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Sisters
Lorraine Sinclair, left, and Cindy Munro attend an event marking 10
years since then Manitoba premier Greg Selinger apologized to survivors,
like them, of the Sixties Scoop. (Zubina Ahmed/CBC)
Survivors of an
infamous Canadian campaign to take Indigenous children from their
families are underscoring the need for more action on the 10-year
anniversary of the Manitoba's government formal apology for its role.
Lorraine
Sinclair and Cindy Munro are grateful they reunited. The sisters say
they're from a family of 11 children — nine of whom, including them,
were separated and adopted out during the Sixties Scoop.
"We're
learning about each other. Our other extended family and our other
brothers and sisters, we don't really know them," said Munro. "I don't
know who they are. That's not fair — that's not fair to my children, my
grandchildren, my siblings."
The sisters were among a group of
survivors and supporters at an event at St. John's Park in
north Winnipeg on Wednesday to mark a decade since then premier Greg
Selinger apologized to families caught in the Sixties Scoop.
The once
legal and systematic practice removed thousands of First Nation, Métis
and Inuit children from their birth families from the late 1950s into
the 1980s. Most were adopted out to non-Indigenous families in Canada
and abroad.
In response to our ITVX investigation, the UK government said: “This abhorrent practice should never have taken place, and our deepest sympathies are with all those affected.
“We take this issue extremely seriously and continue to engage with those impacted to provide support.”
In
2016 the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales apologised
“for the hurt caused by agencies acting in the name of the Catholic
Church”.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols acknowledged
“the grief and pain caused by the giving up of a child through
adoption", and added that "the practices of all adoption agencies
reflected the social values at the time".
If you have been affected by the issues in this report, please visit the links for help and support:
Adult Adoptee Movement - provides links to resources offering information and support for adoptees in the UK
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul presented perhaps the strongest worded
government apology to date for her state’s role in operating an Indian
boarding school from 1875 to 1957.
“Today, on behalf of the State of New York, I apologize to the Seneca
Nation of Indians – and the survivors and descendants from all Nations –
who attended the Thomas Indian School,” Hochul said. “We cannot change
the horrors of the past, but I recommit to the truth, justice,
reconciliation, accountability, and healing that are so essential to
move forward together.”
“The
only thing we have left is the cemetery where a lot of our Quapaws are
buried,” says Carrie Wilson, whose mother was forced to attend St. Mary
of the Quapaws school in Oklahoma. Photo illustration by Julie Reynolds.
In its attempt to crush Native America through
assimilation, the U.S. government created, operated, funded and
perpetuated a network of hundreds of Indian boarding schools across the
country. For centuries, the government forcibly severed Indigenous
children from their families and tribal homes. Countless students were
subjected to sexual, emotional and physical abuse. Nearly 1,000
schoolchildren died. Many were buried in unmarked graves.
Last month, over 200 years after the first school opened, outgoing President Joe Biden apologized.
How the apology landed for everyone is impossible to fully capture.
But The Imprint reached out to boarding school survivors and their
descendants, and compiled public statements made in recent weeks.
For some, the apology rang hollow. Others described it as an
important first step. But they all said more specific action must
follow: more funding for education, the return of buried children’s remains, and adherence to reforms called for by the U.S. Interior Department, which is led by the nation’s first Indigenous cabinet-level secretary, Deb Haaland.
“The apology was a welcome statement to me that should result in
solid action in terms of remedying harms to Tribal families and
communities,” wrote legal scholar Angelique EagleWoman, chief justice on
the Sisseton-Wahpeton Supreme Court and director of the Native American
Law and Sovereignty Institute in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
President Biden’s apology is the latest in a short list of acknowledgements of historical harms caused by the U.S. government:
1983: The U.S. apologized for shielding a former Gestapo officer known as the “Butcher of Lyon.”
1988: President Ronald Reagan apologized to Japanese Americans for
their forced removal to internment camps during World War II. The
apology was accompanied by $20,000 in compensation to each person who
was imprisoned.
1993: Congress apologized for a 1893 coup staged against the
Hawaiian Queen Lili’uokalani by American businessmen and sugar
plantation owners.
