinclair, taking a closer look at Confederation is crucial to achieving reconciliation.

Education is the key to reconciliation. - Murray Sinclair

He likens it to entering into a marriage or relationship with someone under specific terms and then having your partner behave according to an entirely different set of terms that were not originally agreed upon.

"At a certain point in time you either have to leave the relationship or you have to convince the authorities that are in existence to start listening to you. And it has taken this long for Indigenous people to convince the authorities in Canada, that is the courts, to begin to listen," Sinclair said.

'A mixed bag of success'

In 2015, Sinclair delivered the Truth and Reconciliation Report, which detailed 94 calls to action. So far, he said, the response has been a "mixed bag of success."

He said the area of education has seen some of the biggest improvements since the report was first delivered.

"Education is the key to reconciliation because if we educate our children about each other, or Indigenous children and non-Indigenous children about each other properly from the beginning and teach them to be more respectful toward each other, toward each other's rights, that will allow them to develop an entirely different kind of relationship," Sinclair said.

Since the report, he said there have been some significant changes to curriculums and learning materials in schools across the country, to allow children to learn about and experience Indigenous culture and community.

Sinclair also said he's encouraged by some of the efforts being made in provinces like B.C. in introducing legislation to formalize its commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

"I think once that happens then I think other levels of government will follow suit relatively quickly," he said.

Meaning behind the medal

Sinclair will receive the Symons Medal award on Friday at the Confederation Centre.

Previous winners of the award include former Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and David Suzuki.

"The award itself is really about ensuring that we maintain the effort and we maintain the momentum toward reconciliation," Sinclair said.

"Because Confederation and the dialogue around inclusion of Indigenous people in Confederation on their terms is an important part of our reconciliation dialogue."

More P.E.I. news

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Canada could have done a better job at Confederation | CBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sen. Murray Sinclair, who is the former chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, is this year's recipient of the Symons Medal to be presented on Friday. The Symons Medal honours a distinguished Canadian who has contributed to the larger conversation surrounding Confederation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Indigenous treaties in Canada are constitutionally recognized agreements between the Crown and Indigenous peoples. Most of these agreements describe exchanges where Indigenous nations agree to share some of their interests in their ancestral lands in return for various payments and promises. On a deeper level, treaties are sometimes understood, particularly by Indigenous people, as sacred covenants between nations that establish a relationship between those for whom Canada is an ancient homeland and those whose family roots lie in other countries. Treaties therefore form the constitutional and moral basis of alliance between Indigenous peoples and Canada.

(This is the full-length entry about Treaties with Indigenous Peoples In Canada. For a plain language summary, please see Treaties with Indigenous Peoples in Canada (Plain Language Summary).

Introduction: Treaties Have Different Meanings for Different People

For Indigenous peoples, the sacred and binding character of treaties is not found primarily in the documents' legalistic language. Instead, the true force of treaties is rooted in what was actually said, often in Indigenous languages, at the time of the negotiations. In addition, treaty deliberations were frequently accompanied by ceremonial conventions such as the smoking of sacred pipes ( calumet) or an exchange of symbolically significant presents (e.g., wampum belts.) Accordingly, many Indigenous peoples look to their elders who are schooled in oral histories as the highest authorities on the spirit and intent of the treaties.

For the Crown, the principles for treaty making with Indigenous peoples were articulated by King George III in the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which established the constitutional foundations of Canada after the government of France withdrew its claims to North America. The constitutional character of treaties between Indigenous peoples and the Crown was renewed in the Constitution Act, 1982, which describes itself as "the supreme law of Canada." Section 35 of that document both recognizes and affirms "existing Indigenous and treaty rights" ( see Rights of Indigenous Peoples.)

Court rulings since then have continued to shape treaty relations between the federal government and Indigenous peoples. For example, in the (1990), the Supreme Court of Canada determined that "treaties and statutes relating to Indians should be liberally construed and uncertainties resolved in favour of the Indians." In that case, the court introduced a principle adopted from a ruling in the United States in 1899 that treaties "must therefore be construed, not according to the technical meaning of its words to learned lawyers, but in the sense in which they would naturally be understood by the Indians."

In spite of the constitutional character of treaties, the non-Indigenous peoples who made and implemented them tended to see them as self-serving deals rather than sacred pacts between independent nations. Historically, non-Indigenous treaty negotiators believed treaties were inexpensive and convenient ways to strip Aboriginal title (i.e., ownership) from most of the lands in Canada so that resources could be used by settlers ( see Indigenous Territory.) Even in modern times, the federal and provincial governments tend to interpret treaties in legalistic terms, contending that Indigenous peoples "ceded, surrendered, and yielded" their ancestral rights and titles through treaties. In other words, treaties can be seen as real estate deals by which the Crown purchased Indigenous lands and provided them with reserves and one-time or continual payments in return ( see Treaty Day.)

This narrow view of treaties has produced a huge divide between the Canadian government's perspective and that of Indigenous peoples. On the one hand is the government's view of treaties as legal instruments that surrendered Indigenous rights. On the other is the Indigenous view of treaties as instruments of relationships between autonomous peoples who agree to share the lands and resources of Canada. Seen from the Indigenous perspective, treaties do not surrender rights; rather, they confirm Indigenous rights. Treaties recognize that Indigenous peoples have the capacity to self-govern. Bridging the gap between these two views of treaties poses a huge challenge to people and lawmakers in Canada.

The complex history of treaty making in Canada can be explored by examining four significant eras: early treaties made before the Conquest, those signed between 1763 and Confederation, treaties made between 1867 and the first modern treaty in 1975, and those negotiated from 1975 to the present. A close look at treaties in the context of constitutional and international law also reveals much about the place of treaties in Canada's domestic and international affairs.

Treaties with the French and British, 1676 to 1763

Treaties in Canada date back to the time when Europeans first arrived to North America. Europeans sought to make alliances with Indigenous peoples as a way of maintaining the peace, providing access to natural resources and gaining alliances in trade and colonial wars. This first era of treaty making starts roughly from the time of the Covenant Chain in the 16th century and extends until the Royal Proclamation in 1763.

The Covenant Chain

The conventions and protocols of treaty making in Canada can be traced to their origins in the Covenant Chain. This refers to an elaborate diplomatic relationship started between the Dutch and Indigenous peoples in the earlier part of the 17th century. Known later as the "Covenant Chain" by the English, several Anglo-American colonies and various Indigenous nations in northeastern North America engaged in this partnership after 1676. At the council grounds near Albany, officials from the colony of New York regularly negotiated with representatives of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), otherwise known as the Longhouse League or the Five Nations, and later, Six Nations Confederacy. By developing treaty relationships to maintain peace and for mutual economic and defence benefits, Crown officials set their eyes on more and more Indigenous land.

Treaties and Wampum

Crown officials and their Indigenous allies spoke of renewing their relationships as "polishing the links of the Covenant Chain." It would be almost unthinkable for those Indigenous and non-Indigenous diplomats schooled in the Covenant Chain tradition to make treaties without signifying their major features on wampum belts composed of shell beads woven into appropriate symbolic representations. To accept a wampum belt in formal council was to agree to adhere to the principles embodied in its woven design. The wampum thereafter served to help perpetuate the memory of the treaty. The use of wampum as an instrument of treaty relationships spread widely throughout eastern North America in the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries.

Peace and Friendship Treaties, 1725 to 1752

There is another tradition of treaty relations which has also been described as the Covenant Chain. This tradition links the British Crown to Mi'kmaq, Passamaquoddy and ​Wolastoqiyik​ (Maliseet) peoples, whose ancestral lands cover most of the Maritimes, as well as parts of the Gaspé Peninsula. Unlike treaties made after the Royal Proclamation, the Maritime treaties do not focus on the question of land ownership. Instead, these agreements, whose keystones include the Boston Treaty of 1725 - 26 and the Halifax Treaty of 1752, were primarily mutual promises of peace and friendship. The agreements also guarantee the Indigenous right to trade without hindrance and the right to fish and hunt in their customary manner. They also pledge regular supplies of food, provisions and ammunition from the Crown.

In this era, the Mi'kmaq and Wolastoqiyik were overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. They commonly had very close relationships to their priests, as well as to their French-speaking Acadian neighbours, with whom they intermarried ( see Acadia.) As a result, often they opposed the British, but this stance was modified somewhat through the treaty-making process.

In 1985, the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed the continuing force of the Halifax Treaty of 1752 by reversing a conviction for hunting out of season against James Simon of the Shubenacadie reserve. In spite of the Simon case, provincial governments in the Maritimes, like elsewhere in Canada, have had difficulty accepting that treaties between the Crown and Indigenous peoples limit provincial jurisdiction in Crown lands.

Today, Treaty Day in Nova Scotia commemorates the special relationship between the Mi'kmaq and the Crown. Celebrated annually on 1 October since 1986 (the year after the Simon case), this day honours the signing of the 1752 treaty.

Treaties and the Seven Years' War in North America, 1754 to 1763

The Seven Years' War (also known as the French and Indian War) was a time of violence in North America, first between the French and British, and later between the British and the Americans. In all of these conflicts, Indigenous nations wielded considerable influence because of their skilful diplomacy and because their fighting forces could effectively battle in conditions that were often extremely difficult for European and North American soldiers.

Through a series of treaties, Sir William Johnson, with the help of his Mohawk consort and adviser, Molly Brant, successfully neutralized the old French-Indigenous alliance during the Seven Years' War. These treaties guaranteed the protection of Indigenous lands from Anglo-American colonists looking to take over lands north of the border. After the British victory over the French on the Plains of Abraham, Johnson made agreements with the Seven Nations of Canada (comprising of Mohawk, Abenaki, Anishinaabeg, Huron and Onondaga peoples) who inhabited Catholic missions near Lake Ontario and along the St. Lawrence Valley ( see St. Lawrence River), to provide security with regards to their lands, trade and religion. One of these treaties was the Treaty of Oswegatchie in 1760. Another, in the same year, was the Murray Treaty of Longueuil, a peace treaty signed by General James Murray that was designed to provide the Huron with military protection and other freedoms and rights after the French retreated. The in May 1990 tested the durability of this treaty. In that year, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in a groundbreaking decision that the Québec and Canadian governments had infringed on the Huron's rights to their traditional territory, as established by the Murray Treaty of Longueuil. The court ruled that the occupation of the territory in question by the Crown was subject to the rights and customs of the Huron.

The Royal Proclamation of 1763

Sir William Johnson was an active supporter of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 (precipitated by Pontiac's War) which, in theory, created clear borders for the new British province of Québec and for the 13 Anglo-American colonies, and reserved the vast territory beyond the Appalachian Mountains for Indigenous peoples. He was also central in the signing of the part of the treaty that was ratified in Niagara in 1764.

The proclamation laid out a procedure for the future opening of portions of Indigenous territory for colonization and settlement by the Crown's non-Indigenous subjects. Through the proclamation, the Crown claimed "dominion" and "sovereignty" over Indigenous territories and that only the Crown could make treaties with Indigenous peoples. Therefore, on the one hand, the proclamation seemingly protected Indigenous territories from encroachment by outsiders, but on the other hand, it left the possibility for just such encroachment by the Crown. The king decreed that no individual person or colony could purchase territory from Indigenous peoples; instead, the British Crown was to be the essential actor in negotiating treaties.

Affirmed by Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, the Royal Proclamation forms the constitutional basis for Crown-Indigenous treaties in Canada. These principles are still being applied in the making of modern-day Indigenous treaties.

Treaty Making in British North America, 1764 to 1867

From the time of the Conquest to Confederation, British and Indigenous peoples made various alliances to secure against the Americans during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. The arrangements also provided the British with access to traditional territories for the purposes of white settlement and development. It was during this time period that the colonial government began pushing Indigenous peoples off of their homelands and onto reserves. While the earliest reserve in Canada ( Sillery) dates to 1637, it was not until the mid-1800s that most reserves in Canada were created.

The Treaty of Fort Stanwix, 1768

The first Treaty of Fort Stanwix (another by the same name was signed in 1784) was the first major agreement negotiated according to the terms of the Royal Proclamation. When the dominant fur-trade companies of Pennsylvania made claims against the British government for damages incurred during the Seven Year's War and Pontiac's War, Indian Department officials tried to compensate them through a major land transfer. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix moved the border between Indigenous territory and the Anglo-American colonies significantly westward to the banks of the Ohio River.

The lands ceded in the treaty - most of modern-day Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Maryland and western Pennsylvania - were the ancestral homes of the Shawnee, Delaware, Cherokee, Seneca-Cayuga, Miami, Potawatomi, Mingo, Odawa and Wyandot. This led to the emergence of hardline leaders in the debate among the Indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes-Ohio Valley area about who was authorized to cede land in treaties.

Sir William Johnson, who was a land speculator, hoped that the Fort Stanwix Treaty would satisfy the entrepreneurial wants of the business community in both the Thirteen Colonies and in Britain. However, the deal only fed the land speculators' greed. Some of those speculators, whose political representatives included Benjamin Franklin in Pennsylvania and Lord Shelburne in Great Britain, attempted to counter the Royal Proclamation by insisting that Indigenous nations could make land-ceding treaties directly with private colonization companies. Just when it seemed that these powerful business interests were about to prevail, the British government introduced the in 1774 which favoured the fur-trade interests of Montréal over the land-speculation interests of Philadelphia, and treaty agreements made with Indigenous peoples over the expansionistic aspirations of Anglo-American settlers. This act was a major factor in the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1776 ( see American Revolution - Invasion of Canada.)

The American Revolution and the Haldimand Grant, 1776 to 1784

Many Indigenous peoples, together with officials of the British army in North America, were thunderstruck at this betrayal. To address the resulting crisis, Québec Governor Frederick Haldimand made treaties in 1784 with the Mississauga north of Lake Ontario to open land for those Six Nations people who opted to migrate rather than live under the jurisdiction of the United States and New York state ( see Haldimand Proclamation.)

In the years ahead, Brant chose to sell individual parcels of his people's Grand River lands, which were part of Haldimand's land grant. Brant based this right to sell lands directly (at full market value) to non-Indigenous buyers on the claim that his community was not limited by the Royal Proclamation, which prohibited transfers of Indigenous territory to anyone but the British sovereign.

Haldimand also prevailed in the decision of the British to retain possession of the military posts south of the Great Lakes, despite the fact that the posts were promised to the United States after the signing of the Treaty of Paris. This was to support the Montréal-based fur trade, whose hinterland continued to include the northern Mississippi Valley. Similarly, retention of the southernmost posts of greater Canada signalled to the Indigenous peoples west of the Ohio River continued imperial support for resistance to the American government's agenda of westward expansion ( see Manifest Destiny.)

The system of treaty alliance between the Crown and the Indigenous peoples of Canada briefly recovered from the diplomatic setback of 1783. Indeed, on the commercial level, the alliance expanded and flourished as never before. This expansion was marked in the growth and prosperity of Montréal, whose leading entrepreneurs organized the North-West Company (NWC.) Not only did the NWC hold and develop its trade network throughout the northern Mississippi Valley, and thereby strengthen the Crown's alliances with Indigenous peoples there, the NWC's agents were also led by Indigenous guides to the West Coast and the northwesterly reaches of present-day Canada.

In so doing, these NWC geographers, traders and diplomats, including Peter Pond, Alexander Mackenzie and David Thompson, expanded the influence of British imperialism and Canadian commerce over wider expanses of Indigenous territory. They competed against the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), who since 1670 had developed an extensive commercial presence among the Indigenous peoples of what was then called Rupert's Land and the North-West Territories. Elaborate protocols of diplomatic and economic relations developed between Indigenous peoples and HBC officials. These relations also came into play later in the 19th century when Crown officials negotiated the Numbered Treaties to facilitate the expansion of the Dominion of Canada.

Ohio Valley Disputes and Jay's Treaty, 1790 to 1794

Indigenous peoples refused to accept the new international boundary created by the Treaty of Paris that cut through their ancestral territory, or that their lands south of the new border now belonged to the United States. Officers of the British Imperial Indian Department, many of whom had Indigenous ancestors, wives and mixed-ancestry children, tended to share this sentiment. Under their urging, the British government refused to cede to the United States the lands north of the Ohio River and south of the Great Lakes. All that had been transferred was the British sovereign's exclusive right to purchase land from Indigenous peoples through treaties, according to the principles outlined in the Royal Proclamation.

Not surprisingly, the United States government resisted this interpretation. In 1790 and 1791, they deployed to the area a small and ill-organized army which was twice defeated by the well-armed fighting forces of a growing Indigenous confederacy, also known as Miami Chief Little Turtle's Illiniwek Confederacy.

Indigenous victories over the American army prompted the British government to adopt a new and ambitious strategy with regards to treaty alliances between the Crown and Indigenous peoples. The imperial government planned to encourage the confederacy to the point where it could assert international sovereignty over the lands between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes. The envisioned country was also known as the Indian Buffer State.

In the eyes of British imperialists, this sovereign Indigenous nation-state would have shielded what remained of British North America from the expansionistic designs of the new American republic, whose most aggressive advocates increasingly viewed North America through the lens of Manifest Destiny and imagined that the entire continent was the United States' God-given inheritance.

The prospects for creating the new Indigenous nation-state dimmed when Little Turtle's confederacy suffered defeat at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. This battle was lost in large part because the British failed to support Indigenous troops. As a result of the defeat, British officials agreed to abandon the posts south of the Great Lakes. The terms of this 1794 agreement, known as Jay's Treaty, also stipulated that Indigenous peoples could freely cross the international border. This stipulation was included largely so that the Montréal fur-trade would not be cut off from its commercial relations with Indigenous peoples in the northern Mississippi Valley.

Although Jay's Treaty is not technically an Indigenous treaty, its terms have had important ramifications. The United States government has honoured the agreement to the extent that Status Indians from Canada have been able to live and work in the United States without restriction. The treaty is not, however, recognized as binding by Canada - a position that is periodically challenged, especially by those Indigenous nations such as the Six Nations, whose lands are divided by the border.

Treaties and the War of 1812

The prospects of a sovereign nation-state for Indigenous peoples re-emerged in the first decade of the 19th century, as relations between Great Britain and the United States deteriorated. At the movement's heart were two Shawnee men - Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa (the Prophet) - who urged Indigenous unity in order to defend their dwindling lands.

At first, the religious visionary Tenskwatawa was the more influential of the siblings. When he related his prophetic revelations about delivering his people from outsiders, Algonquian-speakers of several nationalities flocked to his side, creating the new community of Prophetstown, south of Lake Michigan.

However, it was Tecumseh who gave the movement political direction. As war between the United States and Britain became imminent, Tecumseh advocated coordinated action. He aimed to elevate Indigenous treaty-making authority above the level of domestic contract to the level of full-fledged international relations. To assert this degree of sovereignty, Tecumseh's confederacy would need a central government, a strong fighting force and a powerful ally. Great Britain could be that ally, though it fell primarily on Indigenous peoples to generate the unity that was needed to counter the American plan to absorb Indigenous territory.

The Shawnee strategists' independence was compromised in 1811 after General William Henry Harrison's American forces overran the confederacy's capital at Tippecanoe ( see Battle of Tippecanoe.) This forced Tecumseh to form closer links with the British Imperial Indian Department.

When trade embargoes and conflicts at sea finally sparked the War of 1812, the rapid mobilization of the confederacy's fighting forces were a deciding factor in the early course of the conflict. Especially decisive was the role of Indigenous peoples in the British takeover of Michillimackinac and Detroit ( see First Nations and Métis Peoples in the War of 1812.) The events of 1812, therefore, vindicated, for the British, the utility of the treaty system because it allowed military alliances to be formed.

For those on the Indigenous side of the alliance, the outcome was more tragic. After Tecumseh was killed in battle in 1813, the confederacy largely disintegrated. In the years that followed, many Indigenous people whose territories lay east of the Mississippi were forced to move west. Others, however, migrated from south of the Great Lakes across the border that was established in 1783 but not solidified until 1814, when the Treaty of Ghent ended the War of 1812.

Selkirk Treaty, 1817

While treaty making only really reached Indigenous peoples in western Canada after Confederation, an important treaty was made in 1817 by the Earl of Selkirk in what is now Manitoba. The Selkirk Treaty surrendered Indigenous title in areas "adjacent to [the] Red River and Assiniboine River." The tract also extended into the United States as far as the Great Forks (also known as Grand Forks.) In exchange for their lands, the Ojibwa (Chippawa or Saulteaux) and Cree peoples were each awarded 100 pounds of tobacco annually. Five chiefs signed the treaty with drawings that represented an important aspect of their identity.

The Selkirk Treaty was the first treaty with Indigenous peoples in western Canada, in conformity with the Royal Proclamation of 1763. It was also therefore the beginning of the official relationship between Indigenous people in the West and the Crown.

Upper Canada Treaties, 1781 to 1862

Also known as the Upper Canada Land Surrenders, these agreements constitute an estimated number of 30 treaties covering much of what is now southwestern Ontario. Likely the first of these was Michilimackinac Island, No. 1, signed in 1781, and presumably the last was the Manitoulin Island Treaty, signed in 1862.

These surrenders initially provided Loyalists with lands on which to settle after the American Revolution. The Indigenous signatories, including many Anishinaabe peoples, the Huron-Wyandot, and other First Nations, received cash payments and other goods in return for title to the land.

