let's tell the story

"How you tell the stories of Africans is much more important that what the story is; because if you are showing me as voiceless, as hopeless [then] you have no space telling my story. You shouldn’t be telling my story if you don’t believe that I also have the power to change what is going on." -Rosebell Kagumire on Kony 2010 via Racialicious

The same is true for Inuit and the recent Tragadie Inuite articles in La Presse.. i know its old news and its done and done, but the fact remains that a lot of people still think that those who spoke out were wrong to speak out, that we were just being over sensitive and defensive. 

I'm a very strong believer in stories, and the rights and responsibilities of people to *tell their own stories*. It comes with breaking free of oppression, the ability to tell your story from your perspective, the ability to have a voice and not be spoken for. 

My fellow Inuit, we have a voice, we have a story, a history, a her-story, we have OUR story. The injustice in La Presse was not that the truth or some variation of it was told, the injustice was in the delivery, the wording, the injustice was in the fact that the outside had the gall to come into our lives, into our story and bend the perception, to influence others and speak on our behalf with all the authority in the world and tell our story for us. 

It's our culture to be story tellers. I know for a fact that each and every single one of us Inuit has the ability to tell our own story, to tell our version of our collective story and that's legitimate. it cannot be disputed. As long as we have integrity and respect for all those involved, as long as we can speak as honestly as we should, than nobody in the world can come and tell our story on behalf of us and get away with it. 

Not only do we have the god given right to tell our story, but we also have the responsibility, and if we do not take that responsibility, do we really deserve the right? let's stop waiting for our story to be told for us, let's speak out and tell it, write it, film it, paint it.... let's work to change it. lets work to protect it. 

That's all.... good morning folks :) 

Guest Post: Letter to La Presse regarding the recent racially charged articles about Inuit

Here's a post from a very silatujuk (intelligent) friend of mine, Joey Flowers, the first Nunavik Inuk to graduate from Law School. He wrote a beautifully diplomatic, relevant and thought-provoking letter to the Editor of La Presse, after the publication of some very racially insensitive articles in the Saturday February 25 edition of La Presse. The series of stories, though published in French have absolutely outraged the people of Nunavik. It's provoked a very strong reaction from Nunavimmiut, and Joey, did a fantastic job of responding diplomatically, reasonably and swiftly.

The clearly racial image of a Inuk man's juxtaposed with the body of a dog were enough to spark tensions, a picture certainly is worth a thousand words, but accompanied with 6 articles, 3 videos and a photo essay, this was a mistake that La Presse should have thought seriously about before making...


 Here is the letter: « La tragédie inuit » is not too different from the anonymous racist pamphlets distributed in the context of the transit house for inuit patients in Villeray, in 2010. These pamphlets proclaimed that wit the arrival of inuit, people in Villeray could also expect to see “an major increase in criminality in the neighborhood, prostitution, drug trafficking including crack and methamphetamines, the presence of syringes, condoms, bottles on the sidewalks, alleys, and in parks, vandalism, theft, violent crime, smells that make you want to vomit, and people urinating here and there.” Your series betrays a tendency similar to the deplorable prejudiced anonymous racists. But you, Pascale Breton, instead of hiding in the shelter of anonymity, present a story in which we, the Inuit, are murderers, alcoholics, drop outs, lazy, homeless, negligent parents, and citizens insensitive and unconcerned about the issues we face in our region. Not only that, but little children in grade 4 yawn in class! What a tragedy! These poor 10 year old Inuit, bored in school! “White” kids in the south, do they never whisper amongst themselves in class? Outremont youngsters never wiggle in their chairs at school? What a joke! On the other side, southerners you call “white” (why don’t we see inuit in quotation marks?), those franco-professors who offer themselves as saintly families saving the poor “Inuit” children who “by the force of things” are losing their culture. What forces are you talking about? The Indian Residential Schools, the official policy tool of the government to assimilate the young heathen savages? The famous “sixties scoop” a project of excessive numbers of apprehenssions by social services to take native kids away from their families? Not fair, you might say. Pascale Breton is simply telling us what she observed when she spent seven long days in the north. It’s true, I reply, that we have major problems in our communities, there’s no question about it. But to tell a one-sided single story after having spent a short week in one village in the north is no way to give southern Quebeckers (after all, we are northern Quebeckers, not “pure laine” but instead “pure seal skin”) an idea of the nuances, of the richness, of the potential that northern life offers. No story about the wisdom of our elders, of the successes of our youth, of the innovative systems of governance we have, of our citizens’ economic, political, and social engagement in the villages. Instead of such a nuanced report, we see a photo of a canine body with the head of a homeless Inuk man, no different than Rudyard Kiplings “White Man’s Burdern” in which he describes those poor African children as “half devil, half child”. Chimamanda Adichie has said “Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.” I submit that Pascale Breton has abused her power.


