Delving into the Unknown of the Archive: A White-Washing of History

What happens when residential schools become the unknown? As the Alberta government proposes to remove any mention of residential schools from primary curriculum, they are implicitly advocating for the erasure of Indigeneity from the archive.

BY: MALIKA DAYA

Photo by Becky W via Flickr

A few short weeks ago, the Twitter universe was combusting as the United Conservative Party of Alberta’s curriculum proposals were leaked. The proposals suggested that elementary schools should not teach kindergarten to grade four students about residential schools and should remove any mentions of equity. Why the hell would they do that, you may ask? Well, according to the team of advisors selected by Premier Kenney’s government, it’s “too sad” for kids to learn about. 

Too sad?! 

There was complete outrage online as many, justifiably so, found this proposal to be a white-washing of the curriculum and a total misuse of power to make a traumatic history invisible. 

Tweets by @gilmcgowan, @fakeezzie, @blueravenart, @CreativeTweets, @DeronBilous, and @roshee_s via Twitter

Carla Peck, a University of Alberta education professor, who was involved in previous province curriculum revisions, in her interview with The Star said that this proposal is an endeavour to continue to prioritize “white, Western European knowledge.”

For the same article, The Star interviewed Melissa Purcell who as the staff officer for Indigenous Education said, “It really, truly does feel like we’re turning back the clock and returning to the era of the Indian residential schools in Canada, when the government worked so hard to really work toward assimilation and colonization of the Indigenous people by removing any opportunity to share an Indigenous voice.” 

The residential schools in Canada were created by the Canadian government and churches to indoctrinate and assimilate Indigenous youth by taking them away from their families and stripping them of their heritage and culture. Forbidden from speaking their mother tongues, the children were abused, physically, sexually, emotionally and, psychologically, as they were forced to adopt Christian, Euro-Canadian ways of life. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, over 6000 children died at residential schools, with over 150,000 students in 130 residential schools nationally. 

The last residential school closed in 1996. 

Photos via Melissa Lee’s UBC Blogs

Think about how that is in our lifetime, less than 25 years ago. Think about how the children who were facing abuse were as young or younger than the students in these classrooms. Think about how these children in these classrooms today are privileged in only having to learn about this crime against humanity. 

Think about the violence our Canadian government has and continues to perpetuate towards our Indigenous communities and the on-going implications of this brutality. 

You’re telling me that since “it’s too sad” students shouldn’t learn about it? I call bullshit. 

The real reason is erasure. Erasure from our minds, history, and the archives. 

Grand Chief Arthur Noskey of Treaty 8 in his interview with The Star said, “Our history, foretold by our forefathers and passed down, was that Columbus was lost, he didn’t find this place. And the other thing was he was starving when he landed. First Nations people nursed him back...There’s a lot of history that is only interpreted on one side.” 

When we think of the archive and history, for many of us all we have learned is the winning side of history. The white, Eurocentric version of it. Why? Because those in power will tell their version of the story.

And what’s missing is the other side of history. The history of our Indigenous and Black communities. The BIPOC story, because no one in power ever cared to write about it. But just because all cases are not documented and appear in filing boxes, in some shady part of the library, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. 

And this is, precisely, what is so problematic in what the Kenney government is trying to do by taking out a very important part of Indigenous and Canadian history from the elementary school curriculum. The United Conservative Party is cementing a racist structure, erasing and making invisible the lived experiences of thousands of Indigenous people, whose land, we, the settlers, have stolen and exploited. 

Kenney, and his proud boys club, however, don’t believe they’re doing anything wrong. They’re just working towards creating a curriculum that is free of “political bias” by choosing not to teach about a history that puts their own power in contention. That’s not political at all, right? 

Wrong. The proposed curriculum will be using verses of the bible as poetry. The proposed curriculum will be teaching about Ancient Rome and how they enslaved women and children. The proposed curriculum will include the assassination of Julius Caesar. Wow. That’s not violent or sad at all. Ironic, isn’t it? 

Let’s talk about that “free of political bias” bullshit they got going on. Kenny’s critique of the NDP provincial government’s curriculum is that it was infused with ideas of “intersectionality” or “critical race theory.” According to The Star’s article, “he pledged to put that curriculum through the shedder.” 

Wait a minute, so living on the intersections of race, class, gender and the implications that has on one’s lived experiences—the way one encounters life and how they are treated in society—isn’t necessary to teach in the country known for its diversity?! Wow, how incredibly progressive, eh?

Now to add to this, Kenney’s boy, Champion, was put in charge of reviewing the social studies curriculum and was reported to have said that First Nations perspectives are a fad.

A fad. You’ve got the be fucking kidding me.

Tweets by Neil Korotash via Twitter

But let’s be real, what it really comes down to for Kenney and his government is money. And he did a great job of sharing that with us in a report released by his education panel that says they want to “ensure the social studies curriculum reflects a balance of perspectives with respect to the importance of Alberta’s resource-rich economic base.” 

Oh, so the plan is to indoctrinate more kids into thinking that capital is more valuable than human life? And we are going to do so by erasing a violent past of genocide from history textbooks, so that kids are so bought into the UCP’s political and economic agenda, and subsequently become tolerant to and the perpetrators of racial violence against Indigenous peoples.

When we think of archives and history in general, for many of us racialized folks, our story or our understandings of the story are vastly different from what is taught, or not taught, in classrooms in the West. I immediately think of the famous quote, “Your history is the curriculum, mine is just merely an elective.” 

In this case, the proposal is to not mention it at all, a violent act of erasure. 

What happens when racialized histories are silenced in the archive? What happens when governments take steps to erase history? What happens years down the line when residential schools become the unknown?

The thing about archives is that there is so much unknown, mainly because the colonial narrative doesn’t grant space to the “alternative” side of history. A tradition that is maintained in Western society and academia.

Consequently, there are gaps in the archives of history. Yet, we also have the means to fill them by listening to the stories and indulging in the art of those with lived experiences, and those who embody truths of an everpresent past. 

The body is a dynamic archive that holds infinite traces of the past. Residential school survivors and their progeny are a living embodiment of a haunting past and present that are challenging “the unknown” of the archive through their existence. 

As for the rest of us, we’ve got to step it up as allies. Allyship means listening and speaking up but not for those who we are fighting with. It’s about using our privilege and power—a product of an oppressive system—and manipulating them to best serve the cause. It’s about creating and holding space for marginalized communities. 

We can do this by challenging the predominately white narrative, placing value in the lived experiences that our Indigenous communities generously share with us. It is unfair to place the pressure on Indigenous communities to preserve their own stories and legacies, meanwhile  governments, that we voted in, are trying to erase them. As allies, we must fight for the narrative to be reshaped and for an accurate and inclusive take on history.