1997: President Bill Clinton formally recognized the U.S. role in
the infamous 40-year Tuskegee experiment, involving doctors from the
Tuskegee Institute in Alabama who withheld medical treatment to hundreds
of Black men infected with syphilis in order to study the long-term
progression of the disease. More than 100 men died.
2008: The second-most recent — and entirely symbolic — apology was
issued by Congress, an acknowledgment of the U.S. government’s
perpetuation of the Atlantic slave trade and Jim Crow laws.
President
Joe Biden after his apology in Arizona for the U.S. government’s
boarding school policies. Photo still from C-SPAN livestream.
Biden acknowledged Indian boarding school survivors 16 years after
the Canadian government apologized for its own network of such abusive
institutions. Canada’s apology was followed by a $2 billion settlement
with First Nations to compensate survivors for the schools’ acts of
“cultural genocide.”
Mental health experts interviewed for this piece emphasized
restitution as critical for individual and collective healing from
historical trauma. They pointed out that unlike Canada, the U.S.
president did not announce his apology alongside any meaningful next
steps beyond verbal acknowledgement.
Spero Manson, medical anthropologist and director of the Centers for
American Indian and Alaska Native Health, said when answering the
question of ‘what does an apology need to have in order to offer
healing?’ that self-determination is key. Individuals on this recovery
journey, he said, must have the opportunity to dictate their own course
in navigating the consequences of their traumas. Boarding school
survivors and their descendants are no exception.
“When we talk about treating patients who suffer from trauma — and
the emotional and psychological consequences thereof — after that first
acknowledging of the root causes, we begin to explore ways to reassert a
sense of self-efficacy, of reacquiring the ability to interact
positively with one’s environment,” Manson said. “We see this happening
at community levels as well as individuals, or at least the prospects of
that happening.
So what resources are necessary to enable people to continue on this
recovery journey? There are many different resources. The problem is,
from my point of view, with the changing nature of federal initiatives
and priorities, there’s great uncertainty about the ability of the
government to commit consistently, long term, to the provision of these
resources and attendant support for tribal communities.”
The Association on American Indian Affairs has called for burial remains to be returned home to ancestral lands.
“Justice requires action, including the repatriation of children who
were buried at these schools,” reads a public statement released after
the apology. “We must ensure this work not only continues but expands in
the next administration. Our next generations depend on it.”
Self-described Indigiqueer scholar and activist Autumn Asher BlackDeer was not impressed with Biden’s apology.
“Apologies without action are like the drive-by privilege checks or
hollow readings of land acknowledgments,” said BlackDeer, who is
Southern Cheyenne and an assistant professor in the Graduate School of
Social Work at the University of Denver. “No imperialist is getting a
pat on the back from me anytime soon.”
Below are responses to Biden’s apology to boarding school survivors and their descendants from around the country:
Judge Abby Abinanti. Provided photo
Abby Abinanti, chief judge of the Yurok Tribal Nation
Abinanti’s mother and her two sisters were sent to Sherman Indian High School in Riverside, California.
“The apology is an important starting point and must be followed up
by substantive efforts to ‘make it right.’ That is where the major work
must be done with the families, the descendants. Discussions must occur
at the ground level, and plans must be created.”
Robert Ludgate, child welfare expert and Siksika Nation descendant
Although he is employed by the University of Washington as a
development and facilitation specialist, his views do not reflect the
views or positions of the university.
“Taking steps to remedy the effects of the boarding/residential
school systems means focusing on contemporary child welfare system
reform as they are inextricably intertwined. An apology without action
to address what is happening now to Native families in the child welfare
system means very little.
Any meaningful apology related to the boarding/residential school
system needs to acknowledge both its context in the contemporary child
welfare system and be followed with action for systemic changes within
the contemporary child welfare system.”
Angelique EagleWoman, chief justice on the Sisseton-Wahpeton Supreme Court
EagleWoman’s father, grandparents and great-grandparents attended Indian boarding schools.
