Author Topic: The 60s Scoop Verdict  (Read 1060 times)

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Offline cybercoma

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Re: The 60s Scoop Verdict
« Reply #15 on: February 15, 2017, 07:46:39 pm »
Is that connection more important than child safety.
From what Peter F posted, "child safety" is a red herring. The ruling didn't criticize them being taken from their homes--it criticized what happened afterwards. Do you disagree with the ruling? In other words, do you think these children and their foster families should have been kept in the dark about what bands they were from? Should they have been denied any knowledge of their cultural heritage in that way? The courts didn't say they should have been left with their parents, if I'm reading Peter F correctly. They said that they should have had access to information about who they are and where they are from.

Offline JMT

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Re: The 60s Scoop Verdict
« Reply #16 on: February 15, 2017, 08:19:12 pm »
The argument as I understand it goes beyond that.  It states that they should be (should have been in this case) kept within their culture and their community.  Often that wasn't an option.

I'm not saying everything was done properly, nor would I defend some of what Peter is talking about.  What I don't have time for is putting culture before child safety.  It isn't a red herring. 

Offline cybercoma

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Re: The 60s Scoop Verdict
« Reply #17 on: February 15, 2017, 08:37:06 pm »
The argument as I understand it goes beyond that.  It states that they should be (should have been in this case) kept within their culture and their community.  Often that wasn't an option.
You're saying it wasn't an option, but that's saying every last family in their culture or community were dangerous. I don't buy that for a second.

Offline JMT

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Re: The 60s Scoop Verdict
« Reply #18 on: February 15, 2017, 08:45:49 pm »
You're saying it wasn't an option, but that's saying every last family in their culture or community were dangerous. I don't buy that for a second.

No, that's not what I'm saying at all.  What I'm saying is that there are and were so many kids in care, that there weren't enough good homes on reserve to accommodate them.  As a result, today, they often end up with family members that are no more equipped to raise them than the broken homes that they left.  Sometimes they leave their parents to end up with grandparents that know nothing more about making a good home than the parents they taught.  I know it's different for most people because they don't actually see it.

Absolutely, aboriginal children should be kept with aboriginal families in aboriginal communities where possible - but that isn't always possible.  In such situations, child safety should always be first.  Losing culture is secondary.  I disagree with the parts of the decision related to that. 

Offline cybercoma

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Re: The 60s Scoop Verdict
« Reply #19 on: February 15, 2017, 09:16:27 pm »
Then you have to consider that if so many kids were removed from their homes, perhaps the situations weren't as bad as the government made them out to be.

Offline JMT

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Re: The 60s Scoop Verdict
« Reply #20 on: February 15, 2017, 10:04:07 pm »
Then you have to consider that if so many kids were removed from their homes, perhaps the situations weren't as bad as the government made them out to be.

Some of the situations probably weren't as bad as they seemed.  It was a different time and we didn't understand differences of culture.  I have no way of knowing that though.  I know there are some pretty terrible situations today that I can imagine existed just the same then. 

This ruling feels wrong to me on so many levels.  Aboriginal people and aboriginal culture should be respected.  The welfare of children is still above all of it.

It doesn't really make sense to me, either:

"The uncontroverted evidence of the plaintiff's experts is that the loss of their Aboriginal identity left the children fundamentally disoriented, with a reduced ability to lead healthy and fulfilling lives. The loss of Aboriginal identity resulted in psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, unemployment, violence and numerous suicides," he said, siding with the plaintiffs.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/60s-scoop-ruling-aboriginal-1.3981771

Children are children and are very flexible.  Culture is learned.  A change of cultures at an early age shouldn't create such problems. 
« Last Edit: February 15, 2017, 10:08:28 pm by jmt18325 »

Offline cybercoma

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Re: The 60s Scoop Verdict
« Reply #21 on: February 15, 2017, 10:37:08 pm »
This ruling feels wrong to me on so many levels.  Aboriginal people and aboriginal culture should be respected.  The welfare of children is still above all of it.
You keep saying this, but Peter F already pointed out how this doesn't relate to the ruling.

Offline Blueblood

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Re: The 60s Scoop Verdict
« Reply #22 on: February 15, 2017, 11:47:49 pm »
How do see them not being responsible?

It is not billions, it is a paltry $80k for destroyed childhood which has extreme implications on the persons entire life.

I didn't snatch any children from anyone. 

The sad thing is if this keeps up taxpayers will say enough and it won't be pretty.  How much tax money should go to this?  What are you willing to give up?  Sadly there isn't enough money and we can't afford it. 

Offline Peter F

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Re: The 60s Scoop Verdict
« Reply #23 on: February 16, 2017, 02:37:35 am »
Again, people are missing the point of the court case referenced in the OP.  The case was not about the actual scooping.

As the judge says in the decision :
Quote
[
(8)...The court is not being asked to point fingers or lay blame. The court is
not being asked to decide whether the Sixties Scoop was the result of a well-intentioned
governmental initiative implemented in good faith and informed by the norms and values
of the day, or was, as some maintain, state-sanctioned “culture/identity genocide”10 that
was driven by racial prejudice to “take the savage out of the Indian children.” 11 This is a
debate that is best left to historians and, perhaps, to truth and reconciliation commissions.

(9) The issue before this court is narrower and more focused. The question is whether
Canada can be found liable in law for the class members’ loss of aboriginal identity after
they were placed in non-aboriginal foster and adoptive homes.

