Comment from ÂpihtawikosisÂn; Law, language, life: A Plains Cree speaking Métis woman in Montreal

Reaction to the TRC: Not all opinions are equal or valid

After six years, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada held closing events from May 31 to June 3rd, and issued its executive summary of a report which will run to six volumes, and will be translated into six Indigenous languages. The summary itself is 388 pages, and while not exactly light reading, it is incredibly accessible and well-written. Unfortunately, despite incredible media attention and a plethora of opinion articles on the issue, it has become abundantly clear that many people talking about the TRC summary have not read it. (I will not be linking to the more egregious examples of this, as I am also not here to provide platforms for ignorant bigots to spout their bile.)

 

I don’t necessarily fault people for not having read the summary. Yet. I was flooded with requests to do interviews and provide comments on the executive summary on the day it was released, and in the days after. I hadn’t read the summary at that point and I certainly did not feel comfortable speaking about it until I had. I know many people simply have not had the time to go through the summary, and it seems a bit unreasonable to expect that they would have within a few hours or even days of its release.

 

I do expect people to read it, however, before they offer their opinions on what it says. To me, that is not at all unreasonable. If you want to opine on a subject, shouldn’t you know something about it first?

 

(see the rest of the article here: http://apihtawikosisan.com/201...-are-equal-or-valid/