For those interested in the issue, this documentary gives voice to some members of the community.
The Highest Suicide Rate in the World
71–80 of 180 posts
Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World
#72In case any one doesn't know: Justin Trudeau's father, Pierre Trudeau, oversaw these residential schools, the last of which were only dismantled in the 90s under a different government. This is a dark chapter in the history of Canada.
Pierre Trudeau was PM from 1968 to 1984 (with a brief interruption by Joe Clark's PCs)[1]. Residential schools were taken over by the Department of Indian Affairs in 1969 and by 1986 were eliminated or turned over to the local bands[2].
A better characterization is that Pierre Trudeau oversaw the dismantling of the residential schools.
Given that this is an election year in Canada, Justin Trudeau is a candidate and that this is a very deceptive portrayal of the situation, I'm going to assume this is intentional and report.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Trudeau [2] https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/residentia...
Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure why this is being downvoted? Clearly these people have no idea about the Plains Wars, Custer's Last Stand and Wounded Knee. They have absolutely been trampled on and worse (murdered).
Its being downvoted because its childish simplistic view of things. I grew up in Grant county, literally west of Sioux county. There are a lot of reasons for the high suicide rate in Sioux county, historical facts like Custer aside, unless you've lived in this part of the country, you really have no idea what its like there. Did westerners do a number on the Nakota/Dakota/Lakota/Sioux/Mandan/etc..? Duh, but thats not…
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Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World
#74Anecdotally, I've heard Scandinavia has a similarly high rate, for the same reason.
> Anecdotally, I've heard Scandinavia has a similarly high rate, for the same reason. Why are you posting your anecdotes like this? You have access to the internet after all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... For example, on that list the US rates _worse_ than Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and are about the same as Finland.
The US is a large, heterogeneous nation and comparisons with small homogenous nations are misleading.
Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure why this is being downvoted? Clearly these people have no idea about the Plains Wars, Custer's Last Stand and Wounded Knee. They have absolutely been trampled on and worse (murdered).
Its being downvoted because its childish simplistic view of things. I grew up in Grant county, literally west of Sioux county. There are a lot of reasons for the high suicide rate in Sioux county, historical facts like Custer aside, unless you've lived in this part of the country, you really have no idea what its like there. Did westerners do a number on the Nakota/Dakota/Lakota/Sioux/Mandan/etc..? Duh, but thats not…
I'm going to hold my tongue but I'd love to hear you say that to my face. You are not the only one affected by suicide, I don't care if you live in bumfuck or the East Coast. You know nothing about how suicide has impacted me personally. I'm making an observation about historical events which have led to the lack of opportunity.
Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World
#76It's doubtful that suicide was rare in pre-1950s Nunavut. More likely there is a problem with non-existent records or with definition of what constitutes suicide. In particular, when hunts failed and food was scarce, both infanticide and senilicide were practiced, the latter usually in the form of assisted suicide. See "Law-Ways of the Primitive Eskimos" https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewconten...
Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World
#77For comparison, here are a few of the highest rates per 100k in the US: 98.7 - Kusilvak Census Area, AK; 75.1 - Nome Census Area, AK; 64.2 - Sioux County, ND; 58.9 - Buffalo County, SD; 49.3 - Carbon County, UT https://vizhub.healthdata.org/subnational/usa Extend the list and you see lots of high latitudes, low incomes, remote rural settings, and indigenous American populations (e.g. Yupik and Inupiaq in Alaska, Siou…
Alcoholism is always rampant when a population is first introduced to the drug.
Over centuries, evolution acts to produce a population less prone to it, since people who drink themselves to death don't tend to reproduce.
The population that has had access to alcohol for the longest (8000 years, according to a guess I saw somewhere) is the Chinese, where the "asian red flush" gene has developed as a protection against alcoholism.
Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World
#78The history of alcoholism and suicide in Alaska goes back to the time of first contact with outsiders. When westerners first contacted Alaska Native tribes, those "explorers" tended to be people who were after valuable furs, and missionaries. These people were usually a mix of Russians from the west and Americans from the south. The outsiders brought with them diseases like tuberculosis and influenza, and these disea…
That’s the lazy “blame the violent colonialists” approach though. There’s a very high suicide rate amongst Greenland natives as well. Perhaps it’s because so much culture was surrounded around food gathering? Modern technology coming around and wiping out the need for most of your tribe to hunt and gather is going to have a big impact on cultures like that.
> That’s the lazy “blame the violent colonialists” approach though.
Crazy to think that hundreds of years of violence and extraction had nothing to do with this, and it's just due to cultural faults.
There's no world in which their legacy of oppression wouldn't affect their present day material conditions.
> Modern technology coming around and wiping out the need for most of your tribe to hunt and gather is going to have a big impact on cultures like that.
Culture isn't static, it evolves over time. It's not just "their time to die out," or whatever the subtext of a statement like this is.
Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World
#79interesting.
Re: The Highest Suicide Rate in the World
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Anecdotally, I've heard Scandinavia has a similarly high rate, for the same reason. Why are you posting your anecdotes like this? You have access to the internet after all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... For example, on that list the US rates _worse_ than Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland and are about the same as Finland.
The US is a large, heterogeneous nation and comparisons with small homogenous nations are misleading.
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