  French Translation:

  « La tragédie inuit » n’est pas loin des tracts racistes distribués en anonymat en 2010 dans le contexte de la résidence pour patients inuits dans le quartier de Villeray. Ces tracts annonçaient que l’arrivée des Inuits à Villeray, entraînerait aussi « une augmentation majeure de la criminalité dans votre voisinage, prostitution, trafic de drogues tel que le crack et les methamphétamines, présence de seringues, de condoms, de bouteilles, sur les trottoirs et ruelles, dans les parcs, le vandalisme, les vols et les crimes violents contre la personne, odeurs nauséabondes, gens qui urinent par-ci, par-là. » Votre série fait preuve d’une tendance pas loin des préjugés déplorables de ces racistes anonymes de Villeray. Mais vous, Pascale Breton, au lieu de vous trouver à l’abri de l’anonymat, vous présentez une histoire dans laquelle nous, « Inuits », sommes meurtriers, alcooliques, décrocheurs, paresseux, itinérants, des parents négligents, et des citoyens insensibles et indifférents envers les enjeux auxquels nous, la population « inuit », faisons face. Qui plus est, les petits enfants de la 4e année bâillent à l’école. Quelle tragédie! Les pauvres « inuit » de 10 ans, ennuyés à l’école! Les jeunes « blancs » du sud, ne chuchotent-ils jamais à l’oreille de leurs camarades? Ne gigotent-ils jamais dans leurs chaises, les gamins d’Outremont? Quelle farce! De l’autre côté, les gens du sud, dits « blancs » (pourquoi le mot inuit n’est-il pas entre guillemets?), ces franco-professeurs qui veulent saintes familles sauvant les pauvres enfants « inuits » qui, « par la force des choses » perdent leur culture. Par quelle force, au juste? Les pensionnats indiens, projet officiel du gouvernement pour assimiler les jeunes païens sauvages? Le fameux « sixties scoop », projet de signalements par le DPJ et les taux surélevés d’enlèvement d’enfants autochtones? Pas juste, direz-vous : Pascale Breton ne fait que raconter ce qu’elle a observé pendant son gros sept jours d’expérience dans le grand nord. Il est vrai, je réplique, que nous éprouvons des problèmes importants dans nos communautés. Mais raconter une histoire unique et unidimensionnelle après une courte semaine passée dans un seul village ne peux donner aux Québécois du sud (car nous sommes les Québécois du nord, non « pure laine » mais plutôt « pure peau de phoque ») une idée des nuances, des richesses et du potentiel de la vie nordique. Aucune histoire des sagesses de nos ainés, des succès de nos jeunes, de l’innovation de nos systèmes de gouvernance, ni de l’engagement de notre population en matières économiques, politiques et sociaux dans les villages. Au lieu d’un tel reportage nuancé, une photo d’un corps canin avec la tête d’un Inuk itinérant, pas loin du fameux « White Man’s Burden » de Rudyard Kipling qui décrit les pauvres Africains comme « moitié-diable, moitié-enfant ». Selon Chimamanda Adichie « le pouvoir est la capacité de non seulement de raconter l’histoire de l’autre, mais de le présenter comme l’histoire définitif de l’autre. » Nous soumettons que Pascale Breton abuse son pouvoir.


