Friday, 19 April 2024

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Mi’kmaq leader wants name ‘Amherst’ removed from PEI historic site

In early May this year Mi’kmaq leader Keptin Sark returned the Order of PEI that he had been awarded to the provincial legislature. He wants the name of Jeffrey Amherst – a notorious British General responsible for distributing blankets infected with smallpox amongst the Mi’kmaq and other Indigenous peoples in the 18th Century – removed from the historic site at Port-la-Joye at Rocky Point, across the harbour from Charlottetown. Neither the provincial nor the federal Liberals are listening.

Caring for a child is work

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Caring for a child is work, but society doesn’t seem to see it that way. “Single parents on welfare are often portrayed as lazy or ‘getting a free ride’; as though their children effortlessly raise themselves,” writes new contributor Lenore Hemming. “It’s interesting that our society only views child care as valuable if it is someone else’s child.”

Robert Wright: In the Black community carding resonates with a history that is traumatic

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A long interview with Robert Wright, one of the African Nova Scotians who earlier this year demanded that the practice of carding be suspended. We talked with Wright about why carding generates such anger among Black Nova Scotians, the over surveillance of Black communities by police, the white indifference to the issue, how anger at police better be directed at politicians, and why carding is ineffective. More than anything we talked about racism.

Unhappy Birthday To Us: Kendall Worth on being poor and celebrating

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Today is frequent contributor Kendall Worth’ birthday, which leads him to reflect on birthday celebrations of poor people. He asked, and this is what he heard. “Kendall as much as we would love to celebrate our birthdays the same way ordinary people do, we can’t. Life is just not normal for us because of our income level we live on.”

‘Surely we don’t need any more studies,’ a letter to Mayor Mike Savage on the Cornwallis statue

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Sadie Beaton, Community Conservation Research Coordinator at the Ecology Action Centre, asks Mayor Mike Savage that no more precious time be wasted in getting rid of the Cornwallis statue. “Reconciliation can only begin when settlers and their governments and institutions truthfully reckon with the sometimes painful history of these lands. This history has allowed settlers to be the main beneficiaries of both the care with which Mi’kmaq communities have cared for these lands and waters, and the genocide that Cornwallis and others perpetuated.”

CBC whitewashing a historic African Nova Scotian community

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A CBC story reporting on the fight of Lucasville residents to get the city to deal with a horse farm that they say smells up the neighborhood never mentions the community’s ancient African Nova Scotian roots. Many people in Lucasville have been vocal about their opinion that race is an important piece of the puzzle if you want to understan what is really going on here.

The politics of reclaiming, not renaming

Historian Elliot Worsfold on Cornwallis and similar “renaming” debates: “historians should remind the public that these spaces, be they literal or ideological, have been known by many names and by many people throughout Canada’s history. Reclaiming those spaces through removing names, statues, or other symbols is more often a return to that place’s historic roots than those decrying the erasure of history often realize.”