In later years, many descendants of treaty signatories argued that their lands were unjustly taken. For example, the Mississauga argued that the Toronto Purchase, originally negotiated in 1787, covered unceded territory. Disputes over the accuracy of land allotments led to re-assessments and a revised treaty in 1805. However, the agreement ultimately still favoured the British because it expanded the Crown's claim over the area and paid a measly 10 shillings for 250,880 acres of land. Moreover, this location was also chosen because of its strategic value, allowing access to waterways that facilitated the transfer of goods.

Indigenous peoples also claim that the signatories did not understand the terms of the treaty and that they never accepted the 1805 boundaries. It was only in 2010 that the Mississauga and the Government of Canada reached a settlement. As part of the deal, the Mississauga received $145 million in compensation.

Other well-known and controversial Upper Canada Land Surrenders are those that deal with Manitoulin Island and the Saugeen Peninsula, also called the Bond Head Treaties. In 1836, Lieutenant-Governor Sir Francis Bond Head shifted Indigenous policy by ceasing to encourage Indigenous peoples to become Christian farmers. Instead, he wanted to move them to Manitoulin Island on Lake Huron and the Saugeen Peninsula north of Owen Sound. There, they could hunt and fish without encroachment from settlers. This plan also spoke to the stereotype of "noble savagery" - a view held by the lieutenant-governor and many of his contemporaries. By the terms of these two 1836 treaties (one for each region), both areas of land had been reserved for Indigenous peoples.

The plan was not only to displace Indigenous agriculturalists from Upper Canada, but also the expected Indigenous refugees from south of the Great Lakes, whose lands the American government now claimed. Bond Head was met with international criticism for his plan because some argued that it was apartheid (racial segregation).

In 1854 and 1862, new treaties were drawn up for the Saugeen Peninsula and Manitoulin Island, respectively. The agreements stipulated that the Indigenous peoples involved would be paid regular interest on funds from all Crown sales of the ceded (surrendered) territories. This promise failed to win the participation of an entire community of Roman Catholic Odawa people on the eastern portion of Manitoulin Island. They were uninterested in part because hunting and fishing still supplied their needs. With support from their Jesuit missionaries, these Odawa people successfully resisted signing the Manitoulin treaty. To this day, Wikwemikong, Ontario, remains an unceded Indigenous reserve.

By the mid-1830s, treaties covered most of the arable lands in Upper Canada. These treaties involved an initial distribution of goods and money with promises of small annual payments. Only gradually did the principle develop that agreements should include allocation of reserves.

The Robinson Treaties, 1850

The concept of reserves was advanced in 1850, when Crown representative William Benjamin Robinson secured agreement from Indigenous leaders to "cede, grant, and convey unto Her Majesty" about 50,000 square miles (129,500 km ²) north of the upper Great Lakes. These transactions, known as the Robinson-Huron and Robinson-Superior treaties, provided for the creation of 24 new reserves, each to be held by the Crown for the "use and benefit" of the nations whose leaders' names and marks were on the agreements. Also included in the bargain were initial payments worth £4,000, plus "perpetual" annuities valued at about £1,100.

In the Robinson Treaties, the Crown promised that Indigenous peoples could hunt and fish throughout the ceded territory "as they have heretofore been in the habit of doing." This promise, the first of its kind in an Indigenous treaty, was made, Robinson explained, so that Indigenous peoples could not make future claims in return for the loss of their usual means of support. The Robinson Treaties became important models for the treaty negotiators of the Numbered Treaties that followed in the late 19th century and into the 20th century.

The Vancouver Island Treaties (Douglas Treaties), 1850 to 1854

While treaty making up until 1850 was only conducted in the Maritimes, Manitoba and Upper Canada, the Douglas Treaties (named after Governor James Douglas) were signed between 1850 and 1854 with 14 First Nations on Vancouver Island. Also known as the Vancouver Island Treaties, First Nations exchanged approximately 930 km ² of traditional territory for clothing, cash and other goods. They were told they would still be able to live, hunt and fish on the surrendered lands. With the influx of white settlers, however, Indigenous peoples were increasingly pushed off of these territories and onto reserves.

Descendants of the Indigenous signatories have questioned the legitimacy of the treaty proceedings. As non-English speakers, the chiefs were unable to verify on paper the terms of the agreement, which were communicated verbally. Signing the bottom of the treaty pages with an X, chiefs believed they were agreeing to share - not to cede - their lands. Their descendants have also argued that colonial officials inserted new clauses onto blank pages of the treaties that had already been signed without the consent of Indigenous peoples.

Elders and researchers at the University of Victoria have since translated the Douglas Treaties into the languages of the Sencoten and Lekwungen First Nations for the first time. For the Indigenous signatories of the Douglas Treaties, this was a step towards reconciliation.

Post-Confederation Treaties, 1867 to 1975

The years immediately following Confederation were characterized by the Canadian government's desire to expand westward and northward as a means of securing the nation's economic future. This led to the signing of various treaties between the government and Indigenous nations in the Prairies and parts of the North, British Columbia and northern Ontario. These treaties include the Numbered Treaties and the Williams Treaties.

The Numbered Treaties, 1871 to 1921

The 11 Numbered Treaties were negotiated between 1871 and 1921 as the Canadian government sought to extend its sovereignty over western, and portions of northern, Canada. Confederation in 1867 set the stage for Canada's purchase from the Hudson's Bay Company of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory. As a result of the transfer, the Canadian government legally assumed responsibility for the "protection" and "well-being" of the region's Indigenous peoples.

The duty of compensating Indigenous peoples for their interest in their traditional territories also fell to Canada. Therefore, the treaty-making system that had evolved in Upper Canada in the years before Confederation was exported westward and northward. Further development of the treaty system was based more on economic practicality than it was on any conception of Indigenous rights. During the 1870s, the United States government spent over $20 million fighting Plains peoples. This amount was larger than the entire budget of Canada, and so federal officials relied on treaties to ensure relatively peaceful consent to Euro-Canadian settlement from the territory's approximately 35,000 Indigenous inhabitants.

The newly formed North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) became an important factor in the negotiation process. Following their arrival in 1874 in present-day southwest Alberta, the NWMP became influential among the Siksika, Piikuni, Kainai, Tsuu T'ina and Stoney-Nakoda. Although their role was to restrict Indigenous movement in their reserves, thereby altering their traditional way of life, the police did manage to build relatively positive relationships with Indigenous peoples by driving out American whisky traders. In this police-controlled atmosphere, treaty negotiators and Indigenous leaders signed various treaties.

Crown officials negotiating the first Numbered Treaties were instructed to offer terms similar to those in the Robinson Treaties. The Indigenous delegations in these and following bargaining sessions, however, made it clear that more was expected. Indigenous peoples sought to cope with the destruction of their economies - notably, the decimation of the bison on the prairies - through treaties. From some Indigenous peoples' perspectives, the spirit and intent of 19th and early 20th-century treaties therefore includes a commitment from the Canadian government for the instruction and material aid necessary for transitioning to a new way of life.

In many cases, however, promised provisions and goods were delayed or never made their way to the First Nations. The $5 annual cash payment that many treaty peoples received (and still receive) also made no significant addition to the family purse. According to some Indigenous peoples, however, this exchange does signify the persistence of Indigenous-Canadian treaty relationships.

Métis Scrip

Métis scrip issued for the purchase of dominion lands, 1905.

After the Manitoba Act of 1870, the Canadian government attempted to extinguish Métis title using scrip, dollar-valued land certificates. Unlike with the First Nations, Métis peoples were dealt with on an individual basis. Allotments of land totalling about 160 to 240 acres were available where scrip was issued. However, in order to redeem scrip, many Métis had to travel long distances to access the Lands Title offices. The burden of relocating their families, coupled with an overly-complex application process, meant that scrip was often not redeemed or was sold for a fraction of its real worth.

Efforts to implement this scrip program were also often undermined by the fraudulent activities of "jobbers," who amassed the majority of the resources originally earmarked for Métis communities. Fraudulent land speculators claimed to represent Métis heads of household and managed to claim land that was not rightfully theirs. The authorities eventually amended the Criminal Code in 1921 to include these criminal behaviours. Nevertheless, many Métis people were cheated out of their land.

In 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the government had failed in its obligation to properly distribute and safeguard the 1.4 million acres set aside for the Métis in the Manitoba Act. While the court made no specific remedies, it acknowledged Métis rights to their homelands.

Williams Treaties, 1923

Since the late 19th century, Chippewa and Mississauga peoples in the Simcoe and northern Lake Ontario regions had been trying to get the government to recognize errors in some early colonial treaties. For example, a large tract of land in the area around the Muskoka and Upper Ottawa River was not included in the Upper Canada Treaties. Appointed by the federal minister of justice in 1916, R.V. Sinclair began to investigate these matters. He confirmed that there were in fact many problems with the treaties' allotment of lands and that not all lands had been fully ceded.

In 1923, the Canadian and Ontario governments appointed a three-man commission to further investigate the issue. Sinclair joined lawyers Uriah McFadden and A.S. Williams in what became known as the Williams Commission. Their report validated the claims of the Indigenous peoples not only to the territories in question, but also to other portions of land below Lake Simcoe and on the north shore of Lake Ontario.

Since the government had already opened these areas up for white settlement and for the exploitation of natural resources, the commission began negotiating two treaties known as the Williams Treaties. The first treaty with the Chippewa in 1923 covered the lands from Georgian Bay to the Ottawa River. The second, also signed in 1923, but with the Mississauga, covered the lands from Lake Simcoe down to the shore of Lake Ontario. In signing the Williams Treaties, the Indigenous peoples not only surrendered their title to the land but also their hunting and fishing rights on the properties - a significant departure from what had become common practice in the Robinson and Numbered Treaties.

Land Title, Rights and the Indian Act, 1920s to 1970s

While in Ontario and the Prairie provinces, the development of a system of land tenure was firmly founded on Indigenous treaties, elsewhere in the country (i.e., most of British Columbia, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Québec and the Maritimes), non-Indigenous settlement, for the most part, proceeded without purchase of Aboriginal title. Registered Indigenous peoples ( see Indian) were nevertheless allocated to reserves and, even without treaties, fell under the direct administrative control of the federal government.

Indian affairs were governed more by the federal than by Indigenous treaties. First introduced in 1876 as a consolidation of previous colonial ordinances that aimed to eradicate First Nations culture in favour of assimilation into Euro-Canadian society, the Indian Act became the principal statute through which the federal government administers Indian status, local First Nations governments and the management of reserve land and communal monies. The Act has been amended several times, most significantly in 1951 and 1985, with changes mainly focusing on the removal of particularly discriminatory sections.

Nisga'a Treaty, 1973 to 2000

Indigenous peoples from British Columbia were largely responsible for breaking through the weight of political disinterest that had set in around the Indigenous land question since the early 1920s. Although the Douglas treaties had been made in the 1850s on Vancouver Island, and eight First Nations in British Columbia had signed Treaty 8 in 1899, officials since then have consistently resisted the view that Indigenous peoples in the province have inherent Indigenous rights.

The Nisga'a people of the Nass River Valley ( see Nass River) have long opposed this position. In 1969, Nisga'a chief Frank Calder represented his nation in a court case against British Columbia. Known as the Calder case, the Nisga'a tried to establish that they had never surrendered title to their homelands. Although the British Columbia Supreme Court ruled against the Nisga'a, the Supreme Court of Canada agreed to hear their appeal. Six judges were split evenly on the validity of the Nisga'a claim: three argued that Nisga'a title had been extinguished by land laws made before British Columbia entered Confederation; the other three disagreed, declaring that the right was never extinguished (surrendered) by statute or treaty, which is what the Nisga'a had argued. The seventh judge, Justice Pigeon, tipped the balance against the Nisga'a on a procedural point - that the Nisga'a had failed to obtain permission to sue the Government of British Columbia from the attorney general. Therefore, the Nisga'a lost based on a technicality, but the case served as a catalyst for change, concerning the recognition of Indigenous rights in Canadian law.

Beginning in 1976, the Nisga'a and the Trudeau government entered into treaty negotiations. Fourteen years later, in 1990, both parties reached a preliminary agreement, and also welcomed the Province of British Columbia into the negotiations. In 1996, the three parties finalized the agreement, but it was not until 2000 that the Nisga'a achieved self-government. The deal also put the Nisga'a in control of around 2,000 km ² of their ancestral territory. The Nisga'a Treaty is the first modern-day treaty in British Columbia, and has served as a model for many future First Nations seeking self-government and modern treaty agreements in Canada.

Modern Treaties, 1975 to present

Established in 1974, the Office of Native Claims (ONC) defined two types of modern land claims: specific and comprehensive. Specific land claims address Indigenous grievances over the failure of the federal government to keep promises made to them in the Indian Act, historic treaties or other agreements. Comprehensive land claims deal specifically with questions about land title. A comprehensive claim can be made for any part of Canada where Aboriginal title has never been ceded. The Specific Claims Tribunal (2008) has since supplanted the ONC and is the federal body that continues to hear specific and modern land claims.

James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement, 1975

The 1975 James Bay Agreement is often considered to be Canada's first modern-day treaty. As in earlier times, a move to open up a new resource frontier - in this case, the hydroelectric potential of the rivers flowing into the eastern region of James Bay - led to negotiations with Indigenous peoples. Although the enormous hydroelectric project was initiated in 1971 without their sanction, the area's Cree and Inuit peoples asserted their unceded Indigenous rights through the courts. The Cree also used the media to assert their rights ( see James Bay Project.)

In the complex settlement that ensued, the agreement established a basis for various institutions of Cree and Inuit self-government, such as school boards and health and social service agencies. In 1978, as an adjunct to the James Bay Agreement, the Naskapi band of Schefferville concluded the Northeastern Québec Agreement with the federal and provincial governments.

The negotiation of modern-day treaties somewhat stagnated during Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's first term (1984-88.) However, this state of affairs was to change during Mulroney's second term (1988-93.) In June 1990, Elijah Harper, an Oji-Cree MLA from Manitoba, blocked a sweeping revision to the Canadian Constitution negotiated at Meech Lake by the 11 first ministers without Indigenous representation ( see Meech Lake Accord: Document.) The next month, an argument between the Mohawk of Kanesatake and the town council of Oka over a proposed golf course flared into an armed standoff ( see Oka Crisis.) In 1991, the government appointed a Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples just as a surge of new political interest was invested into modern-day treaty making. The Oka crisis and other First Nation activism helped to bring Indigenous issues to the fore.

Modern-Day Treaties in Northern Canada

This surge of political interest in treaty making was mostly evident in the territories north of the 60th parallel, where bilateral, nation-to-nation negotiations led to the making of the Inuvialuit Treaty (1984), the Gwich'in Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement (1992), the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (1993) and the Sahtu Dene and Métis Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement (1993.)

From 1993 to 2005, the 11 First Nations of the Yukon First Nations Final Agreements also received their own modern treaties. These nations include: Champagne and Aishihik, Na-cho Nyak Dun, Teslin Tlingit Council, Vuntut Gwich'in, Little Salmon/Carmacks, Selkirk, Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in, Ta'an Kwäch'än Council, Kluane, Kwanlin Dün and Carcross/Tagish.

In 2003, the Tlicho from the central Northwest Territories celebrated the enactment of the Tlicho Land Claims and Self Government Agreement.

Following the James Bay Treaty, these agreements have enabled Indigenous communities to set up municipal and corporate structures and to allow them to participate as shareholders in the exploitation of natural resources.

Modern-Day Treaties in British Columbia

In British Columbia, there are not only two but three types of government involved in the negotiation of modern-day treaties - federal, provincial and Frist Nation. In 1991, treaty negotiations with some Indigenous nations in British Columbia began.

In keeping with the historic role of the Nisga'a in forcing the issue of unrecognized Aboriginal title, their treaty sets a precedent. Behind the Nisga'a are over 50 other Indigenous nations in British Columbia negotiating similar agreements in a six-stage treaty process with the British Columbia Treaty Commission. The final agreements for the Tsawwassen First Nation and the Maa-nulth First Nations (five nations in total) came into effect as of April 2009 and April 2011, respectively. The Tla'amin Final Agreement came into effect in April 2016.

In a historic decision on 26 June 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada granted the Tsilhqot'in title to 1,700 km ² of land in British Columbia. With the ruling, the Tsilhqot'in have exclusive rights to the land and to associated benefits and profits, and must grant their consent before any economic development occurs. Significantly, the ruling clarifies the meaning of and criteria for establishing Aboriginal title: an Indigenous group must prove continual and exclusive occupation. In addition, Indigenous nations with legitimate claims - whether ongoing, settled, or merely possible - must be consulted and grant consent before economic development may proceed.

Modern-Day Treaties in Québec and the East Coast

The James Bay treaty covers much of northern and western Québec; however, there are other settlement areas in Québec and Eastern Canada. The Labrador Inuit ( Nunatsiavut region) and Nunavik Inuit (northern Québec) celebrated their land claims agreements in 2005 and 2006, respectively. In the southeastern part of Hudson's Bay lies the area covered by the Eeyou Marine Region Land Claims Agreement, signed in 2010.

The Innu of Labrador signed a modern-day treaty in 2011, after 15 years of lobbying against a company's discovery and purchase of a huge nickel deposit at Voisey's Bay in Labrador. Before the discovery, the Innu had asserted Aboriginal title in their lands, which they call Ntesinan. In addition, the Innu particularly resisted the establishment of a low-level jet training facility in Goose Bay. This criticism drew international attention from peace activists and environmentalists, who used their influence to publicize the effect of NATO 's war preparations on Innu hunting practices.

Conflicting Views on Modern Treaties

Some non-Indigenous critics charge that modern treaty making puts too much emphasis on race and ethnicity. Echoing the 1969 White Paper, members of the Reform Party of Canada lobbied against the treaty system, arguing that it undermines individual equality and one law for all Canadians.

Indigenous activists have also criticized certain modern treaties. In the case of the Nisga'a treaty, for example, some contended that the Nisga'a made concessions in areas such as taxation and property rights that were to the detriment of the Nisga'a people. Indigenous people also expressed their opposition to modern treaties through an armed stand made by the Defenders of the Shuswap Nation at Ts'Peten (Gustafsen Lake) in the summer of 1995. This group questioned the legitimacy of a process that they said used the imagery of treaty making to hide old patterns of colonization including co-optation of Indigenous elites, dispossession through the extinguishment of Indigenous rights and cultural genocide through the assimilation of Indigenous peoples into the Euro-Canadian mainstream.

Another Indigenous critique of treaties involves concern that modern-day treaties should not use the language of surrender and extinguishment. As the Nisga'a Tribal Council asserted in a submission to the federal government, "Extinguishment severs a First Nation's link with our past... Canadians must come to understand that our enjoyment and use of our lands and resources in the years to come is based not on a grant from the Crown, but is a vital part of our ancestral inheritance."

Any debate over surrender and extinguishment must grapple with the federal government's fiduciary obligation towards Indigenous peoples. This obligation, which was given clear judicial articulation by the Supreme Court in the 1984 Guerin case, derives from the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and other legal instruments ( see Gertrude Guerin.) At its most extreme, the trustee-like role ascribed to Indigenous peoples through such instruments turned them into wards of the state.

The question arises of how the government of Canada could fulfil its fiduciary responsibility in treaties in which Crown officials had Indigenous negotiators sign documents that extinguished Indigenous rights? If the Crown was the chief beneficiary of treaties that formalized the surrender of these rights, would Crown officials not then be in a position of conflict of interest?

Manitoba Judge A.C. Hamilton addressed these issues in a 1995 report to the minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development entitled A New Partnership. He wrote: "It appears to me that the demand that one party sign a surrender of rights recognized and affirmed by the Constitution is in flagrant breach of the Crown's fiduciary obligation." Judge Hamilton proposed several options for how modern-day treaties might be worded to avoid the pitfalls of extinguishment while providing non-Indigenous interests with assurances that their land titles would be safe from challenge. Canada adopted some, but not all of, the recommendations.

Excluded Peoples

There are Indigenous peoples whose representatives were not present at historic treaty negotiations, and are now seeking compensation. One such group is the Lubicon Cree, whose ancestors were not present in the making of Treaty 8 in 1899. The reserve-less Lubicon, whose territory lies within a lucrative oil patch in Alberta, have faced tremendous resistance, both inside and outside the courts, in their search for a settlement. They have been frustrated in their efforts to find a secure niche through a modern-day treaty.

Other Indigenous peoples excluded from the treaty system include the Teme-Augama Anishnabai and the people of the tiny overpopulated Long Lake 58 reserve. These communities were passed over in the 1850 negotiation of the Robinson Treaties.

The Métis generally have been excluded from treaty agreements. While Métis adhesions were eventually included in some of the Numbered Treaties, the Métis still fight for title to traditional lands.

On the west coast, the Sinixt have received acknowledgment of their existence as a First Nation in Canada, as well as their traditional territories and their rights to those lands, relatively recently, in 2017.

This is not an exhaustive list of Indigenous peoples attempting to gain land claims settlements. It simply serves to show that there are communities all over Canada with various claims to traditional lands and waters.

Treaties, the Canadian Constitution and Citizenship

Indigenous and treaty rights were a particularly controversial and difficult issue during the patriation of the Canadian Constitution. On 5 November 1981, nine provincial governments (excluding Québec) entered into the federal government's patriation plan on the condition that Indigenous and treaty rights be stripped from the draft constitution. However, after widespread demonstrations and campaigning by Indigenous groups, section 35, which recognizes and reaffirms existing Indigenous treaty rights, was reinstated. Premier Edgar Peter Lougheed of Alberta was instrumental in inserting the word "existing," expecting this would lead to a more limited judicial interpretation of section 35.