“U.S. President Biden spoke for a government that was engaged in
genocidal acts toward Tribal Nations for over a hundred years when he
gave the apology on Oct. 25, 2024. This was a long time in coming and
absolutely necessary to acknowledge the intergenerational trauma
stemming from deliberate U.S. policies towards Tribal children.
The suppression of this history must end. By understanding the harms
from the U.S. Indian boarding school era, the need for contemporary
responses such as the Indian Child Welfare Act to provide active efforts
in unifying Tribal families and transferring child cases to Tribal
courts is better understood.
The apology was a welcome statement to me that should result in solid
action in terms of remedying harms to Tribal families and communities.”
Sen. Mary Kunesh
Minnesota Sen. Mary Kunesh, a New Brighton, Minnesota lawmaker of Lakota heritage
“This recognition of past wrongdoings is an important step towards
healing relationships between the United States and the sovereign
nations affected by these past systems. This dark period of American
history must be remembered and taught.
The generational trauma caused by over a century of family separation
and forced cultural assimilation still weighs on Indigenous communities
to this day. In a time where we see a resurgence of white supremacist
attitudes in this country, it is crucial that we reject these hateful
ideas, in order to make sure we do not repeat these injustices of
history. Furthermore, we must remain vigilant of acts of ethnic
cleansing and prevent them from happening, both in our country and
around the world.”
Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan
Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan of White Earth Band of Ojibwe
Flanagan is a descendant of boarding school survivors.
“There literally is no Native person who hasn’t been impacted by this,” she told The Minnesota Star Tribune.
“I think he really said the things that people have been waiting to
hear for generations, acknowledged just the horror and trauma of
literally having our children stolen from our communities. It’s a
powerful first step toward healing.”
Albert is the granddaughter of boarding school survivors.
“As we build upon this moment, I encourage President Biden and the
next administration to execute the additional seven recommendations from
the Interior Department’s report. This includes the responsibility to
educate the American public on Native history, including the history of
federal Indian boarding schools, and to invest in education for Native
people.”
Ben Barnes, chief of the Shawnee Tribe
Barnes speaks often about boarding school survivors within his own tribe and how their needs should be uplifted.
“I’m delighted that President Biden’s apology today has shed an
unprecedented light on the evils perpetuated by the United States in
Indian boarding schools and elevated the visibility of tribal nations
and our fight to find justice for boarding school survivors and
descendants. However, I am incredibly disappointed President Biden did
not utilize this once-in-a-lifetime occasion to announce any meaningful
new action that will bring us closer to those goals.
Until the U.S. Truth and Healing Commission bill
is passed, and until American education systems tell the full history
of this chapter in our shared history, we will still have a very long
fight for justice ahead of us.”
In a ceremony Saturday afternoon, the US navy apologized for firing upon and torching the Alaska Native village of Kake in 1869.
Surrounded
by tribal Chilkat weavings, historic photographs and other Lingít
artwork in the Kake elementary and high school gymnasium, R Adm Mark B
Sucato expressed the military’s regret, in the first of two apologies
planned by the military for bombardments of Alaska Native communities in
the late 1800s.
“This
has been 155 years in the making,” said Joel Jackson, the president of
the Organized Village of Kake, of the apology to the Lingít (often known
as the Tlingit) people. “It’s becoming real because we never talked
about it and now we are.”
“They burned everything. All the shelters, all the food caches, the canoes,” Jackson told the Washington Post.
Although no one was killed during the winter bombardment, he said the
destruction of the community and its supplies and canoes led to many
deaths.
ANOTHER COUNTRY? Government
Apologizes to Victims of Illegal Adoptions
By
Jeff Abbott 7/22/2024
Guatemalan
President Bernardo Arévalo has taken an important step in seeking justice for
tens of thousands of children illegally
adopted from the Central American country.
On
July 12, the president made a public apology to the parents of two children
illegally adopted by a family in the United States in 1997. This is the first
time that the Guatemalan government has made a public apology for illegal adoptions carried out in the country between
1977 and 2008.
The
public apology was in response to the case of Osmín Tobar Ramírez, who was seven years old in 1997 when
he and his younger brother, Jeffrey Arias Ramírez, who was nearly two years
old, were taken from their family by the Guatemalan state and housed in the
Asociación Los Niños de Guatemala orphanage. They were put up for adoption, an
act that would later be revealed to be illegal.