 You can read more about the Villeray scandal in 2010 here.

everyone loves a quitter, right?

Whenever i make new years resolutions, i never, ever keep them. but this year, there were a lot of thing i really wanted to change in my life, and i knew that if i made them "resolutions" i was not going to accomplish changing them... so instead, i made myself a personal mission statement. It was more general, with a few specific little things. but i think it's going to be a good reference for me whenever i hit a block in the road. two of the things i put specifically into that statement were to quit smoking, and blog more. I have such a poor, neglected little blog here. and another blog that i was supposed to write for monthly, but nope. some of the posts in this blog are even embarrassing to me when i read over them again. its like, i was just trying to hard to get something into here that i didnt even bother making it worth reading. so this year, i will blog more and it will be worth your time and mine, dear reader. as for quitting smoking. that's what i wanted to write about today. i've gone 53 and a half hours without having a cigarette. It was mostly by accident, i was travelling north from Montreal and i had only one stick left the morning i was supposed to leave. i smoked it. then we had a layover in La Grande where i managed to bum a cigarette from an old friend of my mom's.. then when we got to pov, i didnt really know anyone at the airport enough to be comfortable to bum one. I got to my boyfriends place (who doesnt smoke!) while he was still away for work so i spent the night alone. I was too cold to go out and buy/bum cigarettes and i was too tired and too lazy. so i stayed in and before i knew it, 24 hours had passed since my last cigarette. i was desperate for one by that point, but i was still too cold to go buy some and i started thinking, hmm.. i've never ever gone 24 hours without a cigarette since i started smoking, i should just continue. and now im here, 53 hours later and still havent had one. I'm thinking A LOT about it, but not because i want to smoke one. Thinking about the way it made me feel... it gave me headaches, it made me nauseous each and every time i smoked, and yet i smoked like 6-7 times a day. i have asthma, so i would be taking my inhalers far more than the recommended doses per day, not to mention the 4am barely getting a breath in asthma attacks that came like clock work. and dont even get me started on the nasty shit i was coughing up every day... *ugh* it's hard. it really isnt easy quitting smoking. I've had two cups of coffee, a HUGE bowl of broth and im on my third herbal tea of the day. I'm eating almonds left and right and i keep bringing my two fingers to my lips as if there's a cigarette to puff... my body is itching for it, but my mind seems to be over the matter and that makes me proud. it's not necessarily the cigarette itself that i want either. it's the ritual. pulling a cigarette out of the pack, tapping the filter on my lighter or a table to compact it, sometimes i'd break the tip off, sometimes i didnt.. light and smoke, gag, smoke, gag, smoke, flick. cue nausea, cue headache, cue the "who cares, cause im so cool cause i smoke" feeling to justify it all. when something becomes so part of your day to day life, it gets harder and harder to let it go... wake up in the morning, make coffee, check my emails and have a cigarette. it seems so natural.. but i didnt smoke for years, and i wasnt a smoker for very long. in fact, i was that friend who would break your cigarettes or make coughing and gagging noises each time someone lit one up.. i couldnt face my parents, even though i knew that they knew; i still lied about it or changed the subject (rather harshly) if it ever came up. I never want to be like that. im going to be good to myself, and to others. being good to others means not blowing toxic fumes in their face, not being a bitch because i havent had a cigarette and not trowing toxic butts on the ground for someone else to clean up. my aunt told me something a few months ago that stuck with me, each time i smoked i would think of her. she smoked all her life, and now in her old(er) age, she's quit. she said "When you're older, and you've been smoking your whole life, you're going to wake up every day and realize how precious life is. you're going to be scared of dying every day because you're going to know you're going to die sooner than you were meant to because of cigarettes." she didnt say it spitefully or rudely like most people who tell you to quit smoking do, she said it honestly and genuinely, she said it out of love for me. it took me a few months to get it, but those words, i never forgot them and i never will....

quite a nice feeling. sort of, lighter.. or something.

