Many of the hundreds of students at the assembly Friday shifted in their seats, chatted with friends or tried to clandestinely peak at their cell phones without their watchful teachers noticing – and then she spoke.
“Racism happens every day; ‘You will never be smart, you’re an Indian.’ How could you live with yourself? How could you say that to someone?” began the poem, “Racism,” written by Shaelyn Baker and performed by Dominique Nahanee.
There wasn’t a sound in the packed Howe Sound Secondary auditorium as Nahanee continued.
“Racism, it happens to everybody, but you don’t know that because they keep it to themselves; they are scared, they don’t have a voice, they can’t stick up for themselves, they can’t tell adults, they don’t have a voice, they are in the dark,” continued Nahanee, dressed in traditional First Nations garb.
The performance was part of the 24-Hour Drum, put on by the Sea to Sky school district’s Aboriginal Youth Leadership group, which is made up of 60 students from the corridor including Pemberton Secondary, Whistler Secondary, Xet’olacw Community School, Head of the Lake School, Squamish’s Don Ross Secondary and Howe Sound Secondary.
The events started off in Squamish and then moved up to Whistler.
The themes of the day-long event were: Missing and murdered aboriginal women and what it is like to be aboriginal today, according to a news release from the school district.
In addition to poetry readings, there were video clips including a moving tribute to the approximately 1,017 aboriginal women murdered between 1980 and 2012, a homicide rate roughly 4.5 times higher than that of all other women in Canada, according to a 2013 RCMP report. More than 100 First Nations women are still missing, according to that report.
A video showed the faces of missing and murdered First Nations women and the text explained a bit about each woman or her death.
While the tone of many of the pieces was somber, there was also humour. A video, titled How White are You? by Howe Sound students, had many in the auditorium laughing out loud. The film depicts what it would be like if white people were asked the same kinds of stereotypical questions that are often posed to youth of First Nations descent.
The aim of the event was not to have the non-aboriginal students and adults feel shame or guilt, but instead the goal was to share, according to district principal of aboriginal education, Susan Leslie.
“I want you to know that none of this is your fault,” Leslie told the audience at the conclusion of the performances at Howe Sound Secondary. “I want you to know that things happened in our shared history that impacted the lives of aboriginal people. We want you to walk away from here with raised awareness, knowing that we want to walk forward together, knowing that we don’t want you to carry the stab of these words with you – they are not pointed at you. These are the feelings of our students. They shared them and they want to work together with you as one, to walk forward together,” she said.
This is the third year the 24-Hour Drum has been held in the corridor.