“It
was something sensational,” Gustavo Tobar, their biological father, tells The
Progressive. “I never thought I would be in front of the highest authorities
of the country, in an act especially dedicated to us. You feel a positive
energy, you feel nervous, you feel everything, but it is something wonderful,
it is something very wonderful.”
In
2018, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of Osmín
and Jeffrey’s parents after years of searching for the children and struggling
to find justice in Guatemala, where their complaints were met with disinterest
from authorities. The court ruled
that the Guatemalan state had violated the rights of the family and that a
criminal network had financially benefited from the trafficking of the brothers
through adoption, ordering that the Guatemalan government apologize to them and
set up a commission to find the children that were sold as part of the illegal
adoption scheme.
“We
sought justice here in Guatemala,” Tobar says. “We went to courts [in
Guatemala], but they did not want to touch the issues. So we had to find an international court so that they could be heard.
Everything seemed very long.”
He
adds, “But thanks to God, after
twenty-seven years we had that glimmer of hope, that the government of
Guatemala would apologize for all the atrocities that were committed against
us.”
Osmín
and his brother were taken by the state and adopted out during the darkest days
of Guatemala’s internal armed conflict, when criminal networks would steal
children and put them up for adoption. Arévalo’s public apology comes as a
welcome shift for those who have been seeking justice for decades.
“It
was a historic step after a long struggle,” Mariela SR Coline Fanon, the
President of the Lost Roots Foundation and who herself was illegally adopted from Guatemala in the 1980s, tells The
Progressive.
“The
Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued this sentence before the state
because really the apologies were one with an international sentence that the
state of Guatemala should comply with the order,” she explains. “It opens the
door for everyone. It is a first step.”
Between 1977 and
2008, Guatemala became one of the primary countries in the world for illegal
adoptions, just ahead of Russia and China. During those years there were an estimated 30,000 cases of children being illegally adopted
from the Central American country before international adoptions were made
illegal in 2008. Each adoption cost between $12,000 and $80,000.
Many
of the people involved with the illegal adoption scheme were directly connected to Guatemalan political and business
leaders, meaning these crimes have largely gone unpunished and families have
remained separated.
“Impunity
cannot be the only response to what happened,” Fanon says. After discovering
her story at age thirty, she wrote a book entitled Mamá, No Estoy Muerta (Mom, I Am Not Dead) that documents
her own kidnapping, adoption, quest for justice, and meeting her biological
mother.
Canada Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangareeapologized
Monday to the nine Dakota and Lakota First Nations for denying their
constitutional recognition and protection. The apology symbolized the
Canadian government’s formal recognition of these First Nations as
“Aboriginal peoples of Canada” under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982.
In Monday’s gathering in Saskatchewan, Anandasangaree
delivered apologies to the Dakota and Lakota Nations on behalf of the
Canadian federal government. Despite the non-recognition of the
indignities of the Dakota and Lakota Nations, the settlor government
inflicted harm on the communities with many racist policies such as the reserve system, the Indian Act and the child welfare system. Along with the affirmation, Anandasangaree stated:
We
deeply regret the time it has taken to acknowledge the rightful place
of the Dakota and Lakota as Aboriginal peoples of Canada with
constitutionally protected Section 35 rights and we apologize for the
past harms suffered by generations as a result. With today’s statement,
we hope to begin writing a new chapter together where trust is rebuilt,
rights are respected and our Nation-to-Nation relationships are renewed
for the benefit of generations to come.
The
First Nations chiefs welcomed the apology as a “significant milestone”
to end injustices and discrimination. Following the apology, the chiefs
called on the federal government to continue working with the
communities to reconcile and restore the Nation-to-Nation relationships,
which involve “the return and conservation of lands, responsible
governance, rejuvenation of traditional practices and shared respect for
First Nations’ natural resources.”
Section 35 of the Constitution
Act, 1982 provides that “the existing aboriginal and treaty rights of
the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed.”
