Happy Canada day. Just started this last week and it‘s incredible so far.
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My Conversations With Canadians | 
Happy Canada day. Just started this last week and it‘s incredible so far.
pickA collection of provocative essays by Sto:lo writer Lee Maracle. She doesn‘t pull punches and sometimes doesn‘t let facts get in the way of a good story (treatment of Chinese railway workers was grossly unjust, but there‘s no evidence that they were intentionally “killed instead of paid”). Maracle‘s take on marginalization (it depends on whose viewpoint is at the centre) and cultural appropriation were particularly interesting to me. #Indigenous
About halfway through the question and answer period an older man got up and bellowed out his question: “What are you going to do with us white guys? Drive us into the sea?”
I stared at him for awhile, thinking. […]
I said, “Thank you, that you think I could.”
A common audience question when Lee Maracle was giving author readings of her autobiographical Bobbi Lee Indian Rebel (published in 1990) was: “Who wrote it for you?”
I asked Anne Cameron to stop stealing our stories. […] We did not own property & we gave away all our possessions during potlatches & potlatched as often as possible in our lifetime. All we owned was our stories, our songs & our names. This is our private clan family wealth. That was our private property.
This quote is from the Anishinaabe visual artist, filmmaker, and arts educator from Couchiching First Nation, Susan Blight (quoted in Lee Maracle‘s My Conversations With Canadians)
this books is so good I even pulled out my notebook to start writing notes 🖋