Indigenous peoples argued that Canada lacked the authority to sever the relationship between their nations and the imperial Crown without consent. Their challenge to the legality of patriation ultimately led to Chief Justice Lord Denning's judgement of January 1982, in which he confirmed that treaty relationships entered into by Indigenous peoples in Canada had indeed been with the Crown in respect of the United Kingdom. Through constitutional evolution, however, the responsibility to manage treaty rights had come to be vested with the Canadian government. "No parliament," proclaimed Lord Denning, "should do anything to lessen the worth of these guarantees."

Treaties and the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords

Indigenous peoples held to their conviction that self-government is an inherent right, and must be constitutionally recognized as such. In the 1987 Meech Lake Accord, the first ministers, while recognizing Québec as a "distinct society," failed to recognize this right. This failure led to Elijah Harper 's stand on the floor of the Manitoba legislature, which contributed to the demise of the Meech Lake Accord.

Four Indigenous organizations, including the Assembly of First Nations, were included in the constitutional deliberations that culminated in the Charlottetown consensus report ( see Charlottetown Accord and Charlottetown Accord: Document.) This report was subjected to a national referendum in 1992. The Charlottetown document, which was approved by the federal and provincial governments of Canada, included a proposed addition to section 35 stating, "the Aboriginal peoples of Canada have the inherent right of self-government within Canada." The word "inherent" was intended to demonstrate that the right was derived not from the Crown but from the histories, distinct identities and self-determination of Indigenous peoples whose existence predates that of Canada.

The Charlottetown document was rejected as a basis for constitutional amendment. While most Inuit voters happily sanctioned the accord, First Nations voters largely rejected it. This rejection marked a lack of confidence at the grassroots level in First Nation communities. In some parts of the country, Indigenous rejection was also an expression of unhappiness with the format of multilateral negotiations. By its very nature, this federal-provincial-Indigenous format undermined the integrity of bilateral, nation-to-nation treaty making with the Crown that, in the view of many Indigenous peoples, still defines their alliances with the Canadian state.

Québec Sovereignty and Treaty Rights

Treaties and Canadian Citizenship

The phrase "we are all treaty people" means that everyone in Canada - settlers and Indigenous peoples alike - are in some way affected by treaties. In 2016, this phrase was given more meaning when the Trudeau government announced its plans to honour treaties in an amended citizenship oath for new Canadians. Listed as one of the 94 calls to action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), this proposal includes a promise to "faithfully observe the laws of Canada, including treaties with Indigenous peoples." For many Indigenous peoples, the new oath is just the beginning of what they hope are more changes, such as revising the citizenship test to better reflect Indigenous history and ensure that citizens-to-be (or immigrants) are well-informed about Indigenous issues.

Treaties in International Law and Politics

Treaties and the United Nations

In 1987, the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations began a global study of "treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements between states and Indigenous populations." The government of Canada attempted to derail the study, arguing that an international "focus on Treaties essentially distorts the debate about Aboriginal peoples, whose plight today stems in most cases not from treaties or from a lack of treaties, but rather from their systematic exclusion from the economic, social, cultural and political life of the countries in which they live."

In spite of Canada's intervention, the UN treaty study continued under the direction of Cuban Special Rapporteur Miguel Alfonso Martinez. In 1989, he visited the Onion Lake reserve in Saskatchewan to hear testimonies from treaty peoples. He issued progress reports and his final report was published in 1999. His work influenced the UN's Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 13 September 2007. Article 37 of that declaration reads: "Indigenous peoples have the right to the recognition, observance and enforcement of treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements concluded with States or their successors and to have States honour and respect such treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements."

In November 2010, Canada announced its support of the declaration in principle, but did not offer a full endorsement. The government had many reservations about the way the declaration addressed traditional territories and resources thereupon, as well as the duty to consent (referring to the government's duty to consult Indigenous peoples about any proposed developments that may affect their lands and communities.)

Five years later, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced plans to revoke Canada's objector status. In May 2016, Carolyn Bennett, the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, declared that Canada had fully endorsed the declaration. Implementing the declaration will take much coordination between Indigenous peoples and the federal, provincial and territorial governments.

Treaties and NAFTA

In spite of Indigenous peoples' efforts to gain recognition of their treaties as proof, in part, of their capacity to act as equals in international relations, the Government of Canada continues to maintain that these agreements lie within domestic law. This issue was brought to the fore in 1994, when the Governments of Canada, the United States and Mexico instituted a new treaty that remade the commercial map of North America as a cohesive trading block. The negotiations that led to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) included no place for Indigenous delegations. This sparked an uprising in Chiapas, Mexico, on 1 January 1994, the day the treaty came into force.

The politics of exclusion in NAFTA echo the assumptions manifest in the making of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, in the transfer of the HBC titles to the Dominion of Canada in 1869-70 and in the making of the Meech Lake Accord in 1987.

Conclusion: Honouring the Past and Looking Forward

Treaties constitute a thread of continuity woven through the earliest beginnings of the Canadian state until today. However, treaty relationships have looked different over the years. Before the Conquest, treaties helped maintain peace for the purposes of trade and war. From the outset of the Seven Years' War to the close of the War of 1812 in 1814, Indigenous nations wielded considerable influence due to their diplomacy and skilled fighting forces as well as their knowledge of the terrain and the fact they provided Europeans access to natural resources. Consequently, various Indigenous confederacies rose to prominence on the world stage. In the years to come, however, their influence over colonial officials dwindled as Indigenous populations were reduced by disease and war, and Indigenous peoples were increasingly forced onto reserves. While many treaties were designed to offer certain government protections and assistance for "as long as the sun shines and the water flows," many consider these broken promises. The descendants of treaty signatories are still trying to protect their territories, using the land claims process and initiating rights-based arguments in court.

Differences in the interpretation of treaties have also affected attitudes towards the Crown-Indigenous relationship over time. The scripts of the older treaties express the legalistic and imperialistic frame of mind of the British. On these documents, Indigenous leaders often marked their approval by drawing a picture of the animal totem of their clan. These designs demonstrate the different attitudes of Indigenous nations and the colonial government towards law, government, nature and society. These differences have, however imperfectly, been incorporated over the years into the institutional structures of Canada through the treaty making process.

Treaties have been viewed as everything from domestic contracts to international treaties between sovereign powers. In spite of inadequacies in the negotiation, maintenance and renewal of Indigenous treaties, the process itself demonstrates that Canada has grown and developed according to constitutional principles wherein recognition of Indigenous rights is essential. These founding agreements between peoples constitute fundamental features in the unfolding drama of Canadian federalism. As Canada becomes home to an increasingly diverse population, the task of interpreting the significance of Indigenous treaties for new generations of Canadians becomes ever more challenging.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Treaties with Indigenous Peoples in Canada

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Indigenous treaties in Canada are constitutionally recognized agreements between the Crown and Indigenous peoples. Most of these agreements describe exchanges where Indigenous nations agree to share some of their interests in their ancestral lands in return for various payments and promises.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
trailer Warning: this film contains disturbing content and is recommended for audiences 16 years of age and older. Parental discretion, and/or watching this film within a group setting, is ...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I came across this tweet today which tells of an incident between a pupil and his teacher. The teacher in question told the Native American pupil that Indians were at fault for contracting smallpox and that no English/American people were involved in that matter. I'm writing this to be used as a reference in future incidents.

This is not a matter of opinion, this is a matter of public record. Purposeful infection of Native Americans with smallpox was one of several "necessary" means that white European settlers used in an deliberate, concerted effort to drive us to extinction.

Among the damning evidence are letters written in 1763 between officers of the British military detailing plans to send a plague among the "vermin" to eradicate them.

Well, there you have it. The smoking gun in the General's own handwriting.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Yes, White Europeans purposefully infected Native Americans with Smallpox.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I came across this tweet today which tells of an incident between a pupil and his teacher. The teacher in question told the Native American pupil that Indians were at fault for contracting smallpox and that no English/American people were involved in that matter. I'm writing this to be used as a reference in future incidents.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Courtesy of the artis/Anna-Marie Kellen/Metropolitan Museum of Art/Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Cree artist Kent Monkman stood under the soaring ceiling of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Great Hall this week wielding a laser pointer. With its beam, he indicated historical characters on the huge canvas behind him, stopping briefly on the figure of a beaver with an olive branch in its mouth as he decoded his latest painting for the assembled media. Europeans came to this continent seeking beaver pelts, he reminded them.

Toronto-resident Monkman, a member of Manitoba's Fisher River Band, is one of a trio of international artists given an unusual assignment by America's pre-eminent museum: The Met has asked them to address its encyclopedic collection by creating new art for its most prominent spaces. So, in the museum's vast but always bustling front hall, Monkman takes the bull by the horns with a pair of canvases that cleverly appropriate Western history painting to expose romantic myths about Indigenous people. He is asking the Met and its many visitors to confront North America's murderous colonial history - as Canada tries exporting Indigenous perspectives and the hope of reconciliation to the United States.

Borrowing the heroic poses and dramatic expressions from history paintings in the Met's collection, Monkman calls his project mistikosiwak (Wooden Boat People), extending the Cree word for the French to include, by implication, all European settlers. The work is a diptych, depicting the arrival of Europeans in North America on the left and the resilience of contemporary Indigenous culture on the right. The first painting features a group of shipwrecked Europeans clambering onto a rocky shore where Indigenous characters variously welcome or repulse them. The second shows a boat paddled by contemporary Indigenous figures while two African-Americans pull white people from the water as though rescuing migrants from the Mediterranean. On a rock in the distance, armed men flash the white-power symbol and wave their guns.

Joseph Hartman/Metropolitan Museum of Art/Metropolitan Museum of Art

These paintings, created by a team of 10 painters under Monkman's direction and based on photo shoots that employed about 40 models and actors, represent the artist's increasingly sophisticated deployment of a revisionist history painting. As he resurrects the genre once considered the pinnacle of Western art before it was displaced by modernism, he exposes 19th-century history painting's assumptions about North America as an empty continent ready for exploitation and Indigenous people as a noble but tragically disappearing breed.

"Here is this incredible vocabulary that I felt could be very relevant to speak about Indigenous experience both historical and contemporary," he said in an interview at the Met this week. "It has been a way for me to engage with a very complex and sophisticated language of image-making and it ties into those themes of erasure that were present in the 19th-century [art]. Those themes have been supported and upheld by museums because they canonized that work."

But no longer. As Monkman unveiled his paintings in a symbolically charged place - the entry point to the Met's sprawling, global collection at the heart of a city that is a magnet for both tourists and migrants - Met leaders talked about the need to expand the stories the museum tells.

"Museums can no longer maintain a position of neutrality," said Sheena Wagstaff, head of the Met's modern and contemporary art department, as she launched into a rare land acknowledgement: Manhattan is Manahatta and traditional territory of the Lenape or Delaware nation.

Anna-Marie Kellen/Metropolitan Museum of Art/Metropolitan Museum of Art

As part of the current contemporary project, the Met has also mounted four striking female bronze figures by the Kenyan-born artist Wangechi Mutu in niches on the façade of its 1902 Beaux Arts building, the first time art has ever been placed there. The third participant in this program is the Icelandic multidisciplinary artist Ragnar Kjartansson, who mounted an immersive video installation in the courtyard of the museum's Robert Lehman wing last summer.

Both of Monkman's paintings in the Great Hall include something of a self-portrait: The central figure of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, the artist's gender-fluid trickster alter ego (whose memoir he is currently writing.) In the first painting, she is the one figure who looks directly at you as Monkman turns the tables on viewers of Western art, subjecting them to the Indigenous gaze. In the second painting, she stands at the prow of the boat, her pose directly borrowed from that of George Washington in the Met's most popular American painting: Emanuel Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware.

Monkman continuously adapts and undercuts these historical antecedents. He takes Eugène Delacroix's The Natchez, in which the French artist depicted a Natchez couple and their new-born baby as the last of their kind, and purges the painting of its melancholic irony. Monkman's first painting shows the couple joyfully welcoming new life; in the second, the parents are two women. Similarly, the figure of Mexican Girl Dying, a 19th-century sculpture by the American artist Thomas Crawford, has become a woman who appears to be in the throes of orgasm rather than death. Meanwhile, a group of Indigenous children in the boat was inspired by the biblical subject The Massacre of the Innocents, but their cropped hair is a reference to the residential schools where they were forced to assimilate.

More than three metres high and almost seven metres wide, the paintings are not Monkman's largest; that honour still belongs to Miss Chief's Wet Dream in the collection of the Nova Scotia Art Gallery. But they do represent his most sophisticated work yet. Where once the politics of his interventions might seem obvious - for Canada 150, he simply inserted Miss Chief into a familiar painting of the Fathers of Confederation - here his mastery of the Met's collection lifts his art. The result is a complex iconography stuffed with references to historic art, Indigenous culture and contemporary politics as Monkman beats Western history painting at its own game.

Initiated by Met curator Randall Griffey, mistikosiwak has developed into a stealthy Canadian attempt to insert Indigenous perspectives deeper into the American cultural consciousness, long dominated by the troubled legacy of slavery.

"In Canada, museums are further ahead in engaging with Indigenous perspectives," Monkman said. "There's a huge difference: They are about a generation behind here. It's a big moment for the Met to offer diversified perspectives."

That was part of what attracted contributions from Canadian philanthropists Rosamond Ivey, and Marilyn and Charles Baillie, all of whom were already supporters of the Met and helped finance this project.

"It was a huge opportunity for Kent's career and recognition for Canada's artistic community," Ivey said. "And the message is not really Canadian, it's North American."

The first of the millions who will see the paintings over the next four months got a look Tuesday as the media took their leave and the Met's massive front doors opened to the public. The paintings hang immediately overhead at the coat-check queues, so visitors have plenty of time to consider them. Some began debating their merits and pointing out figures to each other from below. Others gazed up in silence, seemingly amazed.
mistikosiwak (Wooden Boat People) is on show at The Metropolitan Museum in New York until April 9. Live your best. We have a daily Life & Arts newsletter, providing you with our latest stories on health, travel, food and culture. Sign up today.
How Kent Monkman works

From the archives: Kent Monkman, the modern touch of a master

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
At the Met, Cree artist Kent Monkman asks visitors to confront North America's colonial past

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Cree artist Kent Monkman stood under the soaring ceiling of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Great Hall this week wielding a laser pointer. With its beam, he indicated historical characters on the huge canvas behind him, stopping briefly on the figure of a beaver with an olive branch in its mouth as he decoded his latest painting for the assembled media.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The words are so shocking, so evocative of foreign atrocities, that many Canadians are still unwilling to accept that they apply to their own country - words such as "apartheid," "genocide" and "war."

But after decades of research from his inquiries into racial abuses in the justice system and in residential schools, Senator Murray Sinclair never hesitates to use those terms - even when he knows they might spark a backlash.

"Sometimes the shock value is worth it," he told The Globe and Mail.

"It's about making people sit up and take notice. It's about getting people out of their comfortable chair and getting them to think seriously about it."

A strong case can be made that the 68-year-old independent senator and retired judge has done more than any other Canadian to educate the country about the painful realities that have dogged its history and institutions.

As chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada from 2009 to 2015, he documented the existence of cultural genocide in Canada's residential schools. As a leader of justice and policing investigations in Manitoba and Thunder Bay, he exposed officials who were willfully ignoring racism in their police forces. And in his personal writing and speeches, Mr. Sinclair has hit even harder, describing a web of genocidal policies and apartheid laws that Canadian governments deployed in a "war" against Indigenous people - a war he says never really ended.

Although his formal inquiries have ended, his work is far from over. As he tirelessly follows a busy schedule of speeches across the country this year - including a recent one describing how Indigenous people were excluded from Confederation's bargains - Mr. Sinclair continues to have an outsized influence in shaping Canada's understanding of itself.

He sees himself as struggling to dismantle the legacy of a system that can be compared, in many ways, to the apartheid of South African history. Despite frequent hate messages on Twitter and Facebook, he continues to make that point on social media, shrugging off the anonymous attacks.

"There will be people who will always resist those statements," he said in a two-hour interview in his Winnipeg office, symbolically located on an "urban reserve" under the authority of the Peguis First Nation.

"If you say that there's been racism by white people against Indigenous people historically, you run the risk of white people standing up and saying, 'No, we're not racist.' But if the evidence is there to support your position, you will also garner a level of support among the non-Indigenous population who will say, 'Yes, we acknowledge it, so let's get on with it.'"

His inquiries, beginning with the pioneering Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba in the late 1980s, were prompted by tragedies and injustices: the deaths of young Indigenous people in Manitoba and Thunder Bay and in residential schools, neglected by the police and the courts and never properly investigated.

But from those tragedies, Mr. Sinclair found lessons that have shifted Canada's public debates.

When he was appointed associate chief judge of the Provincial Court of Manitoba in 1988, he became the province's first Indigenous judge and only the second in Canada. Within weeks, he was immersed in a hugely complex inquiry into the discrimination faced by Indigenous people in the province's justice system. His relentless work to expose the barriers that hold back Indigenous people - and to find solutions - has scarcely paused in the three decades since then.

In interviews, he chooses his words carefully, speaking in calm and measured tones, even when his anger at historical abuses is clear. In speeches, he uses gentle humour and warm stories of his own family to make his points.

His goal is to reach Canadians who are open to learning about the country's history - to give them "the sense that now they can talk about it, too.

"It's not simply about confronting, it's also about assisting. The intent from that is always, 'So what are you going to do about it? So what should we do about it?' Statements like 'there's racists in society' that are not accompanied by 'now what should we do about it?' are not very helpful."

Murray Sinclair was born in 1951 near Selkirk, north of Winnipeg. The area was once known as the St. Peter's Indian Reserve, until 1907, when most of its Ojibwa and Cree people were illegally forced to relocate about 170 kilometres to the northwest, to what is now the Peguis First Nation.

His father and grandmother were survivors of residential schools. His mother died when he was an infant and he was raised by his grandparents.

His Ojibway name is Mizanay Gheezhik - "the one who speaks of pictures in the sky" - an allusion to his role as an educator who helps his people understand their lives.

He was a star athlete and class valedictorian at Selkirk Collegiate, graduating in 1968. He studied for two years at the University of Manitoba, worked for the Selkirk Friendship Centre, served as a leader of the Manitoba Metis Federation and was hired in 1973 as an assistant to Howard Pawley, a future premier of Manitoba, who was then the attorney-general. Three years later, he entered law school, graduating in 1979.

As a lawyer in Winnipeg for the next eight years, he experienced racism at close quarters. In the courtroom, judges sometimes assumed that he was the defendant because he was Indigenous.

"It happened more than once," he recalled. "I had the suit, I had the tie, I had the briefcase - I even drove the car. But when they called the name of my client and I stood up, the judge said, 'Well, mister, what are you charged with?' "

In an investigation into the Thunder Bay Police Services Board, the results of which were published last December, he ruffled feathers by identifying problems with "systemic racism" - a term he also used in Manitoba. "People just didn't understand the idea of what systemic racism is," he said.

"When we were talking to officials, particularly at the police board, it was very clear to me that they thought we were accusing every cop of being a racist. But I explained to them that it's the system itself that is founded upon beliefs and attitudes and policies that virtually force even the non-racist person to behave in a racist way. If you get rid of all the racists in every police force, you'll still have a systemic racism problem."

In his 160-page report for the Ontario Civilian Police Commission (OCPC), he found that the police board had a "willful blindness" to racism on the force. "The Board has failed to recognize and address the clear and indisputable pattern of violence and systemic racism against Indigenous people in Thunder Bay," he wrote.

The report persuaded the OCPC to declare an emergency, disband the police board and appoint a temporary administrator while the board's new members were given cultural training.

"It sent a message about how intractable the problem was," said Julian Falconer, a lawyer who has represented Indigenous organizations and families at inquests in Thunder Bay.

"It was huge. It sent shock waves across the province because it was such a severe remedy - it was very rare for that to ever happen."

Mr. Falconer said he still uses the Sinclair report for training purposes - to show police boards what they must not do. "His report was, frankly, a groundbreaker."

Two days before it was published, a report by the Office of Independent Police Review Director had made similar findings, after an inquiry sparked by discontent with the police handling of multiple deaths and disappearances in the Indigenous community. Within hours of that report's release, the Thunder Bay Police Service issued a statement acknowledging that systemic racism existed in the force.

Since then, Thunder Bay's police chief has announced a review of the force's investigations into the deaths of nine Indigenous people, going back more than a decade.

As he investigated the Thunder Bay police board, Mr. Sinclair found striking parallels to the issues he uncovered in Winnipeg in the late 1980s. "Despite the very apparent similarities in the operations of the two police forces, there were no tools or systems in place to counteract the history of bias that influences the way police officers function," he said.

"They're still recruiting police officers who have a macho tendency and police officers who are related to other police officers. We were told that 15 to 20 per cent of the Thunder Bay police force are related to each other."

But while his inquiries have made hundreds of detailed recommendations to improve Canada's justice and social systems, Mr. Sinclair's biggest passion is education. He wants Canadians to know the truth about their own history - and the legacy of that history.

