My Reflections
By Joe S. Nayquonabe - Commissioner of Corporate Affairs, Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe; Board of Directors, Center for Economic Inclusion
As we marked the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, an unfathomable bookend to the year emerged for my Indigenous community as news broke of a mass grave discovered on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, Canada.
In the mass grave lie the remains of 215 Indigenous children, some as young as just 3 years old. This news opened incredible scars for Indigenous people across North America. It is a grim, painful reminder of the Indigenous boarding school era, a federally mandated byproduct of assimilation policies which lasted from 1860 to 1978 in the United States and more than 160 years in Canada (1830s-1996).
During this era in both Canada and the United States, the government policy was to assimilate Indigenous people into the white societal ideals of the time to “kill the Indian, save the man.” Essentially, it was cultural genocide, the trauma of which still reverberates throughout generations of Indigenous people and families.
Systematic neglect, abuse, and denigration of Indigenous, Black, Latinx, and Asian people is woven into the very fabric of our nation’s history. This is a powerful call to action to educate our communities to create a more just future for generations to come. This is the reckoning of our time.
May the souls of the 215 children found Rest in Peace and may healing commence for our Indigenous communities across the land.
ABOUT THE REFLECTIONS CAMPAIGN
After a year of reckoning with the ravages of racism in our schools, businesses, neighborhoods, and halls of justice, we see clearly that racism is deeply woven into every fiber of our society and that the consequences have touched each person in America. We see the depths of division and racism and the imperative to work in new ways to address very old problems.
The Center for Economic Inclusion invited leaders at all levels and from across sectors to share their reflections of the past year; several members of the Center’s staff have also participated. We wanted to learn how they have reckoned with racism over the past year; what is different in the places where they live, work, and play; what they think the the future holds; and what they think it will take to reimagine and build an economy that truly works for everyone.
We thank the leaders who answered our call to participate in this campaign. All week long, we will share their powerful reflections, in their own words.
> To engage with our entire Reckoning to Rise Together series, click here.