In Canada, we are now beginning to understand the ‘what’ of Residential Schools. Since the mid-2010s, and in particular since the ‘discovery’ of the graves of Indigenous children on school grounds, some Canadians have begun to understand the ‘what’ of Residential Schools and some of its impacts on Indigenous peoples today.
But what about the ‘why’? Why did these schools exist? For what purpose? Did Ryerson just send a text to John A. and say, ‘hey, I’ve got a great idea, let’s build schools and eff up Indigenous kids.'
They were functions of the (global) British colonial system.
Residential Schools existed (with different names) all over the British Empire. Canada was not unique. But all had similar purposes:
To conform/shape/destroy indigenous ways of being to create/destroy indigenous peoples so that the colonial subjects would support the colonial project to the benefit of the hegemonic metropole.
It’s pretty simple.
And raises a lot of my discomfort of being on this trip.
One problem we have in the space of equity and anti-racism work, is that we discuss the what, but never get to the root of the why.
And on top of that, since May 25, 2020, we walk in trying to find ‘equity’ or ‘anti-racist’ or ‘decolonial’ solutions to any and all ‘diversity’ problems, without recognizing that the one-hour unconscious bias training we received has given us absolutely zero tools to address these issues.
How many university administrators and staff, and in this case those responsible for international student recruitment, fundamentally understand the tentacles of settler colonialism, colonialism, and colonial education?
How many are briefed prior to engaging on recruitment trips and admission projects about how X country was colonized and the creation and function of colonial education systems?
Do we fundamentally understand that our ‘academic rigour’ and ‘standards of excellence’ are built by colonial ways of knowing, the liberal racial order, colonial education as a tool to replicate colonialism in ‘decolonized’ states - states that perpetuate the subjugation and hegemonic oppression of racial hierarchies?
Why do we want British equivalency for International Students when in Canada not a single 11 year old writes the Common Entrance Exam?
Why are marks so important for International Students when there is a push for ‘ungrading’ in North American education systems?
In Canada, many of us concerned with equity and anti-racism have come to understand that Residential Schools were ‘bad’ and have taken steps to rectify these wrongdoings.
But let me ask you this:
Why are we actively encouraging kids to ‘excel’ in a school system built for indigenous peoples in a nation-state built after the Berlin Conference in 1884-1885, one that took kids away from their homes, made them cut their hair and dress in European clothes? (I always find it funny how when I travel abroad and see Brown and Black kids dressed immaculately in school uniforms they can’t afford, but in Canada we got kids wearing pyjamas to class.)
A school system that taught them about kings and queens, in a language that wasn’t/isn’t their own, one that didn’t teach them about their past and their histories?
How are we to decolonize our university when we, as Canadians, have been so colonized that we don’t even recognize that we are colonial subjects living in a settler colonial state?
Sometimes we need to understand the ‘why’ even before we begin to talk about the ‘how.’
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