However, what “existing aboriginal and treaty rights” involve and who
enjoys these rights are longstanding disputes in courtrooms.
In 2007, the UN General Assembly adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Canada announced its unqualified support of the UNDRIP in 2016 and enacted
the UNDRIP Act in 2021. The act requires the Canadian government to
prepare and implement an action plan to achieve the UNDRIP’s objectives
and bring Canadian laws into line with the UNDRIP. Among all, the UNDRIP
obligates states to protect the Indigenous peoples’ right to the full
enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms, the right to
self-determination and the right to be free from discrimination.
Since the 1870s when the Dominion of Canada was created, the federal government has been undertaking treaties to regulate relationships with the First Nations. However, the settler government did not invite
the Dakota and Lakota First Nations to the treaty negotiation process
and labeled them “political refugees” fleeing from the oppression of the
US after the Battle of the Little Bighorn between the Lakota and the US
military.
MORE:
The First Nations affected are Sioux Valley Dakota Nation, Dakota Plains
Wahpeton Nation, Birdtail Sioux Dakota Nation, Canupawakpa First
Nation, Dakota Tipi, Standing Buffalo Dakota Nation, Wahpeton Dakota
Nation, Whitecap Dakota Nation and Wood Mountain Lakota.
WASHINGTON - Almost every important piece of U.S.
legislation contains at least one completely unrelated provision,
embedded either as a favor to lawmakers or because it couldn’t pass as a
standalone law.
As it was with the 2010 defense appropriations act, H.R. 3326 (now, Public Law 111-118), which contained America’s first apology to Native Americans for historic policies of assimilation and forced removal.
The bill, which passed in the Senate on December 19, 2009, and was
signed by then-President Barack Obama the same day, recognizes the legal
and political relationship between the U.S. and tribes, acknowledges
“years of official depredations, ill-conceived policies, and the
breaking of covenants,” and apologizes for violence, maltreatment and
neglect.
A U.S. apology for historic wrongs against Native Americans
was embedded deep within a defense spending bill passed December 19,
2009.
“The apology covered pretty much what it
needed to cover,” said Dr. Negiel Bigpond, a fourth-generation Christian
pastor and member of the Euchee (Yuchi) tribe, which was forced into
absorption by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in the late 19th century. For
years, he worked with then-Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas to get a
joint resolution of apology through Congress.
For more than a century, from the late 1870s to the early 1970s,
the U.S. government forcibly took thousands of Native American children
from reservations and sent them to federal or religious boarding
schools. At that time, supporters of the policy said these
institutions would help Indians assimilate into mainstream American
society, while later critics charged that the schools tried to eradicate
the Indian culture by suppressing traditional languages and customs.
Stephen Bronstein was suspended for one month and fined $4,000 after admitting to mishandling the cases of Sixties Scoop survivors. A
First Nation in B.C.’s Cariboo region is condemning the B.C. Law
Society’s handling of a Vancouver lawyer’s mishandling of residential
school survivor cases.
Bronstein was fined $4,000 after admitting
to mishandling the cases of residential school survivors. He was also
barred from acting as counsel for any ’60s Scoop claimants in the
future.
The
’60s Scoop was a large-scale program that allowed child welfare
organizations to remove Indigenous children from their families and
place them in the foster care system and allow them to be adopted by
white families.
The
Tŝilhqot’in Nation on Wednesday condemned the law society for not
adequately punishing Bronstein, noting that many of his clients were
from the First Nation.
The bill codifies provisions from the federal Indian Child Welfare Act in state law and will ensure that Oregon's practices better serve Indian children, ...
Phyllis Webstad was 6 years old when the new orange shirt she chose for
her 1st day of school was stripped off her back. It was the early 70s
& she was the 3rd generation to attend St. Joseph’s Residential
School in Williams Lake, BC.
While the suggestion is daunting, the 53-year-old member of the
Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation said she cannot help but think about a
picture of a bridge hanging on her living room wall that her Aunt Agnes
Jack purchased at a yard sale.
“The bridge is woven together with rope and tree roots,” she said.
“It’s not pretty, it’s not perfect, but it’s enough that you could walk
across it.”
