What happens when a Mi’kmaw and settler university student share car rides on their way to university and other places? They talk, and the settler learns some hard lessons about colonial oppression, systemic racism and white privilege.
What happens when a Mi’kmaw and settler university student share car rides on their way to university and other places? They talk, and the settler learns some hard lessons about colonial oppression, systemic racism and white privilege. “One Saturday afternoon when we happened to be together, Flo shared a very personal story about why she finds it difficult to eat when she is in a social food sharing situation.”
We all know Christmas can be a very hard time. At the Mi’kmaw Legal Support Network (MLSN), a community organization which works to ensure fair and equitable service for Indigenous people in the criminal justice system, this hardship is witnessed every day.
In mid-October, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) seized around 200 lobster traps from Mi’kmaq fishers in Unama’ki (Cape Breton, Nova Scotia). “It’s a struggle for them. They’re not making a lot of money, but it’s not about the money,” Bernadette Marshall told Robin Tress “It’s about the treaty right, and we’ve waited long enough.”
Robin Tress with an excellent article on the self-regulated Mi’kmaq fisheries and the RCMP: “Looking closely at the history of policing of Indigenous movements, and now the policing of the settler fishers enacting violence, intimidation, and vandalism, one thing becomes clear: When Indigenous people protest, they are considered enemies of the state. When settlers protest, they are treated as sensitive stakeholders critical to the resolution of the conflict.”
Robin Tress: Clearwater Lobster is fishing on unceded, unsurrendered, stolen lands and waters of the Mi’kmaq Nation. Over the last forty years, governments have favoured corporate fishing operations like Clearwater over small scale owner-operators and Mi’kmaq fishers.
Raina Young: The violence and harassment against Mi’kmaq fishers is despicable, racist behaviour. Even more concerning is the failure of the police to stop it, revealing deeper systemic racism. Imagine if it were the other way around, and Mi’kmaq fishermen were harassing white people. Such behaviour would never be tolerated. The RCMP would step in immediately. The hypocrisy and double standards show a clear racist bias.
Media release: ON FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16 AT 12:00 PM, lawfully caught Mi’kmaw livelihood lobster will be sold to Nova Scotians, as fellow treaty beneficiaries, in front of Province House during Mi’kmaq History Month.
Important open letter by Eastern Door, a group of L’nu and Indigenous lawyers in Nova Scotia & Atlantic Canada, on who gets to regulate the Moderate Livelihood fishery. “Exercising self-government in accordance with Netukulimk – allowing L’nuk fishers to work legally and rightfully – is all the Sipekne’katik First Nation has done,” they write.
I see you, I hear you, I just no longer believe you, writes Carol Millett.