The rights of indigenous people in Canada, anti-racist education and multiculturalism - Dissertation de Géopolitique

Colonization is when a group of people primarily from one country decides to form a colony away from their place of origin. Colonization has a negative history because it involves invading cultures, gaining political control over people that lived before the arrival of settlers and economic gain. Canada was first habituated by Indigenous people whom lived with their own cultures and ways of social organization. However, when European settlers started to settle in Canada they destroyed their way of life.

As settlers grew in population and many Indigenous people fell sick due to the illness brought over from settlers and were short on food resources, soon settlers and indigenous people relation started to fall apart because settlers were eager to extort resources but they saw indigenous people as barriers to land. The government legislations were made to control and put restrain on the life of indigenous people. Colonialism lead to cultural alienation, territorial dispossession, intergenerational trauma, systemic discrimination and socio-economic marginalization, which negatively impacts the lives of many indigenous people.

Cultural alienation and territorial dispossession like residential schools that were to civilize and Christianize indigenous children and where it forcely removed indigenous people from their lands, has affected the relationships of indigenous families and communities. Indigenous people continued to struggle from the results with issues on mental health, suicide, physical and sexual abuse, alcohol and drug addictions and involvements with the justice system. Colonization has leaded to the unemployment of indigenous women when it replaced indigenous government which women were praised for their decision making.

The Canadian criminal justice system is ignorant to the value of indigenous women in our society, which factors in to high rates of missing and murdered indigenous in the system. Indigenous people are often targeted by police because they appear easy to which they will be denied assistance or support when in court. Which makes indigenous people more like to be sentenced without bail than non-indigenous. The convicted rates of indigenous offenders in accurately because they aren’t properly reported.

The impact of colonization and indigenous people that come in contact with the justice system faces the challenges of mental health, poverty, violence or abuse. Indigenous people having the highest unemployment rate, low attaining education than non-indigenous and poor health. These kind of condition limits opportunities for indigenous people thus avoiding involvement with the justice system impossible. Another factor that weights in of the effects of colonization and indigenous people

is cultural differences. The Canadian criminal justice system is based on colonialism values, but since values differ between cultures what would seem as a crime is different to indigenous and non-indigenous cultures.

There are over 52 different indigenous cultures within Canada, overall indigenous and western forms of justice are similar but it’s the approaches of wrong-doing and harm that differ. Indigenous justice is focused on relationships, building peace and keeping balance in the community and hard is addressed by healing and rehab. Because they are so different, indigenous cultures can be misinterpreted by the justice system, like when witnessing, indigenous people avoids eye contact in court as a form of respect but that can be interpreted as guilty.

Cross-cultural education approaches are understanding, accepting and celebrating diversities. Its goal is to increase students understanding of their own culture and of others, this creates tolerance and acceptances which benefits a student to thinking critically about assumption on stereotyping and it builts their social skills. However cross-cultural education can be challenging because a classroom with students come from various ethnic, language and social backgrounds learning the same curriculum isn’t an easy task. The educators might not know which students are understanding the material because of the language used that can be hard for those that english is not their first language.

Also, educators would need to be prepared for miscommunications that can rise tension amongst students because students from varies cultures have different values and beliefs. Fails recognize racial differences and discrimination in the system While anti-racist education approaches power and privilege. It also acknowledging the right to respect differences and that students are treated unequally because of their racial identity. It targets the system by taking about past and present racism, stereotyping and discrimination by covering economic and historical roots of inequality.

The end goal of anti-racist education is help students understand and learn about their history on discrimination in both individuals and the system. The difference between anti-racist education and multicultural education is the way they approach in educating social justice and multiculturalism.

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