Opinion: A call for 360-degree compassion in the racially wounded 306
Susan Gingell 2021-04-06
Two reports on RCMP conduct following the Aug. 9, 2016, shooting death of Colten Boushie were recently made public. Key findings were failure to protect potentially incriminating evidence for the shooter’s trial and racially discriminatory treatment of Colten’s mother, Debbie Baptiste . How, then, might Saskatchewan people best respond?
Many here will be thankful the RCMP is being held to account, however belatedly. Can we, however, avoid further boosting the us-vs.-them energies that animated the Boushie tragedy in the first place?
What we currently have are more recommendations for change, largely accepted by RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki, and a police union pushing back. Federal Minister of Public Safety Bill Blair assures us officers will complete “a cultural awareness course” and receive education “on how best they can protect our communities all across our country.” If these types of measures alone were going to work, though, wouldn’t they have done so by now?
Perhaps we need to address the trauma that police officers suffer. A racist society generates violence as surely as night follows day, and we ask officers to contain it and clean up the mess . Retired Cree lawyer Harold Johnson in Peace and Good Order: The Case for Indigenous Justice in Canada acknowledges that police work “frequently (results in) PTSD.” His testimony about how the current justice system is failing his people and all Saskatchewanians prefaces his vision of compassionate but responsible remedy.
To that end we need our provincial leaders to express genuine compassion for a loving mother robbed of her child, and for grieving family and friends. We need widespread recognition that Indigenous people here now feel even more unsafe and deprived of belonging in their traditional homeland. Non-Indigenous people could ease matters by showing respect for Boushie’s family’s courage in pressing for justice for Colten and all their people, and by making clear we expect our leaders to rectify the discrimination Baptiste faced.
Neither compassion nor courage lay in Justice Minister Gord Wyant’s silence following release of the briefing note that Saskatchewan Public Prosecutors prepared for him . It offered their reasons for not laying hate speech charges against those who made racist social-media posts following Boushie’s death. If ever there was a time to break with the policy of not commenting when no charges are laid, surely it was in this highly racially charged situation.
To ground us, could we consider the ideas that African-American trauma therapist Resmaa Menakem articulates in My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies? He locates trauma in the bodies of people of colour, police and people of European ancestry. Many European ancestors were traumatized by witnessing public tortures like drawing and quartering and many were dispossessed of ancestral lands by the Highland Clearances and the enclosures of the English commons. Thus colonists imported trauma when they arrived and then passed it down genetically. Menakem explains how traumatized people are likely to respond to perceived threats, but maintains they must be held accountable when they commit violence.
We must acknowledge the benefits that Euro-Canadians derive from racial hierarchies established through colonialism, but we must equally seek alternatives. “Inter-community” and decolonizing “with empathy and compassion” are the ones Cree singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie offers according to her authorized biography. Her 360-degree compassion for those who “have never known life in a circle, where it’s all about sustaining Life itself for the next seven generations” is just what racially wounded Saskatchewan needs.
Susan Gingell is a professor emerita at the University of Saskatchewan.
© Provided by Leader Post Debbie Baptiste, Colten Boushie's mother, sits at a news conference on March 22, 2021 following the release of a report by the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP that examined how officers handled the investigation into Boushie's death.
We might begin by recognizing that the gravest harm on that August day in 2016 was the loss of a human life. The damage extended, however, to everyone in Saskatchewan. We all suffer when racial divides deepen. If we dare to dream of passing on to our children and grandchildren a society less seized by racial tensions than ours, we’ll need to have honest and uncomfortable conversations across present racial lines. We might aim to grow the 306 to 360, turning the dividing lines that racism draws into a circle with a respected place for everyone.
We might begin by recognizing that the gravest harm on that August day in 2016 was the loss of a human life. The damage extended, however, to everyone in Saskatchewan. We all suffer when racial divides deepen. If we dare to dream of passing on to our children and grandchildren a society less seized by racial tensions than ours, we’ll need to have honest and uncomfortable conversations across present racial lines. We might aim to grow the 306 to 360, turning the dividing lines that racism draws into a circle with a respected place for everyone.
Many here will be thankful the RCMP is being held to account, however belatedly. Can we, however, avoid further boosting the us-vs.-them energies that animated the Boushie tragedy in the first place?
What we currently have are more recommendations for change, largely accepted by RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki, and a police union pushing back. Federal Minister of Public Safety Bill Blair assures us officers will complete “a cultural awareness course” and receive education “on how best they can protect our communities all across our country.” If these types of measures alone were going to work, though, wouldn’t they have done so by now?
Perhaps we need to address the trauma that police officers suffer. A racist society generates violence as surely as night follows day, and we ask officers to contain it and clean up the mess . Retired Cree lawyer Harold Johnson in Peace and Good Order: The Case for Indigenous Justice in Canada acknowledges that police work “frequently (results in) PTSD.” His testimony about how the current justice system is failing his people and all Saskatchewanians prefaces his vision of compassionate but responsible remedy.
To that end we need our provincial leaders to express genuine compassion for a loving mother robbed of her child, and for grieving family and friends. We need widespread recognition that Indigenous people here now feel even more unsafe and deprived of belonging in their traditional homeland. Non-Indigenous people could ease matters by showing respect for Boushie’s family’s courage in pressing for justice for Colten and all their people, and by making clear we expect our leaders to rectify the discrimination Baptiste faced.
Neither compassion nor courage lay in Justice Minister Gord Wyant’s silence following release of the briefing note that Saskatchewan Public Prosecutors prepared for him . It offered their reasons for not laying hate speech charges against those who made racist social-media posts following Boushie’s death. If ever there was a time to break with the policy of not commenting when no charges are laid, surely it was in this highly racially charged situation.
To ground us, could we consider the ideas that African-American trauma therapist Resmaa Menakem articulates in My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies? He locates trauma in the bodies of people of colour, police and people of European ancestry. Many European ancestors were traumatized by witnessing public tortures like drawing and quartering and many were dispossessed of ancestral lands by the Highland Clearances and the enclosures of the English commons. Thus colonists imported trauma when they arrived and then passed it down genetically. Menakem explains how traumatized people are likely to respond to perceived threats, but maintains they must be held accountable when they commit violence.
We must acknowledge the benefits that Euro-Canadians derive from racial hierarchies established through colonialism, but we must equally seek alternatives. “Inter-community” and decolonizing “with empathy and compassion” are the ones Cree singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie offers according to her authorized biography. Her 360-degree compassion for those who “have never known life in a circle, where it’s all about sustaining Life itself for the next seven generations” is just what racially wounded Saskatchewan needs.
Susan Gingell is a professor emerita at the University of Saskatchewan.
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