Webstad said she keeps thinking about that.
“That’s been my life it seems because I grew up on the reserve, I’m
half Secwepemc, I’m half white and I have lighter skin so I’ve been more
readily accepted in the non-Indigenous community and I’ve been able to
be a bridge builder or gap person.”
She described the time period since the announcement confirming the
remains of 215 children buried at the former Kamloops Indian Residential
School as a whirlwind.
Webstad’s mom Rose Wilson gave birth to her in July 1967 at her grandmother Lena Jack’s home in Dog Creek. She found her birth father in Kamloops a few years ago. “I have eight other siblings, one passed away, so there are seven. They all live in Kamloops.”
The Unites States is a deeply divided nation, struggling to
reconcile the legacies of its history. If that was ever in doubt, surely
these last few months have exposed that stark truth, and this week’s
election results made clear how far these rifts are from closing.
"The
truth and reconciliation effort in Maine demonstrates how critical it
is to build shared understanding of the different experiences each
individual and community brings to the process," writes Martin Levine.
Individually and collectively, we are left to ponder a way forward
that could change this depressing reality. Can we find a path that heals
wounds? Can we find a way toward a common future, rather than seeing
every issue as a competition over scarce resources? Are we doomed to a
nation in which our success requires others to fail?
For real change, we may have to reconcile with those from whom we
have grown separate and develop a shared understanding of our different
life experiences. That’s the lesson we can learn from the state of
Maine’s approach to meeting the child welfare needs of its Native
American community.
Maine’s child welfare system was found to have entirely ignored the
mandates of the Federal Indian Child Welfare Act, which was put in place
to protect the interests of the Maliseet, Mi’kmaq, Passamaquoddy, and
Penobscot tribes in their jurisdiction. Faced with the loss of critical
federal funding, state child welfare officials moved quickly to create
plans for making needed changes. As described in Next City by Valerie Vande Panne:
A group of social workers from the state’s Department of Health and
Human Services (DHHS) reached out to the Muskie School of Public Service
at the University of Southern Maine for help with fixing the problem.
The idea became to go around the state and train social workers in Maine
about ICWA requirements. But the state social workers were totally
ignorant of tribes, history, and the way state policies had harmed the
tribes, and they were suddenly trying to work with the very people that
had been abused by their system.
And then… they stopped. They recognized that in order to move
forward, more than good intentions were necessary. If the biases and
divisions at the root of the problems were not addressed, even the best
plans would fail.
Denise Altvater (Passamaquoddy), a leader in Maine-Wabanaki REACH
(Restoration, Engagement, Advocacy, Change, Healing) who had been hired
to help state social workers better understand the culture of the Native
communities they served, noted, “One day, we decided we were stuck.”
When racial tensions wouldn’t ease, a decision had to be made: “Do we
keep doing what we’re doing, and call it the best we can do, or do we
take the giant leap and go deeper?”
They went much
deeper, forming what would be known as the Maine Wabanaki-Child Welfare
Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to explore that which
separated Native and white communities before they returned to building a
new and improved system together.
For Maria Girouard (Penobscot), the executive director of
Maine-Wabanaki REACH, the barrier to moving forward was not the lack of a
plan, but the lack of a trusting relationship. “How the TRC did the
work and fulfilled its purpose was just as important as the product it
produced,” says Girouard. “More important was the truth-telling. There
was a good deal of pushback all around to the idea.”
Social work educator Gail Werrbach, one of the five commissioners,
recognized the need to address the historic realities that we all have
inherited.
The white people are dying to reconcile. “Let’s reconcile and [now]
everyone loves each other.” It’s such important work, and it’s hard
work. I think the biggest challenge is that white people, we want to go
faster, fix faster, feel better faster. That’s just not how historical
trauma works. So, any cities or communities looking at similar kinds of
commissions need to take a long-view time frame in anything they set up,
and not get trapped in thinking people will be reconciled and move on.
It’s been 500 years.