During the Manitoba justice inquiry, he searched for a television network to carry the hearings, eventually finding a new cable company that would broadcast them across the province. "We were putting the relationship between aboriginal people and the justice system at the dinner table of everybody's house every day," he said.

"It influenced the thinking of Manitobans and caused them to realize that there was a lot of validity in what was being said, because it was being said by such honest people in such an open and forthright way."

Under his leadership, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) heard testimony from 6,500 witnesses in public hearings over four years, often with large audiences and almost all of them videotaped so that others could see them, too. It was so influential that Mr. Sinclair still receives almost daily notices of its report being cited in court judgments and scholarly articles, including almost 200 cases at the Supreme Court of Canada alone.

He still thinks the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, held from 2016 to 2019, could have had a greater impact if it had followed his practices in the Manitoba and TRC inquiries. "We pushed the lawyers out of the room, so there were no lawyers running the show," he said of those hearings.

"I think it was one of the failings of the inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women, and why it stumbled so often. I think the lawyers were too influential. Lawyers are trained to do things in a courtroom-type manner."

At the provincial and territorial level, Mr. Sinclair has supported efforts to overhaul school curriculums to include more Indigenous history, although those efforts have had little success. "Until we can get that knowledge basis in the curriculum, so that people can be educated fully about what the government has done, we will still have that population of deniers," he said.

He also promotes his education campaign on Twitter and Facebook. "There's an audience out there that looks to social media for information," he said. But that has led to a backlash that includes thousands of hate messages on social media and in e-mails. The hate doesn't bother him. "I'm too thick-skinned. I just block them."

A truthful education system, he believes, would shatter the myth of a benevolent Canadian government that couldn't possibly have been involved in genocide or apartheid. Genocide, he argues, doesn't necessarily mean the outright murder of people. It can be manifested in the forced sterilization of Indigenous women or the removal of children from their families to indoctrinate them in residential schools. It can also take the form of deliberate starvation of Indigenous people on the Prairies to remove them from the path of the railway, as happened under Sir John A. Macdonald.

In speeches, Mr. Sinclair describes how Canadian governments crushed Indigenous culture with laws to destroy traditional leadership, prohibit court challenges, ban protests and even outlaw the wearing of traditional garb. "They used the law as a weapon to take away Indigenous rights," he said in conversation with another Indigenous senator, Dan Christmas, to mark Indigenous History Month this year. "That war never really stopped, and there are still many people today who are still fighting that war."

When then-Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould spoke in 2017 about the parallels between Canada and South Africa, an editorial in The Globe questioned the accuracy of her comments. But a day later, in a Facebook post, Mr. Sinclair cited the historical evidence to support her. "Excuse me, but apartheid is exactly what happened here," he wrote.

Canada's apartheid era began after Confederation with laws that allowed a colonizing minority to seize power over an Indigenous majority in Western Canada, he said. "That apartheid system still exists. ... We do have a lot to learn from the South African experience. Never trust the colonizer's history."

During his inquiry into residential schools, Mr. Sinclair came across scholarly research that revealed how officials from South Africa had visited Canada to study the pass system of special travel permits and other rules that controlled the movement of Indigenous people. A nearly identical system was later adopted in apartheid South Africa. "They came to study how Canada did it - how Canada controlled such a large population of Indigenous people."

But the system of control in Canada comprised more than just laws. He borrows a psychological term, "gaslighting," to describe how Indigenous people were persuaded to blame themselves for their own poverty and to feel fortunate to be ruled by a benevolent government that had "saved" them from extinction.

"The perfect crime is not the unsolved crime. The perfect crime is when you convince the victim that he's at fault and the victim himself stands up and says, 'I was never the victim of a crime.' That's what gaslighting is. Indigenous people for the longest time believed it was something wrong with us, that we were weak, we were poor and it was our poverty that caused our situation."

When gaslighting loses its power, disenfranchised Indigenous people can embark on a path of frustration and anger that leads ultimately to violent rebellion, Mr. Sinclair warns, citing the theories of anti-colonial political philosopher Frantz Fanon, who had a huge influence on African liberation struggles.

"One of the most impressive Indigenous leaders I ever met was a young man who led a Winnipeg street gang," Mr. Sinclair said. "He could have been the head of a corporate executive team. He had the ability to think, to plan and to read financial statements, and he only had a Grade 10 education. ... When the gang leaders get out of jail, if they're frustrated and put their mind to organizing young people to start taking action against the white guy, they could become quite a social force."

For now, the Canadian government is doing just enough to appease the Indigenous community and keep it from taking up arms or organizing a broader protest movement, he said.

"I'm not sure we're that close yet. But as Fanon says, it won't take much."
Our Morning Update and Evening Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day's most important headlines. Sign up today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
truth and reconciliation commission canada

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Murray Sinclair has tried for years to shock Canada into confronting colonialism. He's not done yet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The words are so shocking, so evocative of foreign atrocities, that many Canadians are still unwilling to accept that they apply to their own country - words such as "apartheid," "genocide" and "war."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A pioneering postcolonial theorist and activist, who wrote in the 1960s in the context of the French occupation of Algeria, Frantz Fanon through his seminal works, The Wretched of the Earth (1961) and Black Skin, White Masks (1967), analysed the psychological effects of colonialism on both the coloniser and the colonised. Fanon argued that the native develops a sense of 'self' as defined by the 'colonial master' through representation and discourse, while the coloniser develops a sense of superiority. Fanon thus develops a psychoanalytical theory of postcolonialism where he suggests that the European "Self" develops in its relation and encounter with the "Other."

In an attempt to deal with the psychological inadequacy, the native tries to be as white as possible, by adopting the Western values, religion, language and practices of the White, and by rejecting his own culture. Fanon calls this phenomenon donning white masks over black skins resulting in a duality, and experiencing a schizophrenic atmosphere. Further the sense of inadequacy and insecurity in the colonised's psyche results in violence, which is a form of self-assertion.

Fanon argued that the sense of 'inadequacy and inferiority in the colonized's psyche results in violence, which according to the natives, is a form of self assertion. This violence even erupts against his ow natives, when the native realizes that he cannot become truly "white." Thus, tribal wars, for Fanon, are an instance of this violence, generated through the colonial system, where the natives turn against each other, haunted by a failure to turn against the colonial master.

In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon propounded idea of a national literature and a national culture, recognising the significance of cultural nationalism, leading to national consciousness. He attempted to plead for a greater, pan-African cause, as the blacks had to create their own histories and rewrite their stories. Fanon believed that such a national culture must take recourse to the African myths and cultural practices. He formulated the three stages in which a national culture is formed: 1) The native, under the influence of the coloniser's culture, seeks to emulate and assimilate it by discarding his own culture (what Homi K Bhabha later calls mimicry). 2) the native acknowledges the wide disparity and discovers that he can never be truly white or white enough for the coloniser to treat him as equal, and returns to study his own culture, with a romantic and celebratory mode. 3) However in the third stage, the native is truly anticolonial, accompanied by a critical analysis of his own culture.

However, Fanon also foresaw the flipside of cultural nationalism - that it may lead to xenophobia and intolerance. He realised that national culture had only a limited value, to help define the native culture against the overwhelming assault of the colonial. Another limitation of cultural nationalism that Fanon pointed out was that it would not ensure that the working classes and the oppressed would be remedied. Thus while his concept of cultural nationalism was representational, it was also materialistic and economical. He also proposed a dynamic culture that must be critically evaluated, and is responsive to the changing socio-historical circumstances. Yet another prophetic argument was that after political independence, the power struggle between the Coloniser and the native would reemerge in the form of that between the native elite and the rest of the postcolonial society, and that the oppression, exploitation and corruption continues, as reflected in Ayi Kwei Armah's The Beautiful Ones are Not Yet Born.

Categories: Literary Criticism, Literary Theory, Postcolonialism

Tags: Ayi Kwei Armah, Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon, The Beautiful Ones are Not Yet Born, The Wretched of the Earth, xenophobia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Frantz Fanon 's Contribution to Postcolonial Criticism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A pioneering postcolonial theorist and activist, who wrote in the 1960s in the context of the French occupation of Algeria, Frantz Fanon through his seminal works, The Wretched of the Earth (1961) and Black Skin, White Masks (1967), analysed the psychological effects of colonialism on both the coloniser and the colonised.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Colonialism is defined as "control by one power over a dependent area or people." In practice, colonialism is when one country violently invades and takes control of another country, claims the land as its own, and sends people - "settlers" - to live on that land.

There were two great waves of colonialism in recorded history. The first wave began in the 15th century, during Europe's Age of Discovery. During this time, European countries such as Britain, Spain, France, and Portugal colonized lands across North and South America. The motivations for the first wave of colonial expansion can be summed up as God, Gold, and Glory: God, because missionaries felt it was their moral duty to spread Christianity, and they believed a higher power would reward them for saving the souls of colonial subjects; gold, because colonizers would exploit resources of other countries in order to bolster their own economies; and glory, since European nations would often compete with one another over the glory of attaining the greatest number of colonies.

Colonial logic asserted that a place did not exist unless white people had seen it and testified to its existence, but European colonists did not actually discover any land. The "New World," as it was first called by Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian navigator and cartographer, was not new at all: People had been living and thriving in the Americas for centuries.

Yet, in many history books, Europe's expansion is remembered as exploration, and the men who helmed ships that landed in foreign countries - and proceeded to commit violence and genocide against native peoples - are remembered as heroes. One of these men, an Italian explorer named Christopher Columbus, even has a federally recognized holiday to honor him. Columbus thought he was on his way to Asia, but found himself in the Caribbean instead. The first indigenous people he came across were the Taíno, who accounted for the majority of people living on the island of Hispaniola (which is now divided into Haiti and the Dominican Republic). They had a highly evolved and complex culture. But this did not stop Columbus from claiming the island and its inhabitants for Spain. By 1550, a mere 58 years after he first landed on the island, what was once a thriving culture and community was severely decimated by European diseases and the brutality of a newly instated slave economy.

The second wave of colonial expansion began during the 19th century, centering around the African continent. In what is called the Scramble for Africa, European nations such as Britain, France, Portugal, and Spain sliced up the continent like a pie, creating arbitrary borders and boundaries, and claiming large swaths of land for themselves. These artificial borders split cultural groups, resulting in fierce ethnic tensions that have had devastating ramifications throughout the continent. Indigenous political, economic, and social institutions were decimated, as were traditional ways of life, which were deemed inferior.

Among the most brutal of colonial regimes was that of Belgium under King Leopold II, known as "the Butcher of Congo." His well-documented acts of violence against the Congolese people resulted in an estimated 10 million deaths. Belgium, like a lot of the white Western world, can directly attribute much of its wealth and prosperity to the exploitation and deaths of indigenous people of color.

The treatment of the indigenous people on the land now known as the United States is just as horrifying. The primarily British Europeans who settled here - just like the Europeans who settled in Africa and the rest of the Americas - overall did not care that there were people already living on the land. The majority did not want peace and harmony between cultures; they wanted the land for themselves. They did not want to share the abundant resources; they wanted to generate wealth to fill their own pockets. Most had no respect for indigenous cultures or histories; they wanted to enforce their own instead. These colonizers did not care that land was considered sacred and communal. Most believed that everything, including the earth, was meant to be bought and sold.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Colonialism Destroyed Cultures and Shaped the World

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Colonialism is defined as "control by one power over a dependent area or people." In practice, colonialism is when one country violently invades and takes control of another country, claims the land as its own, and sends people - "settlers" - to live on that land.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Last fall, in a church hall in Victoria, 20 women ranging in age from 30 to 60 gathered for a workshop in rug hooking. Midway through the class, organizer Sheila Stewart, owner of the Blue Heron Rug Hooking Studio in Victoria, leaned over and gave me an impromptu demonstration.

"You hold the hook in your palm," she said, placing the fat end of her wooden hook in her hand and grasping the narrow base between her thumb and fingers so that only the three-centimetre steel end was visible. It looked like a thick nail, bent at the tip to catch the loops of fabric.

I mentioned a callus that I got during the summer I spent rug hooking and interviewing rug hookers across Newfoundland for my graduate research. Stewart wasn't convinced it was caused by technique. "You have the wrong hook," she said with confidence. Stewart, it turns out, is serious about the craft. To her, and a growing number of women, the centuries-old practice is more than a passion. Rug hooking is business.

That link between craft and commerce is the narrative thread that runs through Home Economics: 150 Years of Canadian Hooked Rugs, an exhibition on now at the Textile Museum of Canada in Toronto. The show displays early rugs, which tended to have geometric or floral patterns and were influenced by the decorative arts, alongside pieces by contemporary artists working in the medium - sometimes in surprising formats. Take a three-rug sequence by Nova Scotia-born Hannah Epstein that's been digitized and runs in a continuous loop. In it, a human-ish cartoon being asks, "Am I an animal?" over and over. It's surely the only rug-hooked GIF in existence.

The piece marks an eye-popping shift in aesthetics from rug hooking's early days.

Compare Epstein's modern hooking to the work of Annie Hillier, the star rug hooker at Grenfell Handicrafts in St. Anthony, Nfld., and a fascinating trajectory takes shape.

Hillier works eight hours a week for the century-old organization, pulling loops of fabric the size and width of linguine through the holes in a burlap or linen base that's stretched tight across a wooden frame. Hillier can hook 80 loops per minute, an astonishing speed, shaping images of her northern home - colourful clapboard houses, clothing flapping on a line, an iceberg on the horizon and maybe a polar bear or two.

The pastoral scenes on Grenfell mats are hooked tight and low and the fabric is dyed to suit the pattern. Hillier, 72, is a second-generation employee: Her mother taught her how to hook rugs, and the two women would often work both sides of a mat to liven the pace of this notoriously slow craft. Hillier left to work in a fish plant as a hand-cutter (while raising seven children), but returned to mat making for Grenfell about 20 years ago.

Whether for vocational purposes or in-home practicality, rug hooking has always been dominated by women, and hooking for Grenfell has been a livelihood for generations of them in northern Newfoundland. At first, women were paid in clothing and medical services, but later they earned an income by selling mats on commission. Today, Grenfell hookers get two-thirds of the retail price of the mats, with the rest going to support the Grenfell House Museum and historical premises. Hillier works at home and is paid on commission, and the earnings are unpredictable. "Some weeks you might sell no mats and next week you might sell three or four," Hillier says. "That's how mat hooking is."

The Textile Museum's exhibit draws on the long-standing link in rug hooking between art and enterprise. "We were interested in rugs as an art form and craft practice but also wanted to look at the social history and the connection between craft and commerce that's always been there," Shauna McCabe, the museum's executive director, says. "There's never been a separation between the craft of rug hooking and the economy of craft and domestic life."

The origins of rug hooking are murky, but it's possible the skill came ashore with French and English fishers who immigrated to North America in the early 19th century, where it was first introduced in New England, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. The history of rural Canadians is hooked into the earliest mats: Worn farm shirts, outgrown children's clothing and threadbare shift dresses were all torn into strips then looped into rugs that warmed bare floors in homesteads from Atlantic to Western Canada.

The rise of collecting culture spawned rug-hooking cottage industries in the late 1800s and early 20th century, the most prolific being that of British doctor Sir Wilfred Grenfell, who operated a handicraft industry in St. Anthony that supported his medical mission in Newfoundland and Labrador. Similar craft-based economies sprang up in Chéticamp, N.S., and parts of rural Quebec.

As in Hillier's case, the skill was originally passed on from mother to daughter. Then, for a time, it wasn't passed on at all. "What so often happens is that it skips a generation," says Stewart. She remembers her Nova Scotian grandmother hooking rugs, but not her mother. Industrialization, women entering the work force and even wall-to-wall carpet played a role in this shift. In most cases, however, the generational skip was deliberate. Rug hooking was associated with poverty. Women didn't want their daughters working with scraps to get by.

Today neophyte hookers can learn by taking courses, purchasing do-it-yourself kits and following demos on YouTube. It's a more non-linear form of training, but a sense of identity and belonging remains inherent to the craft's culture. Saskatchewan artist Karlie King says the link between rug hooking and her Métis heritage came as a surprise. She'd learned to hook in the arts and crafts community while living in St. John's, but after moving back home she realized the craft was practised by her elders.

"There was, at one point, a very rich Métis tradition of hooked rugs, and what I discovered was that the technique and designs were very much akin to Newfoundland rug hooking," says King, whose two young children are now adept hookers. She's intrigued by the historical questions this raises, but hasn't had time to tie the threads together.

Perhaps what's most interesting about contemporary rug hookers is how the past informs the present in their work. Another piece by Epstein in the Textile Museum exhibition incorporates the economy of rug hooking into her art practice. In a comment on the somewhat absurd valuation system of the art market, Epstein and fellow artists created Cool Cash by printing, sculpting, knitting and hooking dollar bills in various denominations.

"I made them thinking about the Chéticamp rugs that, when you flip them over, are made by the square inch because the women would be paid by how many squares they could finish in a day," says Epstein, who now lives in Pittsburgh and attends Carnegie Mellon University. "There was something I liked about measuring labour like that. Invisible on the surface but revealed on the back."

Epstein's Cool Cash is not so different from Annie Hillier's hooked mats, which are also a form of currency.

These days, much of the craft's market has moved online, where an increasingly diverse culture of hookers buy and sell not only finished pieces but fabric, patterns, stand cutters and, of course, a variety of hooks.

"Makers have always found a way to make the economy work for them," McCabe says.
Home Economics: 150 Years of Canadian Hooked Rugs continues at Toronto's Textile Museum of Canada until Feb. 8 (Hookers to watch Deanne Fitzpatrick, Nova Scotia Yvonne Mullock, Alberta Joanna Close, Nova Scotia Barbara Klunder, Ontario Heather Goodchild, Ontario textilemuseum.ca).
Every Canadian hooker working today knows Fitzpatrick, who has been creating work, writing books, offering courses and selling supplies out of her studio in Amherst, N.S., for 25 years. Her rugs are alive with movement, informed by both her technique and aesthetic. She also sells her DIY kits and her rugs online. hookingrugs.com

Mullock's Hit and Miss mat, hooked in a Calgary art gallery with people from the surrounding community (and their clothing), puts a new spin on the meaning of local. Her Use Me mat is installed on gallery floors, asking everyone who walks on it to question the art/craft and decorative/utilitarian divide. yvonnemullock.com

Close's hooked images of her family farm are a testament to a former home, landscape and way of life. The sentiment is equal parts nostalgic and political, but the work in this series is 100-per-cent beautiful. joannaclose.com

Klunder's background as an illustrator and graphic designer shines in her hooked rugs that are stylized but abstract, with hints of graffiti art and cave painting. barbaraklunder.com

Atmospheric and emotionally charged, Goodchild's rugs are filled with threatening weather and mythic creatures, providing a hooked link to a beautiful, if somewhat terrifying, fantasy world. heathergoodchild.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How the old domestic craft of rug hooking has found its way into talented new hands

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Last fall, in a church hall in Victoria, 20 women ranging in age from 30 to 60 gathered for a workshop in rug hooking. Midway through the class, organizer Sheila Stewart, owner of the Blue Heron Rug Hooking Studio in Victoria, leaned over and gave me an impromptu demonstration.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It's unusual to root for your own country to lose power in the world, but that's what British dissidents did during the British Empire's heyday, and perhaps it's what Canadians should do today, argues Cambridge University scholar, Priyamvada Gopal.

In 1882, Wilfrid Blunt lost his faith in his native England's claims of goodness and 'fair play.' He'd just watched his country brutally put down a rebellion by starving Egyptians.

Despite being a mid-level aristocrat and horse-loving Conservative, Blunt found himself siding with the 'enemy,' and grew into a full-fledged anti-colonialist. He later went to jail for protesting Britain's rule over Ireland.

"British critics of empire say they were compelled and instructed by contact with Asian and African campaigners," Gopal told IDEAS. Her new book, Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent examines a century of dissent on the question of empire and shows how British critics of empire were influenced by rebellions and resistance in the colonies, from the West Indies and East Africa to Egypt and India.

Gopal argues that Europe's modern ideas about democracy and liberalism owe much to anti-imperialist thinkers and activists from around the colonized world - including those who were not exactly democrats themselves, like the 19th-century activist Sayyid Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī or Egypt's Colonel Ahmed Urabi, both of whom strongly influenced Blunt.

Later, figures such as the Trinidadian-born writers C.L.R. James and George Padmore became influential members of the London left in the 1930s, socializing with the likes of George Orwell and Independent Labour Party members.

Parallels in 'hypocrisy'

For Gopal, an anti-colonial viewpoint is a must for people who want to lay claim to high-minded ideals of equality and social justice.

"You can't claim that you are for human rights, and you are for democracy ... and also not be an anti-colonialist," she said.

This raises the stakes for Canadians today, who might be willing to cheer for Blunt's dissident views in the 1880s, but still balk at the anti-colonial critiques of their own country now.

For instance, Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, head of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, points to Canadian politicians' willingness to voice support for the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, while acting without the "free and informed consent" of all Indigenous nations in cases such as the Trans Canada pipeline expansion project.

"It's an absolute hypocrisy," said Phillip.

"I'm very struck by the parallels," Gopal said, comparing Canada's relationship to Indigenous nations with the British Empire's treatment of its colonies in the 19th and 20th centuries.

She argues that there are many reasons why a powerful empire's long-term best interests might be served by giving up its own power.

"The things done in your name, they will come back and bite you," said Gopal.

Gopal believes the anti-colonial alternative of choosing not to dominate can have potentially great benefits.