I just recently deactivated my facebook account. and for those who know me, or have me on facebook... i was all over that. i was legitimately addicted to facebook, and people didnt believe me when i said i quit. now, it's been over a week and i really dont miss it. i really really really dont. it took me a few days to really get it out of my system... the day after i deactivated it, i went to Puvirnituq to see my boyfriend. i dont know if that timing was good or bad, yet somehow, it felt like both. it was bad because usually, when i go there i'll facebook my friends to see what's going on, but this time, being so used to facebook i felt paralyzed without it and ended up staying in the house for the whole 2 days alone with my man, which wasnt awful, but it's always nice to see friends there... the good part was that he doesnt have facebook, and i got to spend a few days just completely ignoring all the bitching, whining, complaining, criticizing, judgemental shit people put out there and i was able to actually relax. it did take me quite a while to figure out alternative things to do with so much free time though. but it was like, a re-introduction to the real world, sort of. i realized i can do something, anything at all... without checking facebook every 5 minutes for a notification. it's weird to think that i havent had the freedom to do that in... 5 years, since i activated my facebook for the first time... it's a really nice feeling.

Schooling the Teachers

Dear New Teachers,

Are you feeling the culture shock yet? Or is your honeymoon phase still lingering?

Regardless, you should understand that this place, whether you’re in the smallest community or the largest, is absolutely one of the most unique and special places in Canada. This place an Inuit homeland. This is the place where our language and our customs prevail; this is the place where you are an outsider. Where you will have to work to gain the respect of your students and the community.
Nothing is going to come easy for you; and I’m telling you this not because I want you to give up or to discourage you. I’m telling you because no one else will, and the simple fact of that is what will discourage you the most. Many have come before you, and many will come after you and that, whether you like it or not is what defines you. You’re just another Qallunaaq in transit. You’re here for the experience, you’re here to take pictures and to have grand stories to tell your friends and family back home. This may not be your motive, but we know that that’s what you’ll end up doing, because in the end, that’s what they all end up doing. People don’t see consistency in you, they cant see a future where you’ll be present; and that makes it hard for people to want to get close to you. It makes it hard for your students to have any respect for you.
Some of you have probably seen this in your classrooms already, but if you haven’t, you’ll know soon enough. I’m sure you have trouble getting your students to behave, to sit still, to listen or to do what you ask. I’m asking you, as a former student of the KSB system to have patience; to be compassionate; to try to understand. Some of your students do not come from the most stable homes, some of your students have families that would rather be on the land, some have very supportive parents and some are in foster care. Regardless, all of them have one thing in common and that’s the knowledge and deep understanding that you’re probably not going to stick around.
I know some of you come up north with this messiah complex and you’ve come to help the Inuit, to educate the next generation and to have been part that movement, but let me tell you now that if this is your motive, you will burn out. Some of you come because it’s the only job you could get, especially right out of school. (Sorry to seem harsh, but that’s true. Let’s be real here) I know because I see the teachers getting younger and younger each year. When I was 16, my secondary 4 teacher was 21 years old; as old as I am now and I am young. He was more of a friend to me than a teacher, but I still managed to learn a lot from him; and then he left, and I never heard from him again. That’s heartbreaking for students and it really does make it harder for them to open up to you. I keep going back to that, but you should really understand that this is one of the major barriers to your success as a teacher, and it’s one of the major barriers to the success of your students.
