I just watched "Hotel Rwanda." Terribly sad piece of history - one that most of us won't think twice about sadly. A little bit later I found myself dicussing the relationship between the native first nations community and the whites in Slave Lake, with a gentlemen who has lived here for several years.
It struck me that in both circumstances - in Rwanda and for the First Nations people - there is a gap. A gap in a way of thinking. The genocide in Rwanda was brought about by people putting down other people, reducing them to a stereotype.
From my experience of living next to an native reserve in BC, studies I have done on Native Counselling methods vs Western counselling methods, personal testimonies of First Nations people themselves, and knowledge of the history - I have seen a gap between their culture and way of thinking and the whites culture.
There is a stigma attached to First Nations people and their culture and their history that the man I was talking to was frustrated with. There was this moment where I brought up residential schools and it was slightly brushed aside. Now I know that the residential schools did far more damage than any of us white people will ever know. That we cannot understand the generational damage that was done, in the same way that we cannot understand the damage of the genocide in Rwanda.
We think we can. We empathize but empathy does not erase the gap. The gentleman I spoke with acknowledged that there are First Nations people that have stepped out of the mould of alcoholism, abusing the system, drug use, teen pregnancies but his experience sadly has been more of those who haven't. This has created a gap - a difference that puts him on one side and 'them' on the other.
I left the conversation struggling to know - how do we reach around the gap of stigma, of history, of negative experiences that confirm stigma? I heard of incredible stories of Tutsi people forgiving their perpetrators. Of seeing those that killed their families, their friends - not as animals but as forgiven brothers and sisters.
I truly believe forgiveness is the only arm with which you can reach out across a gap such as this. A gap created by two different ways of thinking. Once you forgive, then you need to love. But you cannot love until you forgive - that is the catch-22.
Here in town is a Native Friendship centre. It is intended to be a place where any children can come and spend time together - but usually it is only First Nations children that come. It is hard to approach something like this - a place like this - knowing of the battle between stigmas and working within communities to abolish stigmas and actually change things for the better. It is difficult to walk into that world without preconceptions as a white person - of what someone might think of me, or what I might unintentionally assume about that person just because of their background.
It is this gap and this difficulty that I think can only be breached by reaching out in love and forgiveness. Forgiveness for things that have been said and done in the past - not by us - but by generations before us. To just accept the other person as a person - regardless of their skin colour. It is something that I think a lot of us unintentionally do - judge people according to what we have heard.
And in talking with this gentleman earlier, I felt the frustration of having to accept that I could not convince one way or the other - but need to experience for myself the gap and only then can I actually reach across it.
It struck me that in both circumstances - in Rwanda and for the First Nations people - there is a gap. A gap in a way of thinking. The genocide in Rwanda was brought about by people putting down other people, reducing them to a stereotype.
From my experience of living next to an native reserve in BC, studies I have done on Native Counselling methods vs Western counselling methods, personal testimonies of First Nations people themselves, and knowledge of the history - I have seen a gap between their culture and way of thinking and the whites culture.
There is a stigma attached to First Nations people and their culture and their history that the man I was talking to was frustrated with. There was this moment where I brought up residential schools and it was slightly brushed aside. Now I know that the residential schools did far more damage than any of us white people will ever know. That we cannot understand the generational damage that was done, in the same way that we cannot understand the damage of the genocide in Rwanda.
We think we can. We empathize but empathy does not erase the gap. The gentleman I spoke with acknowledged that there are First Nations people that have stepped out of the mould of alcoholism, abusing the system, drug use, teen pregnancies but his experience sadly has been more of those who haven't. This has created a gap - a difference that puts him on one side and 'them' on the other.
I left the conversation struggling to know - how do we reach around the gap of stigma, of history, of negative experiences that confirm stigma? I heard of incredible stories of Tutsi people forgiving their perpetrators. Of seeing those that killed their families, their friends - not as animals but as forgiven brothers and sisters.
I truly believe forgiveness is the only arm with which you can reach out across a gap such as this. A gap created by two different ways of thinking. Once you forgive, then you need to love. But you cannot love until you forgive - that is the catch-22.
Here in town is a Native Friendship centre. It is intended to be a place where any children can come and spend time together - but usually it is only First Nations children that come. It is hard to approach something like this - a place like this - knowing of the battle between stigmas and working within communities to abolish stigmas and actually change things for the better. It is difficult to walk into that world without preconceptions as a white person - of what someone might think of me, or what I might unintentionally assume about that person just because of their background.
It is this gap and this difficulty that I think can only be breached by reaching out in love and forgiveness. Forgiveness for things that have been said and done in the past - not by us - but by generations before us. To just accept the other person as a person - regardless of their skin colour. It is something that I think a lot of us unintentionally do - judge people according to what we have heard.
And in talking with this gentleman earlier, I felt the frustration of having to accept that I could not convince one way or the other - but need to experience for myself the gap and only then can I actually reach across it.
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