"We do need to find a different way of relating to each other," argued Gopal.

"If we don't do that, if we don't embrace sincerely the principles of egalitarianism, then we are headed for extinction."
Guests in this episode:

** This episode includes recordings of C.L.R. James from the Studs Terkel Radio Archive. It was produced by Tom Howell.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
If you support human rights you're obliged to be an anti-colonialist, argues scholar | CBC Radio

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At the height of the British Empire, many Britons came to a radical conclusion - perhaps the empire shouldn't exist. They decided that Britain's claim to be doing good for the world, spreading freedom and democracy was a fraud. Priyamvada Gopal examines a century of dissent on the question of empire in her new book.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The 20th anniversary of one of the most important court cases in the history of Indigenous land and title rights is being celebrated in British Columbia today.

The decision in Delgamuukw v. British Columbia was delivered on Dec. 11, 1997, setting a precedent for how treaty rights are understood in Canadian courts, affirming the recognition of oral testimony from Indigenous people.

Yvonne Lattie says the case was significant because it gave legal support to the Gitxsan people's understanding of their relationship with both the land and the government.

"[The decision recognized] that we have rights and responsibilities, that we can now speak and be acknowledged as having never surrendered our lands or our territories," Lattie said.

Wah Tah Keg'ht (Henry Alfred) was one of the Wet'suwet'en leaders who testified in the courts. He said he was pleased to see the case being celebrated 20 years later because he got involved for future generations.

"It's not for me I'm going to the courts," he remembers saying.

"It's for my grandchildren, great grandchildren, great-great grandchildren. I don't want to see them pushed around."

Precedent-setting case

The Delgamuukw decision stemmed from a 1984 case launched by the leaders of the Gitxsan and Wet'suwet'en First Nations, who took the provincial government to court to establish jurisdiction over 58,000 square kilometres of land and water in northwest British Columbia.

In 1991, B.C.'s Supreme Court ruled that any rights the First Nations may have had over the land were legally extinguished when British Columbia became part of Canada in 1871. The Nations appealed and eventually the case made its way into the Supreme Court of Canada, which found treaty rights could not be extinguished, confirmed oral testimony is as legitimate as other forms of evidence and stated Indigenous title rights include not only land, but the right to extract resources from the land.

The case has been widely cited as an influencing factor in future court decisions, including the 2014 Tishqot'in decision which further established the existence of Indigenous title to non-treatied land in British Columbia.​

Modern inspiration

The case also helped set the stage for other reconciliation initiatives, said Leona Prince, vice-principal of aboriginal education for school district 91 in northwest B.C.

A member of the Lake Babine Nation, Prince was a high school student in nearby Burns Lake when Delgamuukw was underway. She said the case inspired her to push for a First Nations 12 course at her school, and later prompted her to work to incorporate Indigenous culture and knowledge into B.C.'s education system.

"It was the early stages of let's see some change, let's acknowledge traditional values, traditional lands and culture within our educational and judicial systems," she said. "It was huge."

Writing for CBC earlier this year, journalist Trevor Jang explained what the case means to him.

"I didn't find pride in my Wet'suwet'en identity until I learned about my great-grandfather and the impact he had on First Nations land rights in Canada," he said.

"Johnny David, who held the hereditary chief name Mikhlikhlekh, was the first Wet'suwet'en chief to give evidence... The impact of their words helped to shape the government's legal obligation to consult First Nations when proposing resource development projects on traditional lands."
With files from George Baker, Nicole Oud and Carolina de Ryk

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
20 years ago, this court case changed the way Canadians understood Indigenous rights | CBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The 20th anniversary of one of the most important court cases in the history of Indigenous land and title rights is being celebrated in British Columbia today. The decision in Delgamuukw v. British Columbia was delivered on Dec. 11, 1997, setting a precedent for how treaty rights are understood in Canadian courts, affirming the recognition of oral testimony from Indigenous people.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I've included this twitter exchange as context, and I'm addressing Claude, who by the way is the one who described HIMSELF as an "angry settler". However, Claude in this case is a stand in for all of the "angry settlers" who for the most part, claim to support Indigenous peoples in our struggles, just not when it "takes [them] hostage".

We all need to really think about what Claude is squirting out of his word-hole. He states that Indigenous people are putting his family's well-being and safety at stake (risk). Let's unpack that.

Indigenous peoples are engaged in PEACEFUL actions. Where land defenders have stationed themselves outside buildings, providing information and putting pressure on policy-makers, these actions have been compared to labour actions, and in fact have been respected as such. Meaning, a number of unions have come out with statements that they regard these actions the same as they would a strike, and they will not cross that picket line. Dr. Glen Coulthard recently cited Harsha Walia as arguing the same consideration should be given to land defence.

The labour comparison can take us further, because we have been experiencing a steady erosion of labour rights, rights that were hard fought for, and hard won. At the core of that steady erosion is the manipulation of public opinion, which invariably paints labour actions as "threatening safety". How? By withdrawing labour, health workers "threaten" public health, striking teachers "threaten" the ability of parents to work and put students at academic risk, picketing construction workers "threaten" the economy, etc etc.

More and more we have seen governments tabling back-to-work legislation, and criminalizing labour actions, all in the name of "public safety". The particular bargaining unit in any given situation is demonized: they are greedy, lazy, paradoxically "essential" while also being completely replaceable and unimportant.

I point all this out to show you that any segment of the population can be rendered "the enemy", even those who are supposedly "protected" by unions. Those without robust labour protections are even more vulnerable to the rhetoric of "public safety".

Indigenous peoples have ALWAYS been scapegoated as a danger to settler society. Rooted in racist tropes of our savagery and unsuitability to the modern world, we are often portrayed as threat. And what is the threat we present at this moment? Some folks are refusing to be evicted from their land. In solidarity, other folks are blocking, or camping alongside railway tracks. No one is quantifying or qualifying what this ACTUALLY means in terms of real impact. In fact, we recently learned that the CN and Canadian Pacific had come together to broker a "work around" to keep essential supplies flowing.

So at this point of Claude's descent into angry settlerhood, the danger is an amorphous, existential threat. Not directed at him and his family though. Rather, the railway is a symbol of Confederation in a tangible, but also very mythological sense. The "threat" people are responding to is mostly (I believe) based in the feeling that we threaten Canadian coherence.

It is vital to remember, Indigenous peoples have not harmed anyone. We have not attacked, beaten, or threatened anyone. We have not pointed guns at Claude's wife or children, not even at Claude. We have not removed Claude's children and forced them into residential schools. We have not criminalized Claude's family, locked up his relatives, administrated his poverty, created legislation to specifically discriminate against him and his family, nor have we engaged the media over centuries to vilify him and his family, then scold him for getting upset. We have not removed generation after generation of Claude's family, forced them to speak another language, punished them for practicing their culture, physically or sexually abused them, sterilized them, sent them far away to hospitals where some of them simply disappeared.

I could go on, for a long, long time. I hope you get my point. The violence that Canada is inflicting, right now, on Indigenous peoples is real. It is intense. It murders us, it pardons our murderers, it poisons us in the name of "the greater good", it turns society against us.

What Indigenous peoples are facing is no existential threat, it is a tsunami of death and pain and torment, every single day. It is REAL.

Claude merely *imagines* what *might* happen if his fantasies about the savagery of the Indian play out. Claude wants us punished and harmed because he is afraid, because he has bad thoughts, and his fears consume him. Claude justifies his cowardice and racism by invoking the figures of his wife and child.

Well listen, Claude, and the rest of settlerdom. You and your families are absolutely being harmed. You are at risk. And it has nothing at all, NOTHING, to do with Indigenous people.

Your labour rights are being eroded by neoliberal governments. Your lives are becoming increasingly precarious as the quality of your labour protections are stripped away; you work longer hours for less pay, in more dangerous circumstances, and if you complain you risk losing even the scraps left to you. Your healthcare systems are being systematically stripped to make way for privatized healthcare. Doctors are leaving in droves, maybe you cannot even find a family doctor. Your health coverage means less and less each passing year, and as you age, you need more care, not less.

Your environment is poisoning you. If you, like most Canadians, are located in an urban centre, environmental pollution is cutting down your life expectancy, and that of your children. It is bestowing upon you disorders, allergies, diseases. Outside the cities, the land and waters are still sickened. The animals are ill. It all affects you too.

Your education system is being torn apart in the service of neo-liberalism. Your class sizes soar, and your children suffer, directly, in reality, not just in your fears. Housing is becoming a dream, a thing your children may never actually have for their own as they are priced out not just of home ownership, but even rentals. The "gig" economy has them stretched to the breaking point just trying to make ends meet, just trying to access minimums.

Claude, if you aren't absolutely terrified for the well-being and safety of your family over all this, then you are in deep, deep denial. But I don't think you are unaware of all this. In fact, I think it leaves you sleepless sometimes.

I think worrying about all of these realities actively harms your health, because it's truly awful shit. And the worst part is, I think you feel helpless to keep your family safe, because these threats are hurtling towards you from every side. You don't have a second to breathe because the hits keep coming.

Indigenous peoples are not your enemies. Indigenous peoples are not threatening or harming your family. In fact, we are ALL being harmed by the things Indigenous peoples are fighting against. On top of that we are being harmed in ways you are not.

When you paint us as a threat to your wife and kids, when you let all your pent up fear and stress and feelings of hopelessness coalesce into a fight response aimed at us, you relieve some deep down need in yourself to DO SOMETHING.

But the rational part of you absolutely needs to recognize that you actively make your family more unsafe by doing this, by scapegoating us, and by ignoring the larger picture, the picture where you are only valued slightly higher than Indigenous peoples, because of your skin colour, your support for the settler colonial state, your health, your cishetero presentation, your socioeconomic class. And if you slip up, get sick, get too queer, slip down the rungs of prosperity, you'll only slightly less reviled than we are.

Ignoring all of this is the real danger to your family. If you love them as much as you almost certainly do, then you need to fight for a better now, and an even better future. You aren't going to accomplish any of that by making us the enemy, "the threat". Instead you actively shore up the power of the state that DOES. NOT. LOVE. YOU.

êkosi.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I've included this twitter exchange as context, and I'm addressing Claude, who by the way is the one who described HIMSELF as an "angry settler". However, Claude in this case is a stand in for all of the "angry settlers" who for the most part, claim to support Indigenous peoples in our struggles, just not when it "takes [them] hostage".

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Some things are glaringly racist - being called racial slurs, being attacked for looking or sounding different, being mistreated because of skin colour. Most of us can probably agree these things are racist.

These fit into the established understanding of racism - 'the belief that one's own racial or ethnic group is superior' - as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary.

But these basic definitions can miss crucial aspects of the true meaning of racism - power dynamics, prejudice, and structural racism.

Professor Peter Wade, a sociologist from the University of Manchester, tells us how racism more complex and insidious than the traditional definition, explaining that it is a system of oppression that has historically existed and continues to do so against minorities and debilitating their lives in covert and overt ways.

Peter tells Metro.co.uk: 'Racism is an ideology and a practice that produces a society in which some people systematically have less access to resources, power, security, and well-being than others.

'These systemic inequalities reflect hierarchical differences between people originally created by colonialism, which produced patterns of historical inequality that make it difficult for certain people to access opportunities and resources.'

If our understanding of racism is that it's only when people knowingly believe they are superior, then we are actively ignoring the true insidious ways it operates.

It's important to understand that racism is much more than outright thinking one race is better than the other. Most of us probably don't go around thinking our skin is better than the colour of other people's skin.

Changing the definition of racism could bridge the current disconnect between those oppressed and those doing the oppressing.

So what definition of racism do you hold and is it time to change it?

Things that don't fit into the traditional definition of racism but may still contribute to it:

How has the meaning of racism changed?

The definition of racism we hold today is still pretty much the same one that was established in its earliest use of the word.

The earliest is dated all the way back in 1880, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, when racism was referred to as when 'we all incline to consider the caucasian superior to the other races of the genus homo'.

By the end of World War II racism had acquired the same supremacist connotations formerly associated with it but with an added element of racial discrimination, racial supremacism and a harmful intent.

As a result of that enduring definition, racism is often thought of as something that happened in the past or is something that is only committed by evil people who think they are superior.

This is why so many people's experiences of racism are dismissed as not actually racist - because this past definition doesn't encapsulate racism today.

In her groundbreaking work White Fragility, Robin Diangelo refers to this as the good/bad binary. If we define racism as something that only bad people commit then, of course, most of us are not racist.

Robin explains: 'The most effective adaptation of racism over time is the idea that racism is conscious bias held by mean people. If we are not aware of having negative thoughts about people of color, don't tell racist jokes, are nice people, and even have friends of color, then we cannot be racist.

'Thus, a person is either racist or not racist; if a person is racist, that person is bad; if a person is not racist, that person is good. Although racism does, of course, occur in individual acts, these acts are part of a larger system that we all participate in.'

Our current understanding of the concept needs to evolve to show that good, honest people can do racism too and that they can uphold the structures that prop up racism.

Because, at the end of the day, 'race is a social construction', says Dr. Zuleyka Zevallos, Adjunct Research Fellow at Swinburne University.

'Race is a system of classification and stratification, based on perceived biological differences.

'Race is stratification because these categories rank some groups as superior to others. It's not based on some innate and immutable scientific fact.'

How do we take on this meaning of racism?

If we understand that racism isn't just about intention and is rather upheld by systems and individual acts (no matter how well-meaning the individual), we can begin the work to be anti-racist.

Being anti-racist means actively doing the work to challenge racism, not acting defensively when confronted with it, and passing on the message.

Rima Sani, a lecturer in sociology at Middlesex University, tells us that it is a conscious effort.

She says: 'To become anti-racist is to realise the subtle, less subtle and institutional prejudices which you contribute to, either knowingly or unknowingly and being committed to change.

'It's not enough to claim to not be a racist because whether over the dinner table or on a drunken night out [or generally in day-to-day life], your deep-seated prejudices will be exposed.'

Those biases may even be exposed without you realising - those affected by your words or actions may not call you out on it.

It's vital to remember the challenges to approaching the topic of racism. Those who dare to bring it up risk making others feel uncomfortable, losing their personal and professional standing, or experiencing further criticism in response.

And for those who don't understand racism, it can be difficult to ask about it for fear of looking uncultured or insensitive in an era where cancel culture prevails.

The answer is to do the work - read things such as Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race, Brit(ish), Natives, It's Not About the Burqa and much much more. Listen to those around you, observe things, and call out problematic behaviours.

But, remember that you will never arrive at true racial awareness, it's an ever-evolving process. You just have to be open, listen, and take appropriate action.

It begins, first, with changing your definition of racism.

The State of Racism

We need to be able to talk about racism.

Do you have a story to share? Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk. Share your views in the comments below.
MORE: The damaging psychological impact of constantly having to explain racism

MORE: The State of Racism: Why our new series will explore racism in the UK

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Don't think you're racist? These definitions will open your eyes

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Some things are glaringly racist - being called racial slurs, being attacked for looking or sounding different, being mistreated because of skin colour. Most of us can probably agree these things are racist. These fit into the established understanding of racism - 'the belief that one's own racial or ethnic group is superior' - as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC is the provincial voice for faculty and staff in BC teaching universities, colleges and institutes, and in private sector institutions. FPSE member locals, represented by Presidents' Council and the Executive, represent over 10,000 faculty and staff at 18 public and 12 private sector institutions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Whose Land Is It Anyway? A Manual for Decolonization

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC is the provincial voice for faculty and staff in BC teaching universities, colleges and institutes, and in private sector institutions. FPSE member locals, represented by Presidents' Council and the Executive, represent over 10,000 faculty and staff at 18 public and 12 private sector institutions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As academics in a post-truth world, I believe we have an urgent and important task. In a world where emotional appeals and emotive decision-making are seemingly the norm, academia should be in the business of truth. Rather than lament reality, we should be revealing the reasons for the possibility of our reality and charting a path that unveils the possibility for change.

I believe that, as academics, we have a responsibility to shine a light into the darkness of post-truth, to reveal the illusions and historical erasures that have enabled post-factuality. Thus, decolonisation continues to be urgent, timely and necessary. But how can we decolonise anything, if we do not know what decolonisation means?

Tshepo Madlingozi, Chair for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa, describes decolonisation as "always a disruptive phenomenon". In other words, decolonising the university requires deep and radical changes, not only to the content of what we teach, but also the character of higher education institutions and the driving logics of education systems and structures.

Decolonisation entails identifying, unveiling and interrupting, within our academic practice and structures, the persisting remnants of Empire - what exponents of Latin American decolonial thought such as Walter Mignolo and Nelson Maldonado-Torres call 'coloniality'.

Knowledge and power

According to Gurminder Bhambra, co-editor of Decolonising the University, decolonisation repositions colonialism, empire and racism as foundational to the current state and study of the world, making what has been rendered invisible, visible, ie the historical and geographical meanings of our epistemologies and their representations.

By acknowledging these epistemic absences and violences, decolonisation offers to the university, and the world, alternative ways of thinking about the effects of power differentials in knowledge production, transmission and exchange. Decolonisation offers an avenue to disrupt historically and geographically racialised and hierarchised epistemic hegemonies.

Over the past few years within United Kingdom higher education, there have been increasing demands for decolonisation. These demands have often come from academic staff and students who belong to poorly represented racialised and gendered populations.

In response to these demands, universities have adopted measures such as: 'internationalising the curriculum', 'inclusive curricula' or schemes that promote 'student voice'.

There has also been more focus on widening participation; adding authors from racialised populations to reading lists; recruiting staff from underrepresented populations etc.

Furthermore, increasing attention is being paid to equality, diversity, inclusion and representation. Yet these measures are often inaccurately conflated with decolonisation - without critical thought, representation can become toxic and tokenistic, people could be included into spaces that are not safe for them, spaces historically and repeatedly designed to harm and exclude them.

Diversity is a fact of life that cannot be promoted without explaining why it has been demoted. General statements of equality often ignore the process of othering and set an unequal normative standard of equality. Therefore, in all these schemes we focus on what we are fighting for, rather than what we should be fighting against - colonial logics of commodification of space, nature, humanity and variably valued labour.

Tick-box exercises

Consequently, within a neoliberal university, lazy attempts at decolonisation run a considerable risk of being co-opted for tick-boxing and numbers-based diversity schemes that maintain and entrench the status quo.

In fact, most 'decolonisation' efforts in UK higher education fall short of actual decolonisation and are driven by these colonial logics. In other words, decolonisation is becoming a metaphor for ahistorical and performative attempts at social justice that do the opposite of the aims of decolonisation, ie rather than disrupt, these attempts preserve the university structure and reify Whiteness at the academy.

This is because the ontology of the neoliberal university operates to obscure its own complicity in creating and maintaining its own colonial knowledge hierarchies.

This neoliberal university is signified by: regular inspections and auditing according to un-decolonised criteria; fees and migratory structures that keep out citizens of the Global South except for the extremely advantaged; empty promises of social mobility to internal disadvantaged populations; competitive research frameworks that privilege research ratings over the actual global value of the research; treating students as consumers and degrees as individual investments etc.

Decolonisation seeks to disrupt the colonial logics of commodification of space, nature, humanity and variably valued labour. Yet the neoliberal university can only survive through the colonial logics of commodification of space, nature, humanity and variably valued labour.

The potential for decolonisation

What then can the decolonial scholar within the neoliberal university do? One suggestion is to look for alternatives to hegemonical knowledge practices outside or within the neoliberal university.

Thus, the decolonial scholar can create spaces for decolonial thought cultivation within the university. But these must be understood as not being decolonisation itself but generating the potential for decolonisation.

Furthermore, this process cannot be engaged in without understanding that not only our universities but also our disciplines are conceptually ill-equipped to centre unrepresented populations, as the university and her disciplines have been complicit in making those populations unrepresented.

As Audre Lorde says: "The master's tools cannot dismantle the master's house." Therefore, the process of decolonisation and creating the possibility of decolonisation requires decolonial scholars with decolonised minds.

Because even if the structure within which to decolonise does not yet exist, it can be built... by decolonial scholars with decolonised minds, ready to abandon the safety and privilege of the master's house to build new structures of knowledge within which we can imagine and bring to life new worlds constructed to include all of us.
Foluke Adebisi is senior lecturer in law at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom. This article first appeared on University World News. Reposted on Critical Legal Thinking with permission.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Decolonisation Is Not About Ticking a Box: It Must Disrupt

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As academics in a post-truth world, I believe we have an urgent and important task. In a world where emotional appeals and emotive decision-making are seemingly the norm, academia should be in the business of truth. Rather than lament reality, we should be revealing the reasons for the possibility of our reality and charting a path that unveils the possibility for change.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Always cute, always unique stationery and school supplies. We are a one stop stationery store bringing happiness worldwide with free global shipping.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
CURRENT ISSUE

Our March/April 2020 issue asks vital questions about the place of craft in a fast-changing world. As the Crafts Council's new London gallery opens, leading practitioners involved in its inaugural exhibition emphasise the life-affirming nature of making, while a new generation of fashion and jewellery designers adapt to the times, using artisanal skills to challenge and provoke. We assess the impact of Grymsdyke Farm, a laboratory for experimental making in rural Buckinghamshire, and visit the home of ceramicist Carol McNicoll, where high and low art and craft are jumbled together in an exuberant collage.