Penthea Burns, now a board member of Maine-Wabanaki REACH, describes
the key learning that must guide efforts to address deep, systemic
change. “We should always be talking about repair and reparations
through the lens of understanding the harm that has been done,” says
Burns. “As a white woman, how do I get my association to hear, and
repair from a different level of commitment? How do we be different
together? Our state officials had a lot of reticence around reparations
from a bottom-line perspective, holding that as just writing a check.
Reparations is so much deeper and more engaging than that.”
From this process emerged a new approach for the state to provide
needed child welfare services to its Native American residents. This
would be a shared construct, supported from a foundation of common
understanding and shared responsibility.
TRC Commissioner
Sandy White Hawk says truth and healing will happen only when the people
are ready. Only then it will be possible to make deep and systemic
change together. “You cannot heal during trauma. You can’t get over
something that is still happening to you. It’s impossible. You don’t say
to someone suffering from cancer, ‘get over it.’”
The truth and reconciliation effort in Maine demonstrates how
critical it is to build shared understanding of the different
experiences each individual and community brings to the process. If we
have the patience to take the time this will take, we can make a
difference. If we have the strength to feel the pain, to recognize the
hurt of others and our responsibility for it, we have a chance to move
beyond it. In this moment of great division, we will need to be strong
and brave if we hope to make the future better.
Martin Levine is a
Principal at Levine Partners LLP, a consulting group focusing on
organizational change and improvement, realigning service systems to
allow them to be more responsive and effective. Before that, he served
as the CEO of JCC Chicago, where he was responsible for the development
of new facilities in response to the changing demography of the
Metropolitan Jewish Community. In addition to his JCC responsibilities,
Mr. Levine served as a consultant on organizational change and
improvement to school districts and community organizations. Mr. Levine
has published several articles on change and has presented at numerous
conferences on this subject.A native of New York City, Mr. Levine is a
graduate of City College of New York (BS in Biology) and Columbia
University (MSW). He has trained with the Future Search and the Deming
Institute.
This article was originally published in the Nonprofit Quarterly(Volume xx, Issue xx, Season Year), www.npqmag.org.
Used with permission.
Stewart
Garnett, 41, was adopted by a San Francisco family as a kid, but has
come back to Manitoba to try to retrace his heritage. (Erin Brohman/CBC)
Stewart Garnett
Stewart
Garnett was born in Winnipeg and is from Long Plain First Nation, but
he grew up in California after being adopted by a white family during
the Sixties Scoop.
Garnett said he struggled with questions of identity growing up and was frequently confused by the way people would label him. He returned to Manitoba about a week ago in attempt to regain a sense of his culture. "It's been rough. I see people who do know who they are and they're comfortable in their own skin, but me, no," he said. "You
try walking in the non-aboriginal world, you don't fit in; you try and
walk in the aboriginal world and you don't necessarily fit in, so you're
on this fence of 'Where do we fit in?'"
South Carolina court drops contempt charge against Dusten Brown Dusten Brown and the Cherokee Nation rea...
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You are not alone
To Veronica Brown
Veronica, we adult adoptees are thinking of you today and every day. We will be here when you need us. Your journey in the adopted life has begun, nothing can revoke that now, the damage cannot be undone. Be courageous, you have what no adoptee before you has had; a strong group of adult adoptees who know your story, who are behind you and will always be so.
Diane Tells His Name
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Lost Birds on Al Jazeera Fault Lines
click to read and listen about Trace, Diane, Julie and Suzie
NO MORE STOLEN SISTERS
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We conclude this series & continue the conversation by naming that adoption is genocide. This naming refers to the process of genocide that breaks kinship ties through adoption & other forms of family separation & policing 🧵#NAAM2022#AdoptionIsTraumaAND#AdopteeTwitter#FFY 1/6 pic.twitter.com/46v0mWISZ1
As the single largest unregulated industry in the United States, adoption is viewed as a benevolent action that results in the formation of “forever families.” The truth is that it is a very lucrative business with a known sales pitch. With profits last estimated at over $1.44 billion dollars a year, mothers who consider adoption for their babies need to be very aware that all of this promotion clouds the facts and only though independent research can they get an accurate account of what life might be like for both them and their child after signing the adoption paperwork.
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