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Remains of 215 children found at former residential school in British Columbia

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Re: Remains of 215 children found at former residential school in British Columbia

#61

Post by Retric »

at_a_remove wrote: post #21

This is one incident among many, but it has less to do with indigenous children as it does with any system wherein the accounting of "disconnected" children is left to that system. Tuam, County Galway ... eight hundred infants with missing graves. St Mary's Cemetery in Lanark, four hundred left in a single mass grave. In Germany, nuns pimping out orphans. The Sisters of Mercy scandal. I could go on. Bluntly put, when…

Child abuse and neglect by parents is also something that exists. It’s easy to see problems, but context and improvements are much more difficult. The US removed sanitariums due to serious issues, but the situation didn’t improve instead dumping the mentality ill into the prison and homeless populations.

Currently the US use foster homes rather than orphanages, but is it a better system, just different, or worse simply a more efficient way to hide problems? That’s the kind of analysis that’s difficult yet essential for actual improvement.

Re: Remains of 215 children found at former residential school in British Columbia

#62

Post by tw04 »

gchamonlive wrote: post #59
at_a_remove wrote: post #21

This is one incident among many, but it has less to do with indigenous children as it does with any system wherein the accounting of "disconnected" children is left to that system. Tuam, County Galway ... eight hundred infants with missing graves. St Mary's Cemetery in Lanark, four hundred left in a single mass grave. In Germany, nuns pimping out orphans. The Sisters of Mercy scandal. I could go on. Bluntly put, when…

> when an institution is given power over children, more than that of a family, and the auditing is lax, you're gonna get maltreatment I don't follow your logic leap. You exampled a lot of incidents with institutions but that only, in the best case advocates for institutions being nasty, not family, because it doesn't account for abuse within a family context. Is it quantifiably greater in institutions? We can't answ…

The average family doesn't have a child buried in their yard. So yes I think we can say with confidence these institutions were and are quantifiably worse.

Re: Remains of 215 children found at former residential school in British Columbia

#63

Post by koheripbal »

tw04 wrote: post #62
gchamonlive wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when an institution is given power over children, more than that of a family, and the auditing is lax, you're gonna get maltreatment I don't follow your logic leap. You exampled a lot of incidents with institutions but that only, in the best case advocates for institutions being nasty, not family, because it doesn't account for abuse within a family context. Is it quantifiably greater in institutions? We can't answ…

The average family doesn't have a child buried in their yard. So yes I think we can say with confidence these institutions were and are quantifiably worse.

The average institute also doesnt have children buried in the yard. Your conclusion isnt logical.

Re: Remains of 215 children found at former residential school in British Columbia

#64

Post by michael1999 »

vmception wrote: post #11

Twisted, any guesses as to what was going on? Physical harm? Malnourishment?

A mix of disease, medical neglect, fire, malnourishment, physical abuse, suicide, murder, and exposure while attempting escape.

Ethnic cleansing is a horrifying business.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/newly-discovered-b-c-gr...

Re: Remains of 215 children found at former residential school in British Columbia

#65

Post by notsureaboutpg »

dade_ wrote: post #53
at_a_remove wrote: post #21

This is one incident among many, but it has less to do with indigenous children as it does with any system wherein the accounting of "disconnected" children is left to that system. Tuam, County Galway ... eight hundred infants with missing graves. St Mary's Cemetery in Lanark, four hundred left in a single mass grave. In Germany, nuns pimping out orphans. The Sisters of Mercy scandal. I could go on. Bluntly put, when…

These children weren’t abandoned, they were forcefully taken from their families by the government. They were sent vast distances to these boarding schools to “kill the Indian in the child”, where they were often mistreated, sexually abused, and went missing ( murder/neglect/ abuse). So it is all the more egregious in this case. The government turned a blind eye to the Churches, and the Churches were doing God’s work…

I think OP agrees with you and is trying to say that the tendency of us to prefer institutions over families can lead to this.

For example, I know when I was a kid the school teachers and people were constantly worried about me and my family since we're immigrants from a part of the world they thought of as "backwards". We did not have liberal social views, and my parents opted me out of sex ed, LGBT events, etc. One time I mentioned a comic strip (Calvin & Hobbes) in which the kid dreamed of flying an F-14 with a team of T-Rex pilots to blow up his school because he really didn't want to attend and I was called in for some government program to prevent terrorism and they asked me all sorts of questions about how violent my parents are and did I believe in violence as a tool to solve problems, etc.

Sometimes our tendency is to "civilize" children when we think parents aren't doing that. What OP and you are trying to say is that what parents and family offer (accountability, care for the child, etc.) is usually better than any "values" an institution can impart onto a child. Institutions can often be cold and cruel in a way few parents ever are, and so the tendency to lean on institutions with regards to molding children is one we should avoid unless absolutely necessary.