You’ve probably heard before the state that Education in Nunavik is in. You probably know that we have one of the highest dropout rates in Canada. I’m not writing this to blame teachers exclusively; these circumstances are just a consequence of our history, which is incredibly complex, especially regarding education. But no matter what, the role you play is absolutely vital to our communities and our future. I’m asking you to not take that lightly. You are educating the next generation of doctors, lawyers, politicians and artists, the next generation of hunters, seamstresses, mothers and fathers.
Parents are everything in the education of their children. If they do not have a good impression of education, as many parents and grandparents in Nunavik do, the future of education is pretty bleak. You have to work to give your students, and their parents a good, solid opinion of education. It’s a huge job, but as a teacher, it’s one of your responsibilities.
Let’s go back to that little friend of yours, the filter that you face, one that has defeated many of your predecessors: culture shock (dun dun dunnnnn). I know you had that presentation at your orientation, but still too many of you still succumb to this inevitable force. I’m not entirely sure what it is you’re told.. but the simple fact is that many of you will not have the tools to deal with it properly. One of the major aspects of that is cross-cultural communication (or miscommunication). You are coming from a place where values, concepts and ideas of education, communication, priorities and worldview are vastly different from those of Nunavik. Your students live by our rules of social interaction, and you live by yours. If you’re brave enough to step out of our comfort zone and step into our social norms, I promise you that life will get easier, your job will get easier, you will gain respect and hopefully succeed up here; because the values you have in education very often clash with ours. You expect competition, and quick responses, when Inuit kids are taught to listen and watch and truly understand before they answer a question or attempt a task. A lot of the time in Inuit culture, asking questions is not acceptable, you watch and you watch and you watch ‘til you know. The way in which people interact is different in Inuit culture; people call out what they see, people are blunt and people make jokes. You will be the target of people’s jokes, but don’t take that personally at all. It’s just the way it is, I promise you that life will be much easier and more fun if you can just go along with it. Another things that’s worlds apart from the southern way of being is the concept of personal space. People will touch you, your students will touch you. You are most certainly allowed to have your boundaries, but clearly state them to people because they wont know, and try not to be startled or react abruptly when someone does make physical contact. Just say nicely that you’re not comfortable with it because that’s not the way it is where you come from; but also you should understand that shaking hands is a very important aspect of Inuit culture, it’s a welcoming gesture and everyone, from the smallest child to the oldest elder does it. So when you meet new people, shake their hands, even if they’re small children or even babies.
Anyway, I just felt the need to communicate this to you. I hope you understand and let this help you in your journey and profession. Thank you for taking on this job, thank you for taking the responsibility of educating our students and feel free to contact me if you have any questions or you just want to talk to someone. Your worst enemy up here is yourself, you can sink into yourself and grind gears and do your work to get it over with, or you can put yourself out there, make friends, visit people, try the food, imitate the language and just have fun. Life in Nunavik is fun, people are fun so go out and have FUN! Try as much as you can to not isolate yourself from the community, try to make friends with local people and most of all, avoid cliques where you only interact with other qallunaat, because as I’ve seen many times before, it’s a recipe for failure and disaster. It’s what people expect you to do, and once you meet that expectation, you will lose a lot of respect from the people. Remember that this is Inuit territory and you are a visitor.