Elsewhere in the issue, we talk performance and pottery with rising star Shawanda Corbett, eye up a sugary feast by food historian Ivan Day and ask Australian artist Yhonnie Scarce about the inspiration behind her art, which shines a light on the oppression of Aboriginal people.

Buy this Issue Subscribe

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
CURRENT ISSUE Our March/April 2020 issue asks vital questions about the place of craft in a fast-changing world. As the Crafts Council's new London gallery opens, leading practitioners involved in its inaugural exhibition emphasise the life-affirming nature of making, while a new generation of fashion and jewellery designers adapt to the times, using artisanal skills to challenge and provoke.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"The time seems opportune; indeed, the cracks in the existing relationship are coming starkly to the fore all across the country, and it should be apparent by now that trying to preserve the status quo is futile."

Those words are almost a quarter-century old now. They could have been written yesterday.

That quote comes from the 1996 report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) which sought to examine Canada's relationship with Indigenous peoples and offer some proposals for reform.

The commission itself was born at a time when many thought the wheels were coming off Confederation. Commissioned by then-prime minister Brian Mulroney in 1991, it began its work following the death of the Meech Lake Accord (which was rejected in part by First Nations because they were left out of the process) and the alarming 78-day standoff in Oka, Que., between Mohawk protestors, police and the army.

By the time the commission's 4,000-page final report was published, other conflicts had popped up - in Ipperwash, Ont. and Gustafson Lake, B.C.

The recent eruptions in the Crown-Indigenous relationship - over pipelines, territorial sovereignty and the use of rail blockades as a protest tactic - don't mirror the situation that faced the commission back in the 1990s.

But at a time when many Canadians are wondering where a path forward for that relationship can be found, it's worth remembering that we've been here before. And some of the proposals that have been gathering dust for 24 years are worth a second look.

'A new beginning'

Over four years, the members of the commission visited 96 communities and held 178 days of public hearings to produce a massive document that outlined a strategy to build what the commission called a "new beginning with Indigenous peoples."

"In just 20 years," the report said, "the revitalization of many self-reliant Aboriginal nations can be accomplished, and the staggering human and financial cost of supporting communities unable to manage for themselves will end."

That was over 20 years ago now. In the years since, little has changed for Indigenous people in Canada. Partly that was due to a lack of political will; partly it was due to a federal fiscal situation that put deficit-cutting at the top of the priority queue.

There were moments, over those two decades, when it seemed to some that a new Crown-Indigenous relationship was within reach. The Kelowna Accord, championed by then-prime minister Paul Martin in 2005, sought to close funding gaps and bring all parties to the table to negotiate new agreements. It died with Martin's government in 2006; the accord itself was never supported by Stephen Harper and his Conservative government.

Another window opened in 2008 when Harper delivered a formal apology in the House of Commons for the residential school system. That apology, itself a direct response to the RCAP report, was followed by the establishment of a federal program for compensation of former residential school students and the launch of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

But RCAP was far more ambitious and comprehensive than any of that.

It called on Canada to build an entirely new framework to recognize Indigenous rights through the negotiation of modern treaties, treaty renewal, new agreements on independent or shared jurisdiction and new fiscal arrangements.

Still 'relevant'

When asked about RCAP around the 20th anniversary of the report, one of the commission's co-chairs, George Erasmus, said the "recommendations are still very, very useful" and still "relevant."

The current Liberal government clearly agrees; it has said it's using RCAP as a blueprint. Its attempt to legislate a Rights Recognition framework in 2018 was built on the report's recommendations and on the notion that Indigenous rights should be recognized as a starting point for any negotiations. After some behind-the-scenes friction between then-justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and other cabinet members over timing, and complaints about a lack of Indigenous consultation, the legislative project was shelved.

Which brings us up to mid-February and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's statement in the House of Commons on the blockades. In it, Trudeau pointed out a painfully obvious fact: the dire state of the Crown-Indigenous relationship is the result of decades of government inertia and indifference.

"It is past time for this situation to be resolved," he said. "However, what we are facing was not created overnight. It was not created because we have embarked upon a path of reconciliation recently in our history. It is because for too long in our history, for too many years, we failed to do so."

The idea of rights recognition didn't vanish entirely with the failure of the framework. Ottawa joined forces with British Columbia and First Nations to provide a space to talk about rights and self-determination. Right now, some 23 First Nations in B.C. are engaged in some sort of discussions about their future. Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Carolyn Bennett has said she still believes those discussions could provide a template for other First Nations across the country.

But the RCAP report contains hundreds of detailed recommendations that could transform this country and the lives of Indigenous Peoples. None of it could happen quickly; much of the hard work is starting decades late. That's something all sides likely would be willing to acknowledge.

The authors of RCAP knew what they were suggesting was ambitious, but possible. "What we propose is fundamental, sweeping and perhaps disturbing - but also exciting, liberating, ripe with possibilities," they wrote.

The best time to start working on this was over 20 years ago. In the current fraught climate, getting started won't be any easier now than it was back then.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Over 20 years ago, we had a plan to repair the Crown-Indigenous relationship. What happened? | CBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"The time seems opportune; indeed, the cracks in the existing relationship are coming starkly to the fore all across the country, and it should be apparent by now that trying to preserve the status quo is futile." Those words are almost a quarter-century old now. They could have been written yesterday.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Knitting won't just result in a new sweater - research has found the hobby can also reduce depression and anxiety, slow the onset of dementia, and distract from chronic pain.

Published by Knit for Peace, the findings are the result of extensive research into previous studies analysing the benefits of knitting, as well as the initiative's own research.

According to Knit for Peace, a network of over 15,000 knitters in the UK who knit for people in need, there is substantial evidence that suggests knitting is beneficial to a healthy mind and body.

Download the new Independent Premium app

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

The group decided to investigate the matter after numerous members reported improved overall health after taking up the hobby - and it turns out the relaxing craft can be credited for numerous health benefits.

"There is an enormous amount of research showing that knitting has physical and mental health benefits, that it slows the onset of dementia, combats depression and distracts from chronic pain," states the report.

One of the studies, a 2007 study conducted by Harvard Medical School's Mind and Body Institute, found that knitting lowers heart rate, by an average of 11 beats per minute, and induces an "enhanced state of calm," similar to that of yoga.

In addition to its calming effects, knitting a quilt or a pair of mittens can distract from chronic pain - as focus is turned elsewhere. And the repetitive movements required to create a pattern release calming serotonin, which can lift moods and dull pain, according to the findings.

And a 2011 study conducted by the Mayo Clinic of over 70-year-olds found that those who knit had a "diminished chance of developing mild cognitive impairment and memory loss."

Additionally, the hobby, which is often associated with elderly, can help fight loneliness, a plague that affects 1.2 million older people in the UK, and increase a sense of usefulness and inclusion.

"It is a sociable activity that helps overcome isolation and loneliness, too often a feature of old age. It is a skill that can continue when sight and strength are diminished," the report states.

The findings were also supported by Knit for Peace's own survey of 1,000 members.

According to the survey, 70 per cent stated they believe that knitting improves their health - the main reason being that it makes them feel relaxed.

Survey respondents also revealed that knitting helps them deal with chronic pain, with 21.4 per cent reporting knitting helps relieve the pain of arthritis.

Knit for Peace hopes the findings will encourage more people to take up knitting, as they believe it could diminish the need for doctors visits.

"Every GP appointment costs around £45 but we believe knitting could help prevent people needing to visit the doctor so much, and help them feel happier, less isolated, and more healthy," states the report.

As the NHS spends an annual £26 billion tackling dementia, and an additional £300 million on antidepressants, according to the NHS's annual report, knitting could be the answer to lower medical costs.

So the next time your grandma offers to teach you to knit, take her up on the offer.

Or you could always turn to YouTube, where there are hundreds of knitting tutorials for beginners.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
It turns out that knitting is amazingly good for you

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Knitting won't just result in a new sweater - research has found the hobby can also reduce depression and anxiety, slow the onset of dementia, and distract from chronic pain. Published by Knit for Peace, the findings are the result of extensive research into previous studies analysing the benefits of knitting, as well as the initiative's own research.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"The events leave me both resigned and resolved," said Jesse Wente, an Ojibwe broadcaster and producer from the Serpent River First Nation in Ontario and Metro Morning radio columnist.

Metro Morning radio columnist Jesse Wente reflects on unrest across Canada

Demonstrations in solidarity with Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs who oppose a pipeline in northern British Columbia are spreading across the country, including two protests in Ontario that have disrupted rail lines.

On Monday, Ontario Provincial Police descended on a rail blockade set up more than two weeks earlier by the Tyendinaga Mohawk near Belleville and charged 10 protesters.

In an opinion segment Tuesday on CBC Radio's Metro Morning, columnist Jesse Wente reflected on the arrests and what they say about the experiences of Indigenous people in Canada.

"The events leave me both resigned and resolved," said Wente, an Ojibwe broadcaster and producer from the Serpent River First Nation in Ontario.

"Canada is a state built on removal of Indigenous peoples to make way for resource extraction companies."
You can listen to Wente's full radio opinion column below:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
OPINION | 'Reconciliation is dead and it was never really alive': Jesse Wente | CBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"The events leave me both resigned and resolved," said Jesse Wente, an Ojibwe broadcaster and producer from the Serpent River First Nation in Ontario and Metro Morning radio columnist. Demonstrations in solidarity with Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs who oppose a pipeline in northern British Columbia are spreading across the country, including two protests in Ontario that have disrupted rail lines.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Experiencing racism in your day-to-day life has a heavy and accumulative impact on your social, mental and emotional wellbeing.

But what is less frequently discussed is the damaging psychological impact of constantly having to explain what racism is - or why something is racist.

Whether it's through the ignorance of employers or colleagues, well-meaning questions from friends, or belligerent demands for proof when trying to articulate an example of injustice - people of colour are frequently used as some kind of racism reference database.

And, in a world where Google exists, explaining racism seems like an utterly unnecessary additional burden to place on the shoulders of the people who are affected by it.

In recent weeks, there has been vital and nuanced conversation online about the downsides of 'debating' racism on TV and radio segments - and more journalists and commentators of colour are turning down requests to talk about the latest race row live on air.

'TV and Radio debates involving those who've never experienced racism ... furiously attempting to disprove those who have,' wrote ITV newsreader Charlene White on Twitter. 'Telling racism looks like. The audacity is shameful.' them what

'I find many TV discussions about race deeply upsetting to watch,' added journalist Nadine White.

'Many - too many - are framed as though the existence of racism is a subject for legitimate debate . It isn't. The sanctioned gaslighting of Black people must end.'

Senior policy officer at race equality thinktank Runnymede Trust, Kimberly McIntosh, says the problem is that explaining what racism is, in any real or substantive way, is damn-near impossible in a few short minutes of a live broadcast.

'Most broadcast media outlets are only interested in speaking about racism in reductive terms,' Kimberly tells Metro.co.uk.

'We frequently bat off calls to comment on whether a particular celebrity or event is, or was, "racist". This is not an opportunity to discuss the impact on people's employment opportunities or the loss of dignity that comes with being abused in public.'

Kimberly says the producers of these 'debates' want commentators like her to comment on a 'culture war' that only exits because they've constructed it themselves.

'The burden of this nonsensical, embarrassing media landscape is that spokespeople of colour are in a double bind,' she explains.

'If you do speak in such a debate, you will likely be pitched against a man who knows nothing about the topic but is good at saying inflammatory sound bites for socials.

'If you don't, you're left wondering - did your absence mean there was no one to make the case against racism based on evidence? Are we leaving the space vacant for toxic, false narratives, leaving minority communities worse off?'

So, you end up on live TV, trying to explain racism, once again being shouted down by someone with little to no expertise or personal experience. And it is unbelievably draining to go through this.

'Producers should stop using minorities as fodder for rage clicks and clout,' Kimberly explains.

'We have the evidence that racism is real, so stop framing it as a "debate". Racism is not entertainment.'

But the burden of explaining racism isn't limited to these heightened discussions on broadcast platforms, it's happening to people in their everyday lives, in their friendship groups, romantic interactions and professional relationships.

Professor Binna Kandola, psychologist and co-founder of diversity consultancy Pearn Kandola, says that the impact of this burden can be 'significant' and can even lead to depression and serious self-esteem issues.

He says part of the problem stems from the insidious and underhand nature of racism in this country - and the mistaken belief that racial inequality is no longer a problem.

Racism comes in many forms, and it often manifests as a feeling, or something intangible. But, when many people believe that racism is simply calling somebody the 'n-word' or the 'p-word', these more subtle forms of discrimination can be ignored and missed.

Prof Kandola argues that when racism is covert and harder to pinpoint, it often falls to minorities to call it out and explain it.

'Racism has evolved, becoming more subtle and therefore more difficult to oppose,' Professa Kandola tells Metro.co.uk.

'We no longer tolerate racist language or abuse in the same way that previous generations might once have done, but in the workplace, for example, the existence of the race pay gap and the severe lack of BAME representation at senior levels shows that there is still a great deal of work to be done before we can achieve true equality.'

Discussing and explaining racism is not only a burden for ethnic minority staff, it can also be dangerous.

There is the constant fear that claims will be dismissed, and you will be labelled difficult or accused of 'playing the race card'.

A piece of research conducted by Pearn Kandola in 2018 found that a third of black and Asian people (34% and 36% respectively) would take no action after witnessing an act of racism.

Of all respondents who said they would take no action, two-fifths (39%) said that this was out of fear of the consequences of doing so.

'It's clear, therefore, that the widespread belief that racism is no longer an issue and the dismissal of any complaints, risks having a significant impact on the self-esteem and general wellbeing of minorities,' explains Prof Kandola.

'In the long-term, we even risk minorities accepting the stereotypes with which they are labelled as evidence of who they are and what they can achieve.

'This kind of acceptance not only lays the groundwork for mental health issues such as depression and imposter syndrome but also serves to further establish the problem of modern racism.'

Professor Kandola says we have gone beyond calling for conversations about race, what is really needed is a willingness to listen to, and learn from, the lived experiences of people of colour.

'We must work towards building a culture of psychological safety, in which people can report racism without fear. A culture in which we stand up for victims of racism, rather than ignoring them.'

Dr Chi-Chi Obuaya, Consultant Psychiatrist at the Nightingale Hospital in London, says marginalization of or the perception of this amongst black and minority ethnic immigrant populations can impact their mental wellbeing.

He says rates of psychosis are higher in minority ethnic groups in the UK - and more research needs to look at whether experiencing and explaining racism could be causing this.

'Studies of African-American populations in the USA have demonstrated that experiences of racism can have a negative impact on both physical and mental health, including measures of wellbeing,' Dr Chi-Chi adds.

He says one concept that can explain this is the so-called 'internal locus of control'.

'That is an ability to have a sense of control over one's circumstances and opportunities in life, which has been shown to impact positively on mental health in this group.

'Conversely, an external locus of control, where the subject has less control over these factors, has been shown to impact negatively on their mental wellbeing.'

If loss of control negatively impacts your mental wellbeing, it is no wonder that being repeatedly asked to explain racism can become a psychological burden.

When someone denies your experience of racism, you lose control over your own narrative, and of your own understanding of what you have been through - which is destabilising, to say the least.

Reni Edo-Lodge published Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race back in 2017; the title alone highlights the exhaustion and exasperation that comes with attempting to explain racism to people who can't - or won't - understand it.

'I can no longer engage with the gulf of an emotional disconnect that white people display when a person of colour articulates their experience,' Reni wrote in the 2014 viral blogpost that spawned the subsequent book.

She articulates perfectly the accumulative emotional exhaustion of trying to reason with people 'who refuse to accept the legitimacy of structural racism and its symptoms.' It's the psychological equivalent of banging your head against a brick wall.

But, three years after Reni's book became a best-seller, many of us are still having these awkward and draining conversations with the people in our lives.

Kimberly says the impact of books like Reni's has helped though, and she is starting to see a shift in the way people in her life engage with conversations about race. She says she is having fewer interactions that leave her mentally fatigued, and she finds it easier to walk away if someone refuses to get it.

'This wasn't always the case, but books like Reni's really helped take some of that burden away,' she tells us.

'Most people in my life get the basics, and the ones that weren't interested - I've phased out. The burden was heavy and I don't want to spend my free time upset.

'Everyone is ignorant of some things. Not trying to understand is very different.'

The hardest thing about the burden of explaining racism is the conflict between wanting to help improve a situation, and the need to protect yourself emotionally.

It's important to remember that not every battle has to be yours to fight. If the psychological impact of debating your lived experiences is too much, it's OK to step away from the fray.

The State of Racism

We need to be able to talk about racism.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The damaging psychological impact of constantly having to explain racism

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Experiencing racism in your day-to-day life has a heavy and accumulative impact on your social, mental and emotional wellbeing. But what is less frequently discussed is the damaging psychological impact of constantly having to explain what racism is - or why something is racist.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I recall waiting for a friend in the lobby of an Ottawa office building a few years ago, with a non-descript gentleman sitting near me. Suddenly, a group of Indigenous community members filed out of the elevators to exit the building. The gentleman left shortly, after "calling it in." It then dawned on me that he was a law-enforcement official probably sent to "monitor" the group.

As someone coming to a "free" society from one that was colonized by the British for almost a century, that instance has haunted me.

Resistance to British colonial rule led to some of the largest and most significant public uprisings in history, and nothing less than the creation of dozens of independent nations. Ironically, public dissent is now vociferously and often violently opposed by many of these nations, as evidenced in Latin America, South Asia and Africa. The free state, in essence, has now become the colonizer.

I came to Canada from one such former British colony in South Asia, with the hope that, despite its history of colonial oppression against the Indigenous inhabitants of this land, Canada was also more sincere in making amends. And that we, the formerly colonized, could walk on an equal footing with our former oppressors.

The ongoing protests by the Wet'suwet'en Nation against the Coastal GasLink pipeline, and Canada's response to such protests, reminds me of the impact Western colonization has had on my own country of origin, and still does.

But the ongoing protests by the Wet'suwet'en Nation against the Coastal GasLink pipeline, among many similar protests over the years, and Canada's response to such protests, reminds me of the impact Western colonization has had on my own country of origin, and still does.

I cannot help but draw parallels between Canada's mind-numbing control over its Indigenous people with the way India's controversial citizenship law is choosing to marginalize Muslim minorities; or how Pakistan's blasphemy law threatens Christian and Hindu minorities with the death penalty. Such things create further dread, rather than genuine action for solidarity and unity. The RCMP's oppressive surveillance of Indigenous peoples here is an unsettling reminder of the relentless threats and intimidation our own intelligence communities in South Asia place on those who voice dissent.

But as a naturalized Canadian, I think perhaps the biggest blow comes from those like myself in Canada. The silence among Canada's minority or migrant communities, many of whom harbour a history of colonial oppression, is also deafening.

Canada's black community for instance, rightly rallies against racial profiling and police brutality, but mostly remains silent when multiple murders and suicides go unnoticed amongst Indigenous youth.

Likewise, the Canadian Muslim community understandably jumps to defend itself against Islamophobia. But when Indigenous communities are targeted with violence, this community, too, remains largely silent.

We have allowed ourselves to be co-opted into the colonizer's vision of unity, conveniently ignoring the history of where we have chosen to call home. It's no wonder, then, that Canada's Indigenous Peoples view us migrants with equal suspicion. Our complicity has given them reason to do so.

Whether or not the Wet'suwet'en community is right in protesting the way it has, or at all, is a moot point. So is the fact that First Nations and Aboriginal groups have themselves not adequately utilized state support and are governed by internal band politicking.

With a system of governance imposed by outsiders, which undermines every aspect of their traditional way of life, how else do we expect them to survive, if not by indulging in band politics? What was once all theirs is now only scraps left to fight over.

When I first moved to Canada, I came with the intention to finally be able to speak without fear of retribution and to hear others do the same. But those opportunities have been diluted by Canada's obsessive need to hide its past, present and possibly, future. A trajectory that clearly reminds me of my own national history, which I had hoped to put behind me.

That's why I will always support Indigenous protest in Canada. I owe it to all of us who were formerly colonized, and who continue to fight for our freedoms.
Themrise Khan is an independent researcher, practitioner and writer in international development, human rights, social policy and global migration. ALSO IN CITIZEN OPINIONS McGuinty and Lau: Assisted dying study suggests we should put much more focus on palliative care Barber: How Ottawa can develop a better strategy to tackle crime Today's letters: Report on recruiting women was backed up by thorough research

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Khan: We who have been colonized should support Indigenous protests

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I recall waiting for a friend in the lobby of an Ottawa office building a few years ago, with a non-descript gentleman sitting near me. Suddenly, a group of Indigenous community members filed out of the elevators to exit the building. The gentleman left shortly, after "calling it in."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Before Instagram took over the world of casual photography, instant camera photos were all we had. And while instant photos experienced a recent comeback thanks to the affordable and colorful Fujifilm Instax Mini camera, we still didn't have a way to immediately print out sepia-tinted Instagram pictures taken and stored on smartphones - until tiny mobile printers.

Palm-sized portable printers are party crowd-pleasers, and one of the most popular versions is HP's Sprocket Portable Photo Printer. About the size of a regular smartphone, the Sprocket is incredibly convenient to carry around. But the best part, though? It's on sale for 60 percent off right now, meaning you can get it for just $50 (its lowest price ever, according to CamelCamelCamel).

