A Cultural Massacre

Imagine this. 

You are being taken away by the government 

To learn at a school far away

As young as three years old

They cut of the braids your ancestors taught you to cherish

Give you new, foreign clothing

And teach you how to be more like them

To “take out the Indian, and leave the man”

You miss your parents

You don’t know if you will ever see them again

There is no education happening here

Only forced assimilation

All families ties have been cut off

You haven’t seen your brother in months

All you can do is hope that he’s okay

That he hasn’t become one of the unlucky ones

The teachers and others are hurting you

You are being abused, and don’t know why

The worst behaved are strapped to their beds

Beaten until they lie still, half dead

There is not enough food

No one is there to take care of you if you get hurt

Teachers and others are touching you

In ways you know is wrong

You are being forced to pray

Worshiping a god you don’t believe in

You are not allowed to speak your native language

If you do, they’ll stick a needle in your tongue

This was the reality for indigenous children

Being shipped off to residential schools

Stripped of your family, culture and identity

Until all that was left was a sickly shell of who they once were

Upon returning home (if you made it)

Many more children lost their lives

And hundreds lacked the skills to rebuild their community

A domino effect that remains today

319 bodies of indigenous children have been found 

Some as young as three years old

Buried wordlessly for so many years

Unknown, undocumented and unrecognized

Only this has brought their harsh realities to light

It took a mass grave for the world to recognize their suffering

No matter how many flowers are left for them, 

They will still be innocent victims, now in death

Thousands of children were torn from their families 

By the government and Catholic church

Sent away to schools to make them whiter 

Strip them of their sacred cultures

For over one hundred fifty years

Innocent children were abused by the state

To help them “assimilate” 

Into the same society that wanted them dead

The schools of murder didn’t end until the 1990s

But the physical and mental repercussions are forever

Children were forced into legal abuse

As millions of people watched cluelessly

One hundred fifty thousand children went

A fraction of that number returned

They told the families the children had run away

Not that they had been ruthlessly murdered

There is nothing we can do to make up for this

History has been written

It can not be undone

The scars will last forever

There is nothing else to say

It is not complicated in the slightest

It can not be forgiven

White guilt will not erase this pain

Do not be afraid to call it genocide. 

• A Cultural Massacre