Sincerely,

Janice Grey
janice17grey@hotmail.com

need discipline

OK, I feel like i'm not taking this seriously anymore, not the blog itself but my writing, i used to love it and it showed, but now it's like i chore (and it shows)... i still want to love it and dammit i will... I'm going to try to write at least once a week (or more probably once a month).. I want to be more disciplined at something.. anything. because that's one thing i definitely lack in my life.

Things Teachers Need to Know about Teaching in the North

The education system in Nunavik has been ineffective for years and years and years. It’s got so many complicated factors, but some of the more significant ones include cross cultural miscommunication between Inuit students and parents and Qallunaaq teachers. This is a problem that can be resolved. Even though it feels like only a few types of people come up north to teach, most often, none of those types can handle the stress of teaching in Nunavik, though there are some great exceptions... and this is from 21 years of going through that school system and interacting with teachers.
One, the freak, generally the outcast type, makes people uncomfortable and keeps himself somewhat distant. I once had a teacher who drew light bulbs during class, he didn’t actually know the level of math he was supposed to be teaching us, so instead we had a lot ‘free drawing time’ where he would draw light bulbs, almost obsessively... with arms, and legs and wheels and just all kinds of weird light bulbs; then he would hang them on the walls. Then there was this one that never looked you in the eye, ever. I know the word freak is a bit harsh, odd, i should say. Then the second type, the runaway. Runaways usually have something they’re hiding from –family reasonability, even crimes. People that needed a change in their life that didn’t include anyone else... and three, the assholes; usually up just to make money, and can sometimes be considered racist. Then there’s newbies, right out of university and into the schools. I like to call them fresh meat. They’re often idealistic and come up north seeking adventure, to spice up their own lives with exotic stories of the far north.
That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with these types of people. They just happen to be the types that come up north most often. Anyway, regardless of motives, new teachers in the north do have something in common. They are equally unequipped to work in an Inuit school board for Inuit people. Sure, they have their Bachelors and Masters and blah blah blah, but they don’t know how to interact with Inuit, in an Inuit social context. I’m sure they get a lecture on culture shock and recovery, but most often, they are not given the tools to decode cultural miscommunication, and misunderstandings.
I recently went on a volunteer exchange in Ghana, and before we even left Canada, we had to take workshops on cross cultural learning, communication and understanding. We had the analogy of the icebergs. My iceberg was my own culture, and the other was the other culture. It was divided into three sections, the first being the tip of the iceberg, ‘behaviour’, the second part, just below the surface ‘norms’ and the third section, at the very bottom ‘values’. Imagine you, a teacher as one iceberg, and your students as another iceberg. You have your own ways of life, you have your own idea of education and your own methods of teaching, all these things you picked up throughout your own life, within your own society and culture. All these things, you can credit to norms and values that you were taught. Your students have their own ways of living, their own idea of education and their own methods of learning. When you can understand how to see deeper into the iceberg of your students, you might understand why your behaviour and their behaviour collide and how their behaviours are affected by the norms and values in their culture. Why you feel like you’re ineffective, or why you think your students will never learn, it’s hard to see where you’re going wrong when your foundation of understanding can never mesh with that of your students. That’s the problem here, teachers are not given the tools they need to decode and understand cultural differences, and neither are students. This often leads to poor delivery of critical education.
Then there’s that long, tragic history of education in the north, and the idea that educating through the present system is a continual colonization. Though we have the legal means to suite education to our own cultural needs, the present system looks oddly familiar to that of the south. The general relationship between Inuit and Qallunaat was one of inequality and intimidation, especially in local day schools or residential boarding schools. There hasn’t been enough movement on either side to really change that relationship, even when Inuit gained control of their education system. We don’t get enough teachers who are genuinely concerned with the wellbeing of Inuit society; this, in part to the fact that not many Inuit have degrees that could allow them to teach grades above third and fourth -which is directly caused by the poor quality of education they received in elementary and secondary.
Teachers who come up north often cannot handle the circumstances, many leave after a year from being too overwhelmed, mentally and emotionally. I won’t lie, a few have problems with anxiety, even depression. Living up north is unique experience, it can get ugly, it can get dark, but it’s also very full of beauty and spirit. The problem is, many newcomers feel too overwhelmed by the heavy, ugly dark side to really see the beauty, then they go back home and tell people how much they hated the north... it’s a sad phenomenon, but it happens every day. Even as we speak, there’s probably a teacher who has stopped caring, who’s counting the days to go home, who would be happy never to see their students again. Imagine how that makes students feel?
To have someone new every year, to have to go through the same culture shocked roller coaster, at critical periods of your education. I have done a lot of work with young people in Nunavik, and I know there’s so much potential there, so much energy and talent, so much intelligence and curiosity. If only educational activities are executed accordingly, these kids do have the potential to learn and grow. But there’s so much in the way of that happening, so much that can be changed or addressed is going untouched, unmentioned and unresolved.
I’m writing this to try to tell people who want to come teach in the north that they do have an amazing opportunity to help. And to remind present teachers that there’s so much that you could understand about the experience. Because it’s inevitable that we will still depend on Qallunaat teachers for a few more years to come, let’s not gloss over that... We need teachers and we need teachers who care and understand. We need teachers who have the tools to teach cross culturally. We need teachers to understand when its their place to teach and their place to learn, because no matter what... life in the north is a learning experience. Let’s keep that beautiful.