Keywords:
Indigenous, discrimination, activism, arts
Indigenous, discrimination, activism, arts
Transcript
Nazbah: Well I was just at a workshop yesterday that I lead for um, the TAC, the Toronto Arts Council fellows, and when an elder there, Duke Redbird, and I just met him, really cool dude, but he was mentioning that um, in the sort of school system, I guess it’s K through 12 –that a third of what folks know about Canadian history is not there, right? Because that’s all Indigenous history, and there’s a lot of propaganda around how it’s taught and how it’s delivered and one of his best examples is Canada 150, right? Which we don’t support, um, and he was saying it’s all propaganda. And he was talking to artists, right? Art makers, um, curators, people who are grant writers, all of these things, and he’s like and you’re the system of propaganda making a certain kind of art that reflects what Canada wants other people to think it is.
Tara: Right.
Nazbah: Um, and that’s what you’re in. That’s the cycle you’re in. So it was really great for him to talk to all these non-indigenous artists to really let them know, a lot of what you know is for –it’s made that way. The system is made that way. And so when we hear stories like this we’re not surprised because it’s all propaganda, right? It’s about what’s nationalism and all these sorts of things. Same thing is happening in the U.S. right? Similar processes, similar systems of oppression being enacted, you know, some slight differences but the same process. You know, so -and that has a huge impact on communities that don’t fit into the norm.
Nazbah: Well I was just at a workshop yesterday that I lead for um, the TAC, the Toronto Arts Council fellows, and when an elder there, Duke Redbird, and I just met him, really cool dude, but he was mentioning that um, in the sort of school system, I guess it’s K through 12 –that a third of what folks know about Canadian history is not there, right? Because that’s all Indigenous history, and there’s a lot of propaganda around how it’s taught and how it’s delivered and one of his best examples is Canada 150, right? Which we don’t support, um, and he was saying it’s all propaganda. And he was talking to artists, right? Art makers, um, curators, people who are grant writers, all of these things, and he’s like and you’re the system of propaganda making a certain kind of art that reflects what Canada wants other people to think it is.
Tara: Right.
Nazbah: Um, and that’s what you’re in. That’s the cycle you’re in. So it was really great for him to talk to all these non-indigenous artists to really let them know, a lot of what you know is for –it’s made that way. The system is made that way. And so when we hear stories like this we’re not surprised because it’s all propaganda, right? It’s about what’s nationalism and all these sorts of things. Same thing is happening in the U.S. right? Similar processes, similar systems of oppression being enacted, you know, some slight differences but the same process. You know, so -and that has a huge impact on communities that don’t fit into the norm.