The children were members of the band - By Law, no less.  The government does not get to recind Natve status by fiat, which is what was, in effect, done with the scoop.   At the same time, the government claimed, truthfully and in good faith- way back in 1965, that they were holding all monies due the child, by virtue of that child being a registered band member, in trust until that child reached the age of majority and claimed what was due them. Not only that, but the children were entitled to the education benefit granted to band members by the government.    Very decent of them, but then they refused to let the band leadership know where the effected children were and also refused to inform the adoptive/foster parents themselves of the childs entitlements, nor did they deign to inform the actual beneficiary child. That was the what the scooped children were to get - no matter the cultural milieu in which they found themselves.  They never got those things and, by admission of the Government they should have got those things - so they sued the government for those things.

 Damages have yet to be figured out. The court did not address damages. But, now that the judge determined that the government failed in its Duty to the children involved, another trial will take place to figure that out.





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Offline JMT

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Re: The 60s Scoop Verdict
« Reply #24 on: February 16, 2017, 08:15:03 am »
You keep saying this, but Peter F already pointed out how this doesn't relate to the ruling.

How can such a question actually be separated?  The judge attempted to do so, but it's not really possible.  The motivation for any crime should always be a factor.

Offline cybercoma

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Re: The 60s Scoop Verdict
« Reply #25 on: February 16, 2017, 08:40:38 am »
You keep saying, "would someone think of the children!" (I'm paraphrasing). They are thinking of the children. When you listen to the interviews with the people involved in this court case, you get to see that they completely lost the connection to their culture and language. Those who tried to re-integrate into indigenous society had a hard time (one interviewee I heard said it was "impossible") because culture is a negotiated understanding of communication and interaction. In our everyday lives we carry on conversation without elaborating on things because we've grown to understand our mutual culture (example below). When these kids were taken from their homes, they were not given any cultural support. They were robbed of their culture. It's not about taking them from their homes. That may have been the right thing to do, but the government did not provide the children nor the foster parents any support in preserving the kids' connection to their culture. It's not a stretch to say it was systematic cultural genocide. But without being so harsh, the government failed to provide the cultural support that it promised and ought to have provided.


So, we take for granted our cultural awarenesses. Here's an example of what happens if you break that. This is a conversation between two friends, where one of them was a social psychology student playing the role of breaking with the cultural awareness that I'm talking about.

"Hi, Ray. How's your girlfriend feeling?"

"What do you mean how is she feeling? Do you mean physical or mental?"

"I mean how's she feeling? What's the matter with you?" (visibly irritated)

"Nothing. Just explain a little clearer what you mean."

"Skip it. How are your Med School applications coming?"

"What do you mean 'How are they?'"

"You know what I mean."

"I really don't."

"What's the matter with you? Are you sick?"

When we interact with people in our everyday lives, we expect that they are going to understand things that are unsaid. We speak in vague references with the expectation that people are going to meet us halfway. In this way, we negotiate meaning through interaction. Therefore, when a child is pulled not just out of his home, but denied access or even knowledge of his culture and community, he loses that ability to "fill in the blanks" in culturally negotiated interactions. It's extremely difficult if not impossible to re-integrate into that culture. As a result, they were robbed of their heritage and identity when this didn't need to happen. A concrete example is the fact that the vast majority, if not all of these children lost the ability to communicate in Ojibwe, for example. This is not only horribly unacceptable, as I said above, it is cultural genocide and was carried out systematically by the government via a deliberate shirking of their responsibilities and promised supports.
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guest4

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Re: The 60s Scoop Verdict
« Reply #26 on: February 16, 2017, 10:38:36 am »

Children are children and are very flexible.  Culture is learned.  A change of cultures at an early age shouldn't create such problems.

This is what I used to think as well, and it was supported by all the 'experts' of the day and so when my children were very young I felt no guilt at separating from their father before they were old enough to really "feel" it.  Wasn't for years that I realized that even young children "feel" that kind of thing.   

It's also true that humans react differently to similar situations.   In a family I know, both children were adopted; the adoptive family was financially secure, there was no abuse, there was lots of love, lots of support.  Nonetheless, one of the children felt the rejection of her birth mother intensely and as a young teenager got involved with drugs and crime; she ended up spending almost 30 years in jail.   The other child had much less of a problem, married to the same person for 30+ years and lives a good life.     

It's unfortunate that people still believe all young kids are so emotionally flexible that you can uproot and disrupt their life without any long-term affects.   Young kids can look relatively unaffected by what's going on around them; it's often when they hit puberty that their early life experiences become influential in the way they feel about themselves and in the choices they make.    Just because many or even most traumatized children grow up to be relatively decent people regardless of their early life does not make it ok to dismiss evidence of harm that was done them and resulted in some of the kids having very bad outcomes.

Offline JMT

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Re: The 60s Scoop Verdict
« Reply #27 on: February 16, 2017, 10:39:47 am »
So what would have been the better solution?

Offline Blueblood

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Re: The 60s Scoop Verdict
« Reply #28 on: February 16, 2017, 11:37:32 am »
So what would have been the better solution?

Do nothing.  Free money is just as big of a problem if not moreso than the 60s scoop itself, the residential school system, and the systemic racism policies of the past (actual laws passed). 

Offline SirJohn

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Re: The 60s Scoop Verdict
« Reply #29 on: February 16, 2017, 11:40:11 am »
How do see them not being responsible?

It is not billions, it is a paltry $80k for destroyed childhood which has extreme implications on the persons entire life.

What destroyed childhood? How is society responsible for their destroyed childhood vs their parents who abused them and their neighbors who couldn't be trusted to take them in or who didn't want to take them in?
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