I want the RCMP to GTFO of the protest camps. I want the Canadian government to start doing the right thing by the people we have spent centuries wronging. I want us to stand up, and beside our Indigenous neighbours.
I am most ashamed of how exhausted I am, and how I can step away and rest. This is a privilege that Indigenous Canadians do not have. They're fighting for their lives.
They're fighting genocide.
Here. In Canada. In 2020.
I am angry.
I am so ashamed.
More than anything, I want my fellow settlers — because that's precisely what we are — to not just sit idly by while all this happens. I want us to read this open letter to us, and seriously sit down and reexamine our own biases, unconscious or otherwise. I want us to step up. To do better.
Be better.
To make this country the Canada I fell in love with.
A Canada that I now realise does not exist.
But it could.
There are things we can do to help. Call, write or fax our representatives. Educate ourselves, our friends, our family. If you can, consider donating to the legal fun (here).
It won't feel like nearly enough. And it won't be. But it's something. And something is better than nothing.