LIVE: Native America Finally Gets America's Apology For Boarding School Horrors
Joe Biden, doing the right thing again.
As we reported this morning, President Joe Biden is in Arizona today to issue a formal apology from the United States to Native American nations whose children were stolen by the US government and forced to go to substandard schools that tried to erase the children’s Native language, culture, and identity. As if that weren’t bad enough, for most of the 150-year history of the boarding schools, that effort at cultural genocide involved everything from daily humiliation and neglect, at a minimum, to physical abuse and sexual assault.
The apology follows a federal study published in July that identified nearly a thousand Native children who died at the schools, and recommended a formal presidential apology, as well as other efforts aimed at healing the schools’ shameful legacy, including programs to preserve Native languages and teach them to children now.
Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland, America’s first Native American Cabinet member, ordered the research as the first part of an ongoing initiative to investigate and address the legacy of the schools. Haaland and Biden have worked together on multiple policies aimed at beginning to repair some of America’s historic wrongs against the people who lived here before any bumbling colonists showed up, including reforms to make sure Indigenous voices will always contribute to policies affecting them, such as a major reform of federal land use policy that will also be good for states, and for environmental and climate policy as well.
Just another thing to keep in mind as we all get ready for the election. It could all go away with the wrong president.
Here’s the video stream, via PBS:
Update: video was terrible, let’s try NBC News. The White House YouTube channel now says it’ll start at 1:30 Eastern. See what happens when you try to do anything in “Mountain Time”?
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Part of the reason this is happening is because of the late Gord Downie.
Gord was a Canadian poet and progressive activist whose day job was singing with a rock band called The Tragically Hip. His last act before dying of brain cancer was collaborating on a graphic novel about a little boy who died alone in the snow while running away from those awful schools.
Given that Gord was Trudeau’s best friend, that project pushed the nascent reconciliation effort over the finish line. People didn’t half-jokingly call the guy Saint Gord for no reason.
OK, looks like Joe is late, and the PBS feed sucked, so switched to NBC News
White House feed now says he'll start 1:30 EDT