Re: Remains of 215 children found at former residential school in British Columbia

#66

Post by batch12 »

Retric wrote: post #61
at_a_remove wrote: post #21

This is one incident among many, but it has less to do with indigenous children as it does with any system wherein the accounting of "disconnected" children is left to that system. Tuam, County Galway ... eight hundred infants with missing graves. St Mary's Cemetery in Lanark, four hundred left in a single mass grave. In Germany, nuns pimping out orphans. The Sisters of Mercy scandal. I could go on. Bluntly put, when…

Child abuse and neglect by parents is also something that exists. It’s easy to see problems, but context and improvements are much more difficult. The US removed sanitariums due to serious issues, but the situation didn’t improve instead dumping the mentality ill into the prison and homeless populations. Currently the US use foster homes rather than orphanages, but is it a better system, just different, or worse simp…

> Currently the US use foster homes rather than orphanages, but is it a better system, just different, or worse simply a more efficient way to hide problems

I can say anecdotally that being in a foster home was a much better experience than being in group homes. I am sure experiences vary, but I went from feeling like I was a prisioner in group homes to a family in a foster home.

Re: Remains of 215 children found at former residential school in British Columbia

#67

Post by elliekelly »

at_a_remove wrote: post #21

This is one incident among many, but it has less to do with indigenous children as it does with any system wherein the accounting of "disconnected" children is left to that system. Tuam, County Galway ... eight hundred infants with missing graves. St Mary's Cemetery in Lanark, four hundred left in a single mass grave. In Germany, nuns pimping out orphans. The Sisters of Mercy scandal. I could go on. Bluntly put, when…

It seems like the Catholic Church is often (always?) somehow involved in these systemic child abuse/mass grave stories and it’s mind-boggling to me that we continue to allow an organization with that kind of track record to take responsibility for caring for and placing at-risk children.

Re: Remains of 215 children found at former residential school in British Columbia

#68

Post by foolmeonce »

at_a_remove wrote: post #21

This is one incident among many, but it has less to do with indigenous children as it does with any system wherein the accounting of "disconnected" children is left to that system. Tuam, County Galway ... eight hundred infants with missing graves. St Mary's Cemetery in Lanark, four hundred left in a single mass grave. In Germany, nuns pimping out orphans. The Sisters of Mercy scandal. I could go on. Bluntly put, when…

> Bluntly put, when an institution is given power over children, more than that of a family, and the auditing is lax, you're gonna get maltreatment, and from there unmarked graves.

Families are not particularly safe. Systems that pulled children from their family for placement in a "correct" family created similar horror stories and the natural families of many are also horror stories.

Air crashes are more notable than auto-crashes despite being less likely per passenger. Similarly, even if institutions fail at 1/10th the rate of placement in families, notable news will still paint us the opposite picture.

Re: Remains of 215 children found at former residential school in British Columbia

#69

Post by wsc981 »

at_a_remove wrote: post #21

This is one incident among many, but it has less to do with indigenous children as it does with any system wherein the accounting of "disconnected" children is left to that system. Tuam, County Galway ... eight hundred infants with missing graves. St Mary's Cemetery in Lanark, four hundred left in a single mass grave. In Germany, nuns pimping out orphans. The Sisters of Mercy scandal. I could go on. Bluntly put, when…

When I moved to Thailand, I got into contact with a Dutch national of Jewish decent. We occasionally meet over coffee and have a little chat.

When he was young, after WW2, he lived in several foster homes spread over Europe and managed by nuns. He told me he often had to sexually pleasure the nuns in order to get some extra food. His parents were not able to care for him in this period, but eventually he got back with his parents.

He told me he doesn't look back in anger over that time period though. As far as he knew it was the same in most other foster homes.

Re: Remains of 215 children found at former residential school in British Columbia

#70

Post by visiblink »

todd8 wrote: post #50
colechristensen wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TB is also one of the diseases brought to north america by europeans, so there is less or no natural immunity which comes from thousands of years of exposure, presumably this increased risk from “foreign” diseases still exists to an extent in indigenous populations on top of the other factors which put populations at higher risk.

No, TB was present in pre-Colombian North and South America. TB is a very ancient disease according to [1,3] and has been present in humans since the dawn of humankind according to [2]. There is evidence of the disease in human remains from the Neolithic era and Egyptian mummies from 3000 BC. Furthermore there are references to the the disease in writing from both ancient India [5] and ancient 2700 BC China, see [4].…

It's worth pointing out that the abstract of the Nature article appears to suggest that the pre-Columbian evidence is for a different variant of TB: "Here we present three 1,000-year-old mycobacterial genomes from Peruvian human skeletons, revealing that a member of the M. tuberculosis complex caused human disease before contact. The ancient strains are distinct from known human-adapted forms and are most closely related to those adapted to seals and sea lions."

This is completely speculative, but if post-contact TB was a different strain imported from Europe, that may explain why it took such a toll on Indigenous peoples.

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