Buy It! HP Sprocket Portable Photo Printer, $49.85 (orig. $129.85); amazon.com

Here's how it works: Download the printer's accompanying app and hook it up to your smartphone via Bluetooth. You can take a picture on the app, or select something from your phone or social media gallery. Then comes the fun part: The printer allows you to customize and edit your pictures with frames, doodles, stickers, and more before clicking "send."

The images come out on a 2-by-3-inch piece of photo paper with a peel-off adhesive back, so you can immediately stick them anywhere you wish. The photo papers are sold separately, but you can get a 20-pack in a bundle with the device for just $5 more right now.

Shoppers on Amazon have been having "so much fun" printing from the Sprocket, with one writing, "It is everything I had hoped for!"

You can get the Sprocket in black, red, gray, or pink - all four colors are on sale right now. With Valentine's Day just around the corner, pick up HP's mini instant photo printer to put a smile on the face of the person who makes you smile.

Buy It! HP Sprocket Portable Photo Printer, $49.85 (orig. $129.85); amazon.com
Do you love a good deal? Sign up for PEOPLE's Shopping newsletter to stay up-to-date on the latest sales from your favorite brands, plus celebrity fashion, home decor and more.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
HP's Portable Instant Photo Printer Is at Its Lowest Price Ever - Get It for 60% Off

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Before Instagram took over the world of casual photography, instant camera photos were all we had. And while instant photos experienced a recent comeback thanks to the affordable and colorful Fujifilm Instax Mini camera, we still didn't have a way to immediately print out sepia-tinted Instagram pictures taken and stored on smartphones - until tiny mobile printers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The family structure we've held up as the cultural ideal for the past half century has been a catastrophe for many. It's time to figure out better ways to live together.

The scene is one many of us have somewhere in our family history: Dozens of people celebrating Thanksgiving or some other holiday around a makeshift stretch of family tables-siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, great-aunts. The grandparents are telling the old family stories for the 37th time. "It was the most beautiful place you've ever seen in your life," says one, remembering his first day in America. "There were lights everywhere ... It was a celebration of light! I thought they were for me."

To hear more feature stories, get the Audm iPhone app.

The oldsters start squabbling about whose memory is better. "It was cold that day," one says about some faraway memory. "What are you talking about? It was May, late May," says another. The young children sit wide-eyed, absorbing family lore and trying to piece together the plotline of the generations.

After the meal, there are piles of plates in the sink, squads of children conspiring mischievously in the basement. Groups of young parents huddle in a hallway, making plans. The old men nap on couches, waiting for dessert. It's the extended family in all its tangled, loving, exhausting glory.

This particular family is the one depicted in Barry Levinson's 1990 film, Avalon, based on his own childhood in Baltimore. Five brothers came to America from Eastern Europe around the time of World War I and built a wallpaper business. For a while they did everything together, like in the old country. But as the movie goes along, the extended family begins to split apart. Some members move to the suburbs for more privacy and space. One leaves for a job in a different state. The big blowup comes over something that seems trivial but isn't: The eldest of the brothers arrives late to a Thanksgiving dinner to find that the family has begun the meal without him.

"You cut the turkey without me?" he cries. "Your own flesh and blood! ... You cut the turkey?" The pace of life is speeding up. Convenience, privacy, and mobility are more important than family loyalty. "The idea that they would eat before the brother arrived was a sign of disrespect," Levinson told me recently when I asked him about that scene. "That was the real crack in the family. When you violate the protocol, the whole family structure begins to collapse."

As the years go by in the movie, the extended family plays a smaller and smaller role. By the 1960s, there's no extended family at Thanksgiving. It's just a young father and mother and their son and daughter, eating turkey off trays in front of the television. In the final scene, the main character is living alone in a nursing home, wondering what happened. "In the end, you spend everything you've ever saved, sell everything you've ever owned, just to exist in a place like this."

"In my childhood," Levinson told me, "you'd gather around the grandparents and they would tell the family stories ... Now individuals sit around the TV, watching other families' stories." The main theme of Avalon, he said, is "the decentralization of the family. And that has continued even further today. Once, families at least gathered around the television. Now each person has their own screen."

This is the story of our times-the story of the family, once a dense cluster of many siblings and extended kin, fragmenting into ever smaller and more fragile forms. The initial result of that fragmentation, the nuclear family, didn't seem so bad. But then, because the nuclear family is so brittle, the fragmentation continued. In many sectors of society, nuclear families fragmented into single-parent families, single-parent families into chaotic families or no families.

If you want to summarize the changes in family structure over the past century, the truest thing to say is this: We've made life freer for individuals and more unstable for families. We've made life better for adults but worse for children. We've moved from big, interconnected, and extended families, which helped protect the most vulnerable people in society from the shocks of life, to smaller, detached nuclear families (a married couple and their children), which give the most privileged people in society room to maximize their talents and expand their options. The shift from bigger and interconnected extended families to smaller and detached nuclear families ultimately led to a familial system that liberates the rich and ravages the working-class and the poor.
Annie Lowrey: The great affordability crisis breaking America
This article is about that process, and the devastation it has wrought-and about how Americans are now groping to build new kinds of family and find better ways to live.

Part I

The Era of Extended Clans

Through the early parts of American history, most people lived in what, by today's standards, were big, sprawling households. In 1800, three-quarters of American workers were farmers. Most of the other quarter worked in small family businesses, like dry-goods stores. People needed a lot of labor to run these enterprises. It was not uncommon for married couples to have seven or eight children. In addition, there might be stray aunts, uncles, and cousins, as well as unrelated servants, apprentices, and farmhands. (On some southern farms, of course, enslaved African Americans were also an integral part of production and work life.)

Steven Ruggles, a professor of history and population studies at the University of Minnesota, calls these "corporate families"-social units organized around a family business. According to Ruggles, in 1800, 90 percent of American families were corporate families. Until 1850, roughly three-quarters of Americans older than 65 lived with their kids and grandkids. Nuclear families existed, but they were surrounded by extended or corporate families.
Read: What number of kids makes parents happiest?
Extended families have two great strengths. The first is resilience. An extended family is one or more families in a supporting web. Your spouse and children come first, but there are also cousins, in-laws, grandparents-a complex web of relationships among, say, seven, 10, or 20 people. If a mother dies, siblings, uncles, aunts, and grandparents are there to step in. If a relationship between a father and a child ruptures, others can fill the breach. Extended families have more people to share the unexpected burdens-when a kid gets sick in the middle of the day or when an adult unexpectedly loses a job.

A detached nuclear family, by contrast, is an intense set of relationships among, say, four people. If one relationship breaks, there are no shock absorbers. In a nuclear family, the end of the marriage means the end of the family as it was previously understood.

The second great strength of extended families is their socializing force. Multiple adults teach children right from wrong, how to behave toward others, how to be kind. Over the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, industrialization and cultural change began to threaten traditional ways of life. Many people in Britain and the United States doubled down on the extended family in order to create a moral haven in a heartless world. According to Ruggles, the prevalence of extended families living together roughly doubled from 1750 to 1900, and this way of life was more common than at any time before or since.

During the Victorian era, the idea of "hearth and home" became a cultural ideal. The home "is a sacred place, a vestal temple, a temple of the hearth watched over by Household Gods, before whose faces none may come but those whom they can receive with love," the great Victorian social critic John Ruskin wrote. This shift was led by the upper-middle class, which was coming to see the family less as an economic unit and more as an emotional and moral unit, a rectory for the formation of hearts and souls.

But while extended families have strengths, they can also be exhausting and stifling. They allow little privacy; you are forced to be in daily intimate contact with people you didn't choose. There's more stability but less mobility. Family bonds are thicker, but individual choice is diminished. You have less space to make your own way in life. In the Victorian era, families were patriarchal, favoring men in general and first-born sons in particular.

As factories opened in the big U.S. cities, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, young men and women left their extended families to chase the American dream. These young people married as soon as they could. A young man on a farm might wait until 26 to get married; in the lonely city, men married at 22 or 23. From 1890 to 1960, the average age of first marriage dropped by 3.6 years for men and 2.2 years for women.
From September 2019: Daniel Markovits on how life became an endless, terrible competition
The families they started were nuclear families. The decline of multigenerational cohabiting families exactly mirrors the decline in farm employment. Children were no longer raised to assume economic roles-they were raised so that at adolescence they could fly from the nest, become independent, and seek partners of their own. They were raised not for embeddedness but for autonomy. By the 1920s, the nuclear family with a male breadwinner had replaced the corporate family as the dominant family form. By 1960, 77.5 percent of all children were living with their two parents, who were married, and apart from their extended family.

The Short, Happy Life of the Nuclear Family

For a time, it all seemed to work. From 1950 to 1965, divorce rates dropped, fertility rates rose, and the American nuclear family seemed to be in wonderful shape. And most people seemed prosperous and happy. In these years, a kind of cult formed around this type of family-what McCall's, the leading women's magazine of the day, called "togetherness." Healthy people lived in two-parent families. In a 1957 survey, more than half of the respondents said that unmarried people were "sick," "immoral," or "neurotic."

During this period, a certain family ideal became engraved in our minds: a married couple with 2.5 kids. When we think of the American family, many of us still revert to this ideal. When we have debates about how to strengthen the family, we are thinking of the two-parent nuclear family, with one or two kids, probably living in some detached family home on some suburban street. We take it as the norm, even though this wasn't the way most humans lived during the tens of thousands of years before 1950, and it isn't the way most humans have lived during the 55 years since 1965.

Today, only a minority of American households are traditional two-parent nuclear families and only one-third of American individuals live in this kind of family. That 1950-65 window was not normal. It was a freakish historical moment when all of society conspired, wittingly and not, to obscure the essential fragility of the nuclear family.

For one thing, most women were relegated to the home. Many corporations, well into the mid-20th century, barred married women from employment: Companies would hire single women, but if those women got married, they would have to quit. Demeaning and disempowering treatment of women was rampant. Women spent enormous numbers of hours trapped inside the home under the headship of their husband, raising children.

For another thing, nuclear families in this era were much more connected to other nuclear families than they are today-constituting a " modified extended family," as the sociologist Eugene Litwak calls it, "a coalition of nuclear families in a state of mutual dependence." Even as late as the 1950s, before television and air-conditioning had fully caught on, people continued to live on one another's front porches and were part of one another's lives. Friends felt free to discipline one another's children.

In his book The Lost City, the journalist Alan Ehrenhalt describes life in mid-century Chicago and its suburbs:

To be a young homeowner in a suburb like Elmhurst in the 1950s was to participate in a communal enterprise that only the most determined loner could escape: barbecues, coffee klatches, volleyball games, baby-sitting co-ops and constant bartering of household goods, child rearing by the nearest parents who happened to be around, neighbors wandering through the door at any hour without knocking-all these were devices by which young adults who had been set down in a wilderness of tract homes made a community. It was a life lived in public.

Finally, conditions in the wider society were ideal for family stability. The postwar period was a high-water mark of church attendance, unionization, social trust, and mass prosperity-all things that correlate with family cohesion. A man could relatively easily find a job that would allow him to be the breadwinner for a single-income family. By 1961, the median American man age 25 to 29 was earning nearly 400 percent more than his father had earned at about the same age.

In short, the period from 1950 to 1965 demonstrated that a stable society can be built around nuclear families-so long as women are relegated to the household, nuclear families are so intertwined that they are basically extended families by another name, and every economic and sociological condition in society is working together to support the institution.

Video: How the Nuclear Family Broke Down

Disintegration

But these conditions did not last. The constellation of forces that had briefly shored up the nuclear family began to fall away, and the sheltered family of the 1950s was supplanted by the stressed family of every decade since. Some of the strains were economic. Starting in the mid-'70s, young men's wages declined, putting pressure on working-class families in particular. The major strains were cultural. Society became more individualistic and more self-oriented. People put greater value on privacy and autonomy. A rising feminist movement helped endow women with greater freedom to live and work as they chose.
Read: Gen-X women are caught in a generational tug-of-war
A study of women's magazines by the sociologists Francesca Cancian and Steven L. Gordon found that from 1900 to 1979, themes of putting family before self dominated in the 1950s: "Love means self-sacrifice and compromise." In the 1960s and '70s, putting self before family was prominent: "Love means self-expression and individuality." Men absorbed these cultural themes, too. The master trend in Baby Boomer culture generally was liberation-"Free Bird," "Born to Run," "Ramblin' Man."

Eli Finkel, a psychologist and marriage scholar at Northwestern University, has argued that since the 1960s, the dominant family culture has been the "self-expressive marriage." "Americans," he has written, "now look to marriage increasingly for self-discovery, self-esteem and personal growth." Marriage, according to the sociologists Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas, "is no longer primarily about childbearing and childrearing. Now marriage is primarily about adult fulfillment."
Read: An interview with Eli Finkel on how we expect too much from our romantic partners
This cultural shift was very good for some adults, but it was not so good for families generally. Fewer relatives are around in times of stress to help a couple work through them. If you married for love, staying together made less sense when the love died. This attenuation of marital ties may have begun during the late 1800s: The number of divorces increased about fifteenfold from 1870 to 1920, and then climbed more or less continuously through the first several decades of the nuclear-family era. As the intellectual historian Christopher Lasch noted in the late 1970s, the American family didn't start coming apart in the 1960s; it had been "coming apart for more than 100 years."

Americans today have less family than ever before. From 1970 to 2012, the share of households consisting of married couples with kids has been cut in half. In 1960, according to census data, just 13 percent of all households were single-person households. In 2018, that figure was 28 percent. In 1850, 75 percent of Americans older than 65 lived with relatives; by 1990, only 18 percent did.

Over the past two generations, people have spent less and less time in marriage-they are marrying later, if at all, and divorcing more. In 1950, 27 percent of marriages ended in divorce; today, about 45 percent do. In 1960, 72 percent of American adults were married. In 2017, nearly half of American adults were single. According to a 2014 report from the Urban Institute, roughly 90 percent of Baby Boomer women and 80 percent of Gen X women married by age 40, while only about 70 percent of late-Millennial women were expected to do so-the lowest rate in U.S. history. And while more than four-fifths of American adults in a 2019 Pew Research Center survey said that getting married is not essential to living a fulfilling life, it's not just the institution of marriage they're eschewing: In 2004, 33 percent of Americans ages 18 to 34 were living without a romantic partner, according to the General Social Survey; by 2018, that number was up to 51 percent.

Over the past two generations, families have also gotten a lot smaller. The general American birth rate is half of what it was in 1960. In 2012, most American family households had no children. There are more American homes with pets than with kids. In 1970, about 20 percent of households had five or more people. As of 2012, only 9.6 percent did.
We're likely living through the most rapid change in family structure in human history. The causes are economic, cultural, and institutional all at once.
Over the past two generations, the physical space separating nuclear families has widened. Before, sisters-in-law shouted greetings across the street at each other from their porches. Kids would dash from home to home and eat out of whoever's fridge was closest by. But lawns have grown more expansive and porch life has declined, creating a buffer of space that separates the house and family from anyone else. As Mandy Len Catron recently noted in The Atlantic, married people are less likely to visit parents and siblings, and less inclined to help them do chores or offer emotional support. A code of family self-sufficiency prevails: Mom, Dad, and the kids are on their own, with a barrier around their island home.

Finally, over the past two generations, families have grown more unequal. America now has two entirely different family regimes. Among the highly educated, family patterns are almost as stable as they were in the 1950s; among the less fortunate, family life is often utter chaos. There's a reason for that divide: Affluent people have the resources to effectively buy extended family, in order to shore themselves up. Think of all the child-rearing labor affluent parents now buy that used to be done by extended kin: babysitting, professional child care, tutoring, coaching, therapy, expensive after-school programs. (For that matter, think of how the affluent can hire therapists and life coaches for themselves, as replacement for kin or close friends.) These expensive tools and services not only support children's development and help prepare them to compete in the meritocracy; by reducing stress and time commitments for parents, they preserve the amity of marriage. Affluent conservatives often pat themselves on the back for having stable nuclear families. They preach that everybody else should build stable families too. But then they ignore one of the main reasons their own families are stable: They can afford to purchase the support that extended family used to provide-and that the people they preach at, further down the income scale, cannot.
Read: 'Intensive' parenting is a strategy for an age of inequality
In 1970, the family structures of the rich and poor did not differ that greatly. Now there is a chasm between them. As of 2005, 85 percent of children born to upper-middle-class families were living with both biological parents when the mom was 40. Among working-class families, only 30 percent were. According to a 2012 report from the National Center for Health Statistics, college-educated women ages 22 to 44 have a 78 percent chance of having their first marriage last at least 20 years. Women in the same age range with a high-school degree or less have only about a 40 percent chance. Among Americans ages 18 to 55, only 26 percent of the poor and 39 percent of the working class are currently married. In her book Generation Unbound, Isabel Sawhill, an economist at the Brookings Institution, cited research indicating that differences in family structure have "increased income inequality by 25 percent." If the U.S. returned to the marriage rates of 1970, child poverty would be 20 percent lower. As Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University, once put it, "It is the privileged Americans who are marrying, and marrying helps them stay privileged."

When you put everything together, we're likely living through the most rapid change in family structure in human history. The causes are economic, cultural, and institutional all at once. People who grow up in a nuclear family tend to have a more individualistic mind-set than people who grow up in a multigenerational extended clan. People with an individualistic mind-set tend to be less willing to sacrifice self for the sake of the family, and the result is more family disruption. People who grow up in disrupted families have more trouble getting the education they need to have prosperous careers. People who don't have prosperous careers have trouble building stable families, because of financial challenges and other stressors. The children in those families become more isolated and more traumatized.
Read: The working-to-afford-child-care conundrum
Many people growing up in this era have no secure base from which to launch themselves and no well-defined pathway to adulthood. For those who have the human capital to explore, fall down, and have their fall cushioned, that means great freedom and opportunity-and for those who lack those resources, it tends to mean great confusion, drift, and pain.

Over the past 50 years, federal and state governments have tried to mitigate the deleterious effects of these trends. They've tried to increase marriage rates, push down divorce rates, boost fertility, and all the rest. The focus has always been on strengthening the nuclear family, not the extended family. Occasionally, a discrete program will yield some positive results, but the widening of family inequality continues unabated.

The people who suffer the most from the decline in family support are the vulnerable-especially children. In 1960, roughly 5 percent of children were born to unmarried women. Now about 40 percent are. The Pew Research Center reported that 11 percent of children lived apart from their father in 1960. In 2010, 27 percent did. Now about half of American children will spend their childhood with both biological parents. Twenty percent of young adults have no contact at all with their father (though in some cases that's because the father is deceased). American children are more likely to live in a single-parent household than children from any other country.
Read: The divorce gap
We all know stable and loving single-parent families. But on average, children of single parents or unmarried cohabiting parents tend to have worse health outcomes, worse mental-health outcomes, less academic success, more behavioral problems, and higher truancy rates than do children living with their two married biological parents. According to work by Richard V. Reeves, a co-director of the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution, if you are born into poverty and raised by your married parents, you have an 80 percent chance of climbing out of it. If you are born into poverty and raised by an unmarried mother, you have a 50 percent chance of remaining stuck.

It's not just the lack of relationships that hurts children; it's the churn. According to a 2003 study that Andrew Cherlin cites, 12 percent of American kids had lived in at least three "parental partnerships" before they turned 15. The transition moments, when mom's old partner moves out or her new partner moves in, are the hardest on kids, Cherlin shows.

While children are the vulnerable group most obviously affected by recent changes in family structure, they are not the only one.

Consider single men. Extended families provided men with the fortifying influences of male bonding and female companionship. Today many American males spend the first 20 years of their life without a father and the next 15 without a spouse. Kay Hymowitz of the Manhattan Institute has spent a good chunk of her career examining the wreckage caused by the decline of the American family, and cites evidence showing that, in the absence of the connection and meaning that family provides, unmarried men are less healthy-alcohol and drug abuse are common-earn less, and die sooner than married men.
The period when the nuclear family flourished was not normal. It was a freakish historical moment when all of society conspired to obscure its essential fragility.
For women, the nuclear-family structure imposes different pressures. Though women have benefited greatly from the loosening of traditional family structures-they have more freedom to choose the lives they want-many mothers who decide to raise their young children without extended family nearby find that they have chosen a lifestyle that is brutally hard and isolating. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that women still spend significantly more time on housework and child care than men do, according to recent data. Thus, the reality we see around us: stressed, tired mothers trying to balance work and parenting, and having to reschedule work when family life gets messy.

Without extended families, older Americans have also suffered. According to the AARP, 35 percent of Americans over 45 say they are chronically lonely. Many older people are now "elder orphans," with no close relatives or friends to take care of them. In 2015, The New York Times ran an article called " The Lonely Death of George Bell," about a family-less 72-year-old man who died alone and rotted in his Queens apartment for so long that by the time police found him, his body was unrecognizable.
Read: The loneliness of early parenthood
Finally, because groups that have endured greater levels of discrimination tend to have more fragile families, African Americans have suffered disproportionately in the era of the detached nuclear family. Nearly half of black families are led by an unmarried single woman, compared with less than one-sixth of white families. (The high rate of black incarceration guarantees a shortage of available men to be husbands or caretakers of children.) According to census data from 2010, 25 percent of black women over 35 have never been married, compared with 8 percent of white women. Two-thirds of African American children lived in single-parent families in 2018, compared with a quarter of white children. Black single-parent families are most concentrated in precisely those parts of the country in which slavery was most prevalent. Research by John Iceland, a professor of sociology and demography at Penn State, suggests that the differences between white and black family structure explain 30 percent of the affluence gap between the two groups.

