MAIS 663: Critical Race Theory in a Global Context is one of the foundational courses for the MAIS program at AU, exploring the various conceptions of race and recognizing that understanding the differing perspectives helps us to make sense of the ambiguities and complexities that exist in our world. This course was extremely powerful for me as I try to make sense for myself of what we still witness around us every day: racism, racialization, oppression, discrimination, appropriation, white privilege, unconscious bias, inequality, manipulation, and control. Not wanting to be a part of these processes, yet seeing my own privilege as a white, educated, straight woman in a prosperous nation, I wanted (and still want) to learn how to remove myself from these conscious and unconscious processes of power.

               Being a Canadian, one of the main ways I see racialization and inequality occurring around me is through our treatment of the Indigenous Peoples in Canada. Finding unmarked graves during the Pandemic was traumatizing for so many Canadians, yet the Indigenous Peoples have been telling us for decades that these graves exist. The question became – were these graves truly discovered, or were they, more accurately, finally exposed? Wanting to understand what had led to so many Indigenous children dying while in state and religious care, I wrote a paper titled “The Discovery of Unmarked Graves in Canada: Stories Told But Seldom Heard.” My paper not only reveals how our past treatment of Indigenous Peoples in Canada led to the discovery of the graves, but it also reveals a dangerous form of ignorance based on amnesia or the collective “unknowing” of Canada’s history of colonialism.

               I wanted this paper to reveal the interdisciplinary nature of the discovery of the unmarked graves in Canada, showing how the gravesites represent so much more than simply the lack of care of Indigenous children in the residential school system. Research from my paper reveals the intersection of forced poverty, violence against Indigenous women, domination, religious control, colonization, oppression through the removal of customs, traditions, and languages, politicized food scarcity, removal of hunting rights, discriminatory housing and employment practices, incarceration inequality, and a lack of access to education and job skills. There are multilayered, multidimensional, routine, and discriminatory practices that have been created and designed to keep the Indigenous Peoples down and out of the privileged white Canadian life. The crux of my paper is that the discovery of unmarked graves is just one of the glaring examples and manifestations of these intersections of the various forms of oppression.

               From an academic standpoint, writing this paper was one of the most educational papers that I have written. For example, even though I knew much of the horrifying treatment towards Indigenous Peoples in Canada, the breadth and range of it was jaw-dropping. This paper left me wondering how much could change if every Canadian understood our real history as a country. I came to understand that the barriers in place that maintain this knowledge as contained and separate from the white Canadian reality are themselves an intentional component of the routine processes of discrimination in Canada.

               From a personal standpoint, after reading so many articles detailing our disgraceful treatment of Indigenous Peoples in Canada, I came to understand that many people prefer not to understand or learn about our real history. Most of us prefer to live in the fragile bubble of Canada being one of the best countries in the world. Before researching this paper, I had always thought of being born Canadian as one of the best gifts I could have been given. I still feel grateful to be Canadian, but I now understand that with privilege comes power, whether we choose it or not. I have come to see the inherent danger of combining power and privilege with a lack of understanding or knowledge. Writing this paper fundamentally changed how I exist and see myself within our culture, country, economy, and political environment.