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   On 2023-09-05 9:23 AM, Dana Kennedy wrote:   
   > Fighting 'denialists' for the truth about unmarked graves and residential   
   > schooling   
   >   
   >   
   >   
   >   
   > Residential schools are not fake news. There is no big lie or deliberate   
   > hoax   
   > Kisha Supernant and Sean Carleton · for CBC Opinion · Posted: Jun 03, 2022   
   >   
   > This column is an opinion by Kisha Supernant, director of the Institute of   
   > Prairie and Indigenous Archaeology and associate professor of anthropology   
   > at the University of Alberta, and Sean Carleton, assistant professor in   
   > the departments of history and Indigenous studies at the University of   
   > Manitoba. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the   
   > FAQ.   
   >   
   > Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc   
   > First Nation's announcement identifying as many as 215 potential unmarked   
   > graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.   
   >   
   > In the year since, the Nation has continued its work to honour and bring   
   > home Le Estcwicwéy (The Missing). Many visitors have also traveled to   
   > Kamloops in the past year to pay their respects and to show support for   
   > Indigenous communities grappling with the ongoing legacies of Canada's   
   > Indian Residential School (IRS) system.   
   >   
   > While most of the reaction has been respectful, some immediately worked to   
   > discredit the findings.   
   >   
   > Politicians and journalists have openly engaged in residential school   
   > denialism. Denialists, to be clear, do not deny the existence of   
   > residential schools or even some of the harms of the IRS system. Rather,   
   > they seek to downplay or distort basic IRS facts and question the validity   
   > of ongoing research to shake public confidence and undermine truth and   
   > reconciliation efforts.   
   > Problem on display   
   >   
   > This problem was on full display last week. The day before the Kamloops   
   > anniversary, the National Post published a column that suggested the   
   > public outcry over the past year was mainly the result of some journalists   
   > reporting the findings as "mass graves." Communities have been clear that   
   > what is being identified are potential unmarked graves, but the column   
   > jumped on the error made by some journalists to then suggest that much of   
   > the response — both in Canada and around the world — was erroneous and   
   > unjustified.   
   >   
   > The New York Post took things further, interviewing prominent denialists   
   > to blast the entire situation as fake news and a deliberate hoax to cause   
   > outrage.   
   >   
   > Such stories spread disinformation and can shake people's confidence in   
   > the investigative process. It shouldn't, and here's why.   
   >   
   > It is true that, in the rush to report on the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc's   
   > announcement, some journalists — in Canada and abroad — mistakenly called   
   > the unmarked graves being located "mass graves," inadvertently invoking   
   > the horrors of the Holocaust. But the vast majority, following the lead of   
   > Indigenous spokespeople, got it right, and people responded with shock and   
   > horror that thousands of children died at residential schools, some of   
   > them being buried in unmarked graves or graves that are no longer marked.   
   > At this point, no mass grave has been discovered, but more than a thousand   
   > potential unmarked graves have already been located, with many more   
   > Indigenous Nations just beginning their investigations.   
   > Water soaked and weathered toys rest on the steps of the Vancouver Art   
   > Gallery as a memorial to the children who died at residential schools.   
   > More than 4,000 Indigenous children and youth died in Canada’s Indian   
   > Residential Schools. (CBC)   
   >   
   > Most importantly, an error made by some journalists does not change the   
   > fact that we already know more than 4,000 Indigenous children and youth   
   > died in Canada's Indian Residential Schools. Many of these deaths were   
   > reported in church and government records, and the TRC has made these   
   > findings publicly accessible in Volume 4 of the TRC's Final Report. New   
   > research by Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc and other Indigenous Nations, including   
   > ground penetrating radar (GPR), could locate the burial places of some of   
   > these children, as well as add additional numbers.   
   >   
   > But it is important to clarify that GPR is just one tool being used to   
   > find the children. It can confirm soil disturbances and point to possible   
   > burials based on established scientific methods, but it cannot confirm the   
   > presence of remains or identify who was buried where. That's not how the   
   > technology works. Other research tools are needed to comprehend the whole   
   > picture. Some Nations want to exhume to confirm and bring home the   
   > missing, while others don't, and are instead relying on other kinds of   
   > evidence to get closure.   
   >   
   > A total count for the number of children who died or went missing will   
   > likely never be known. Many Indigenous Nations have asked for people not   
   > to focus on tallies — treating relatives as mere numbers, as was done in   
   > many residential schools — but instead to remember that every child   
   > matters. One child in an unmarked grave is one too many.   
   > Nothing to prove   
   >   
   > Ultimately survivors and communities will make the decisions that best   
   > facilitate their healing. This is not being done to prove anything to   
   > Canadians; just because some people want to see exhumation before they   
   > believe the already documented deaths in residential schools does not mean   
   > Indigenous Nations are under any obligation to dig up their relatives to   
   > prove what we already know happened.   
   >   
   > Indigenous people do not owe anyone the bodies of their children.   
   >   
   > Residential schools are not fake news. There is no big lie or deliberate   
   > hoax. Just the complicated nature of what the TRC calls the "complex   
   > truth" that denialists are trying to twist.   
   >   
   > Fighting for the truth thus requires us to take residential school   
   > denialism more seriously. Denialism is, as TRC chair Murray Sinclair   
   > argues, the "biggest barrier" to reconciliation. It needs to be confronted   
   > at every opportunity. Taking comfort in delusions and disinformation will   
   > not advance healing and justice in this country.   
   >   
   > There is no shortcut. We need truth before reconciliation.   
   >   
   > https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/opinion-residential-schools-unmarked-   
      
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