In 2004, the journalist and urbanist Jane Jacobs published her final book, an assessment of North American society called Dark Age Ahead. At the core of her argument was the idea that families are "rigged to fail." The structures that once supported the family no longer exist, she wrote. Jacobs was too pessimistic about many things, but for millions of people, the shift from big and/or extended families to detached nuclear families has indeed been a disaster.

As the social structures that support the family have decayed, the debate about it has taken on a mythical quality. Social conservatives insist that we can bring the nuclear family back. But the conditions that made for stable nuclear families in the 1950s are never returning. Conservatives have nothing to say to the kid whose dad has split, whose mom has had three other kids with different dads; "go live in a nuclear family" is really not relevant advice. If only a minority of households are traditional nuclear families, that means the majority are something else: single parents, never-married parents, blended families, grandparent-headed families, serial partnerships, and so on. Conservative ideas have not caught up with this reality.

Progressives, meanwhile, still talk like self-expressive individualists of the 1970s: People should have the freedom to pick whatever family form works for them. And, of course, they should. But many of the new family forms do not work well for most people-and while progressive elites say that all family structures are fine, their own behavior suggests that they believe otherwise. As the sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox has pointed out, highly educated progressives may talk a tolerant game on family structure when speaking about society at large, but they have extremely strict expectations for their own families. When Wilcox asked his University of Virginia students if they thought having a child out of wedlock was wrong, 62 percent said it was not wrong. When he asked the students how their own parents would feel if they themselves had a child out of wedlock, 97 percent said their parents would "freak out." In a recent survey by the Institute for Family Studies, college-educated Californians ages 18 to 50 were less likely than those who hadn't graduated from college to say that having a baby out of wedlock is wrong. But they were more likely to say that personally they did not approve of having a baby out of wedlock.
Read: How politics in Trump's America divides families
In other words, while social conservatives have a philosophy of family life they can't operationalize, because it no longer is relevant, progressives have no philosophy of family life at all, because they don't want to seem judgmental. The sexual revolution has come and gone, and it's left us with no governing norms of family life, no guiding values, no articulated ideals. On this most central issue, our shared culture often has nothing relevant to say-and so for decades things have been falling apart.

The good news is that human beings adapt, even if politics are slow to do so. When one family form stops working, people cast about for something new-sometimes finding it in something very old.
Read: Why is it hard for liberals to talk about 'family values'?
Part II

Redefining Kinship

In the beginning was the band. For tens of thousands of years, people commonly lived in small bands of, say, 25 people, which linked up with perhaps 20 other bands to form a tribe. People in the band went out foraging for food and brought it back to share. They hunted together, fought wars together, made clothing for one another, looked after one another's kids. In every realm of life, they relied on their extended family and wider kin.

Except they didn't define kin the way we do today. We think of kin as those biologically related to us. But throughout most of human history, kinship was something you could create.

Anthropologists have been arguing for decades about what exactly kinship is. Studying traditional societies, they have found wide varieties of created kinship among different cultures. For the Ilongot people of the Philippines, people who migrated somewhere together are kin. For the New Guineans of the Nebilyer Valley, kinship is created by sharing grease -the life force found in mother's milk or sweet potatoes. The Chuukese people in Micronesia have a saying: "My sibling from the same canoe"; if two people survive a dangerous trial at sea, then they become kin. On the Alaskan North Slope, the Inupiat name their children after dead people, and those children are considered members of their namesake's family.

In other words, for vast stretches of human history people lived in extended families consisting of not just people they were related to but people they chose to cooperate with. An international research team recently did a genetic analysis of people who were buried together-and therefore presumably lived together-34,000 years ago in what is now Russia. They found that the people who were buried together were not closely related to one another. In a study of 32 present-day foraging societies, primary kin-parents, siblings, and children-usually made up less than 10 percent of a residential band. Extended families in traditional societies may or may not have been genetically close, but they were probably emotionally closer than most of us can imagine. In a beautiful essay on kinship, Marshall Sahlins, an anthropologist at the University of Chicago, says that kin in many such societies share a "mutuality of being." The late religion scholar J. Prytz-Johansen wrote that kinship is experienced as an "inner solidarity" of souls. The late South African anthropologist Monica Wilson described kinsmen as "mystically dependent" on one another. Kinsmen belong to one another, Sahlins writes, because they see themselves as "members of one another."

Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, when European Protestants came to North America, their relatively individualistic culture existed alongside Native Americans' very communal culture. In his book Tribe, Sebastian Junger describes what happened next: While European settlers kept defecting to go live with Native American families, almost no Native Americans ever defected to go live with European families. Europeans occasionally captured Native Americans and forced them to come live with them. They taught them English and educated them in Western ways. But almost every time they were able, the indigenous Americans fled. European settlers were sometimes captured by Native Americans during wars and brought to live in Native communities. They rarely tried to run away. This bothered the Europeans. They had the superior civilization, so why were people voting with their feet to go live in another way?

When you read such accounts, you can't help but wonder whether our civilization has somehow made a gigantic mistake.

We can't go back, of course. Western individualists are no longer the kind of people who live in prehistoric bands. We may even no longer be the kind of people who were featured in the early scenes of Avalon. We value privacy and individual freedom too much.

Our culture is oddly stuck. We want stability and rootedness, but also mobility, dynamic capitalism, and the liberty to adopt the lifestyle we choose. We want close families, but not the legal, cultural, and sociological constraints that made them possible. We've seen the wreckage left behind by the collapse of the detached nuclear family. We've seen the rise of opioid addiction, of suicide, of depression, of inequality-all products, in part, of a family structure that is too fragile, and a society that is too detached, disconnected, and distrustful. And yet we can't quite return to a more collective world. The words the historians Steven Mintz and Susan Kellogg wrote in 1988 are even truer today: "Many Americans are groping for a new paradigm of American family life, but in the meantime a profound sense of confusion and ambivalence reigns."

From Nuclear Families to Forged Families

Yet recent signs suggest at least the possibility that a new family paradigm is emerging. Many of the statistics I've cited are dire. But they describe the past-what got us to where we are now. In reaction to family chaos, accumulating evidence suggests, the prioritization of family is beginning to make a comeback. Americans are experimenting with new forms of kinship and extended family in search of stability.

Usually behavior changes before we realize that a new cultural paradigm has emerged. Imagine hundreds of millions of tiny arrows. In times of social transformation, they shift direction-a few at first, and then a lot. Nobody notices for a while, but then eventually people begin to recognize that a new pattern, and a new set of values, has emerged.

That may be happening now-in part out of necessity but in part by choice. Since the 1970s, and especially since the 2008 recession, economic pressures have pushed Americans toward greater reliance on family. Starting around 2012, the share of children living with married parents began to inch up. And college students have more contact with their parents than they did a generation ago. We tend to deride this as helicopter parenting or a failure to launch, and it has its excesses. But the educational process is longer and more expensive these days, so it makes sense that young adults rely on their parents for longer than they used to.

In 1980, only 12 percent of Americans lived in multigenerational households. But the financial crisis of 2008 prompted a sharp rise in multigenerational homes. Today 20 percent of Americans- 64 million people, an all-time high -live in multigenerational homes.

The revival of the extended family has largely been driven by young adults moving back home. In 2014, 35 percent of American men ages 18 to 34 lived with their parents. In time this shift might show itself to be mostly healthy, impelled not just by economic necessity but by beneficent social impulses; polling data suggest that many young people are already looking ahead to helping their parents in old age.

Another chunk of the revival is attributable to seniors moving in with their children. The percentage of seniors who live alone peaked around 1990. Now more than a fifth of Americans 65 and over live in multigenerational homes. This doesn't count the large share of seniors who are moving to be close to their grandkids but not into the same household.

Immigrants and people of color-many of whom face greater economic and social stress-are more likely to live in extended-family households. More than 20 percent of Asians, black people, and Latinos live in multigenerational households, compared with 16 percent of white people. As America becomes more diverse, extended families are becoming more common.

African Americans have always relied on extended family more than white Americans do. "Despite the forces working to separate us-slavery, Jim Crow, forced migration, the prison system, gentrification-we have maintained an incredible commitment to each other," Mia Birdsong, the author of the forthcoming book How We Show Up, told me recently. "The reality is, black families are expansive, fluid, and brilliantly rely on the support, knowledge, and capacity of 'the village' to take care of each other. Here's an illustration: The white researcher/social worker/whatever sees a child moving between their mother's house, their grandparents' house, and their uncle's house and sees that as 'instability.' But what's actually happening is the family (extended and chosen) is leveraging all of its resources to raise that child."

The black extended family survived even under slavery, and all the forced family separations that involved. Family was essential in the Jim Crow South and in the inner cities of the North, as a way to cope with the stresses of mass migration and limited opportunities, and with structural racism. But government policy sometimes made it more difficult for this family form to thrive. I began my career as a police reporter in Chicago, writing about public-housing projects like Cabrini-Green. Guided by social-science research, politicians tore down neighborhoods of rickety low-rise buildings-uprooting the complex webs of social connection those buildings supported, despite high rates of violence and crime-and put up big apartment buildings. The result was a horror: violent crime, gangs taking over the elevators, the erosion of family and neighborly life. Fortunately, those buildings have since been torn down themselves, replaced by mixed-income communities that are more amenable to the profusion of family forms.
Read: Why black families struggle to build wealth I often ask African friends who have immigrated to America what most struck them when they arrived. Their answer is always a variation on a theme-the loneliness.
The return of multigenerational living arrangements is already changing the built landscape. A 2016 survey by a real-estate consulting firm found that 44 percent of home buyers were looking for a home that would accommodate their elderly parents, and 42 percent wanted one that would accommodate their returning adult children. Home builders have responded by putting up houses that are what the construction firm Lennar calls "two homes under one roof." These houses are carefully built so that family members can spend time together while also preserving their privacy. Many of these homes have a shared mudroom, laundry room, and common area. But the "in-law suite," the place for aging parents, has its own entrance, kitchenette, and dining area. The "Millennial suite," the place for boomeranging adult children, has its own driveway and entrance too. These developments, of course, cater to those who can afford houses in the first place-but they speak to a common realization: Family members of different generations need to do more to support one another.

The most interesting extended families are those that stretch across kinship lines. The past several years have seen the rise of new living arrangements that bring nonbiological kin into family or familylike relationships. On the website CoAbode, single mothers can find other single mothers interested in sharing a home. All across the country, you can find co-housing projects, in which groups of adults live as members of an extended family, with separate sleeping quarters and shared communal areas. Common, a real-estate-development company that launched in 2015, operates more than 25 co-housing communities, in six cities, where young singles can live this way. Common also recently teamed up with another developer, Tishman Speyer, to launch Kin, a co-housing community for young parents. Each young family has its own living quarters, but the facilities also have shared play spaces, child-care services, and family-oriented events and outings.

These experiments, and others like them, suggest that while people still want flexibility and some privacy, they are casting about for more communal ways of living, guided by a still-developing set of values. At a co-housing community in Oakland, California, called Temescal Commons, the 23 members, ranging in age from 1 to 83, live in a complex with nine housing units. This is not some rich Bay Area hipster commune. The apartments are small, and the residents are middle- and working-class. They have a shared courtyard and a shared industrial-size kitchen where residents prepare a communal dinner on Thursday and Sunday nights. Upkeep is a shared responsibility. The adults babysit one another's children, and members borrow sugar and milk from one another. The older parents counsel the younger ones. When members of this extended family have suffered bouts of unemployment or major health crises, the whole clan has rallied together.

Courtney E. Martin, a writer who focuses on how people are redefining the American dream, is a Temescal Commons resident. "I really love that our kids grow up with different versions of adulthood all around, especially different versions of masculinity," she told me. "We consider all of our kids all of our kids." Martin has a 3-year-old daughter, Stella, who has a special bond with a young man in his 20s that never would have taken root outside this extended-family structure. "Stella makes him laugh, and David feels awesome that this 3-year-old adores him," Martin said. This is the kind of magic, she concluded, that wealth can't buy. You can only have it through time and commitment, by joining an extended family. This kind of community would fall apart if residents moved in and out. But at least in this case, they don't.
Read: The hot new Millennial housing trend is a repeat of the Middle Ages
As Martin was talking, I was struck by one crucial difference between the old extended families like those in Avalon and the new ones of today: the role of women. The extended family in Avalon thrived because all the women in the family were locked in the kitchen, feeding 25 people at a time. In 2008, a team of American and Japanese researchers found that women in multigenerational households in Japan were at greater risk of heart disease than women living with spouses only, likely because of stress. But today's extended-family living arrangements have much more diverse gender roles.

And yet in at least one respect, the new families Americans are forming would look familiar to our hunter-gatherer ancestors from eons ago. That's because they are chosen families-they transcend traditional kinship lines.
Read: The extended family of my two open adoptions

The modern chosen-family movement came to prominence in San Francisco in the 1980s among gay men and lesbians, many of whom had become estranged from their biological families and had only one another for support in coping with the trauma of the AIDS crisis. In her book, Families We Choose: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship, the anthropologist Kath Weston writes, "The families I saw gay men and lesbians creating in the Bay Area tended to have extremely fluid boundaries, not unlike kinship organization among sectors of the African-American, American Indian, and white working class."

She continues:

Like their heterosexual counterparts, most gay men and lesbians insisted that family members are people who are "there for you," people you can count on emotionally and materially. "They take care of me," said one man, "I take care of them."

These groups are what Daniel Burns, a political scientist at the University of Dallas, calls "forged families." Tragedy and suffering have pushed people together in a way that goes deeper than just a convenient living arrangement. They become, as the anthropologists say, "fictive kin."

Over the past several decades, the decline of the nuclear family has created an epidemic of trauma-millions have been set adrift because what should have been the most loving and secure relationship in their life broke. Slowly, but with increasing frequency, these drifting individuals are coming together to create forged families. These forged families have a feeling of determined commitment. The members of your chosen family are the people who will show up for you no matter what. On Pinterest you can find placards to hang on the kitchen wall where forged families gather: "Family isn't always blood. It's the people in your life who want you in theirs; the ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile & who love you no matter what."

Two years ago, I started something called Weave: The Social Fabric Project. Weave exists to support and draw attention to people and organizations around the country who are building community. Over time, my colleagues and I have realized that one thing most of the Weavers have in common is this: They provide the kind of care to nonkin that many of us provide only to kin-the kind of support that used to be provided by the extended family.

Lisa Fitzpatrick, who was a health-care executive in New Orleans, is a Weaver. One day she was sitting in the passenger seat of a car when she noticed two young boys, 10 or 11, lifting something heavy. It was a gun. They used it to shoot her in the face. It was a gang-initiation ritual. When she recovered, she realized that she was just collateral damage. The real victims were the young boys who had to shoot somebody to get into a family, their gang.

She quit her job and began working with gang members. She opened her home to young kids who might otherwise join gangs. One Saturday afternoon, 35 kids were hanging around her house. She asked them why they were spending a lovely day at the home of a middle-aged woman. They replied, "You were the first person who ever opened the door."

In Salt Lake City, an organization called the Other Side Academy provides serious felons with an extended family. Many of the men and women who are admitted into the program have been allowed to leave prison, where they were generally serving long sentences, but must live in a group home and work at shared businesses, a moving company and a thrift store. The goal is to transform the character of each family member. During the day they work as movers or cashiers. Then they dine together and gather several evenings a week for something called "Games": They call one another out for any small moral failure-being sloppy with a move; not treating another family member with respect; being passive-aggressive, selfish, or avoidant.

Games is not polite. The residents scream at one another in order to break through the layers of armor that have built up in prison. Imagine two gigantic men covered in tattoos screaming "Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!" At the session I attended, I thought they would come to blows. But after the anger, there's a kind of closeness that didn't exist before. Men and women who have never had a loving family suddenly have "relatives" who hold them accountable and demand a standard of moral excellence. Extreme integrity becomes a way of belonging to the clan. The Other Side Academy provides unwanted people with an opportunity to give care, and creates out of that care a ferocious forged family.

I could tell you hundreds of stories like this, about organizations that bring traumatized vets into extended-family settings, or nursing homes that house preschools so that senior citizens and young children can go through life together. In Baltimore, a nonprofit called Thread surrounds underperforming students with volunteers, some of whom are called "grandparents." In Chicago, Becoming a Man helps disadvantaged youth form family-type bonds with one another. In Washington, D.C., I recently met a group of middle-aged female scientists-one a celebrated cellular biologist at the National Institutes of Health, another an astrophysicist-who live together in a Catholic lay community, pooling their resources and sharing their lives. The variety of forged families in America today is endless.
For many people, the era of the nuclear family has been a catastrophe. All forms of inequality are cruel, but family inequality may be the cruelest. It damages the heart.
You may be part of a forged family yourself. I am. In 2015, I was invited to the house of a couple named Kathy and David, who had created an extended-family-like group in D.C. called All Our Kids, or AOK-DC. Some years earlier, Kathy and David had had a kid in D.C. Public Schools who had a friend named James, who often had nothing to eat and no place to stay, so they suggested that he stay with them. That kid had a friend in similar circumstances, and those friends had friends. By the time I joined them, roughly 25 kids were having dinner every Thursday night, and several of them were sleeping in the basement.

I joined the community and never left-they became my chosen family. We have dinner together on Thursday nights, celebrate holidays together, and vacation together. The kids call Kathy and David Mom and Dad. In the early days, the adults in our clan served as parental figures for the young people-replacing their broken cellphones, supporting them when depression struck, raising money for their college tuition. When a young woman in our group needed a new kidney, David gave her one of his.

We had our primary biological families, which came first, but we also had this family. Now the young people in this forged family are in their 20s and need us less. David and Kathy have left Washington, but they stay in constant contact. The dinners still happen. We still see one another and look after one another. The years of eating together and going through life together have created a bond. If a crisis hit anyone, we'd all show up. The experience has convinced me that everybody should have membership in a forged family with people completely unlike themselves.

Ever since I started working on this article, a chart has been haunting me. It plots the percentage of people living alone in a country against that nation's GDP. There's a strong correlation. Nations where a fifth of the people live alone, like Denmark and Finland, are a lot richer than nations where almost no one lives alone, like the ones in Latin America or Africa. Rich nations have smaller households than poor nations. The average German lives in a household with 2.7 people. The average Gambian lives in a household with 13.8 people.

That chart suggests two things, especially in the American context. First, the market wants us to live alone or with just a few people. That way we are mobile, unattached, and uncommitted, able to devote an enormous number of hours to our jobs. Second, when people who are raised in developed countries get money, they buy privacy.

For the privileged, this sort of works. The arrangement enables the affluent to dedicate more hours to work and email, unencumbered by family commitments. They can afford to hire people who will do the work that extended family used to do. But a lingering sadness lurks, an awareness that life is emotionally vacant when family and close friends aren't physically present, when neighbors aren't geographically or metaphorically close enough for you to lean on them, or for them to lean on you. Today's crisis of connection flows from the impoverishment of family life.

I often ask African friends who have immigrated to America what most struck them when they arrived. Their answer is always a variation on a theme-the loneliness. It's the empty suburban street in the middle of the day, maybe with a lone mother pushing a baby carriage on the sidewalk but nobody else around.

For those who are not privileged, the era of the isolated nuclear family has been a catastrophe. It's led to broken families or no families; to merry-go-round families that leave children traumatized and isolated; to senior citizens dying alone in a room. All forms of inequality are cruel, but family inequality may be the cruelest. It damages the heart. Eventually family inequality even undermines the economy the nuclear family was meant to serve: Children who grow up in chaos have trouble becoming skilled, stable, and socially mobile employees later on.

When hyper-individualism kicked into gear in the 1960s, people experimented with new ways of living that embraced individualistic values. Today we are crawling out from the wreckage of that hyper-individualism-which left many families detached and unsupported-and people are experimenting with more connected ways of living, with new shapes and varieties of extended families. Government support can help nurture this experimentation, particularly for the working-class and the poor, with things like child tax credits, coaching programs to improve parenting skills in struggling families, subsidized early education, and expanded parental leave. While the most important shifts will be cultural, and driven by individual choices, family life is under so much social stress and economic pressure in the poorer reaches of American society that no recovery is likely without some government action.

The two-parent family, meanwhile, is not about to go extinct. For many people, especially those with financial and social resources, it is a great way to live and raise children. But a new and more communal ethos is emerging, one that is consistent with 21st-century reality and 21st-century values.

When we discuss the problems confronting the country, we don't talk about family enough. It feels too judgmental. Too uncomfortable. Maybe even too religious. But the blunt fact is that the nuclear family has been crumbling in slow motion for decades, and many of our other problems-with education, mental health, addiction, the quality of the labor force-stem from that crumbling. We've left behind the nuclear-family paradigm of 1955. For most people it's not coming back. Americans are hungering to live in extended and forged families, in ways that are new and ancient at the same time. This is a significant opportunity, a chance to thicken and broaden family relationships, a chance to allow more adults and children to live and grow under the loving gaze of a dozen pairs of eyes, and be caught, when they fall, by a dozen pairs of arms. For decades we have been eating at smaller and smaller tables, with fewer and fewer kin.

It's time to find ways to bring back the big tables.
This article appears in the March 2020 print edition with the headline "The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake." When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
live.part ithe era of extended clansthrough

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The family structure we've held up as the cultural ideal for the past half century has been a catastrophe for many. It's time to figure out better ways to live together.