Lauren and Joycelyn Presentation UVIC 354 Fall semester

1. Group C - Week 7
Unanswered Questions, Unquestioned
Answers: The Standard Account. The Circle
Game: Shadows and Substance in the
Indian Residential School Experience in
Canada

3. “ When myth is given
flesh and bones, is
presented as revealed
truth, and begins
justifying our attitudes
and behaviors, it doesn’t
do so of it’s own accord:
myths, even when
recognized as such, are
deployed to some
purpose”

4. passing along “their
personal
Labeled, psychological
violent problems to their
tendencies, home community”
alcoholism, bad
parents
Neatly disposes of Expression of
all residential ‘unintentional’
schooling injuries
‘problems’

6. Present-day
symptomology
is not a
psychological
condition but is
a WELL
The KNOWN
consequences response of
of residential humans living
school on in severe
Aboriginal prolonged
people was oppression
WELL
UNDERSTOOD
at the time of
their creation
Rhetorical maneuvers
by the government are
designed to obscure
the accountability of
Eurocanadian society
in CONTINUING
crimes against
humanity

7.  “Residential Schools were one of many
attempts at the genocide of the Aboriginal
Peoples inhabiting the area now commonly
called Canada”
 “Forgiving and forgetting induced by
social pressure is immoral”
“The urgency all of us feel
to do something should
not be allowed to dissipate
into simply doing
“We will argue the anything.”
choice between the
status quo and the
possibility of doing
something useful”

8. “I rebel against my part,
against history and
against a present that
places the
incomprehensible in the
cold storage of history
and thus falsifies it in a
revolting way”

9. How can we apply the
by NOT accepting the labeling of First
understand up this how
Nationsinformation from illnesses but
“admit that
people with made
important it is to
by acknowledging first ourselves the truth,
the role we playarticleexists
racism truth, sharing that
in that to
acknowledge the
andsafety where Indigenous
that all
truth and by encouraging our agencies to
decolonization and
create a space of admit the
truth, to
white people to
people can be free of the lies perpetrated
to distract and to fight that
truth and disown thean
working in this society are the
within it”
current practices from
benefit truth
fact
have the suffering of the
Indigenous in this country.
reason for the continued
revealed
First Nations People
human
service context?

10. How do you feel about the „standard‟
version vs. the „irregular‟ version of
colonization and residential school spoken
about in the Chrisjohn and Young‟s
article? How do you think the „standard‟
version has benefited/affected you on a
personal and societal level? And how do
you think this information can be used in
an AOP and decolonizing practice?

11. References
 Chrisjohn, Roland & Young, Sherri. (1997). Unanswered Questions,
Unquestioned Answers: The Standard Account. The Circle Game: Shadows and
Substance in the Indian Residential School Experience in Canada, Penticton:
Theytus Books Ltd., pp. 1-6.
 Richardson, Cathy. (2005). Métis Identity Creation and Tactical Responses to
Oppression and Racism. Variegations, 2, pp. 56-71. (e-reserve)
http://ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/login?url=http://www.uvic.ca/hsd/assets/docs/p
ublications/variegations/vol-2/richardson.pdf
 Zamudio, M & Rios, F. (2006). From Traditional to Liberal Racism: Living
Racism in the Everyday. Sociological Perspectives, 49 (4), pp. 483-501. (e-
reserve)
http://ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/sop.2006.49.
4.483
 Welsh, C. (2006). Finding Dawn, National Film Board Production. (DVD)