Skip to main content

Death of B.C. aboriginal teen Paige blamed on 'brutal and cruel' support services

CBC News
Ugh.
Reading this sort of story just gets me. Deep in the heart, it hurts me.
This girl. Hell. She looks just like any other girl on my reserve. Like any girl I've met in my community.
She was allowed to die. She was passed around, passed off, and then simply passed away. All while in the hands of a ministry that doesn't know what to do with this girl, and the hundreds of kids just like her.
Damn it!
The best way of dealing with these kids is to work with the families, the communities these kids are being taken from. Instead the BC government plucks them out of the parents' care, sometimes for frivolous reasons, and sends then into this machine-like bureaucracy, and sets it on the spin cycle.
Where the kid ends up, and how they end up, is of no concern to the province! Just so long as they can punt these kids further away.
Work with the kids' families! Work with the kids' communities! That's the best way.

Comments

  1. I listened to the interview with Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond and it was heart-breaking to hear that Paige had an aunt and uncle living in Burnaby who wanted to take her in. They both held low-wage jobs and asked for assistance so that they could move from a 1 bedroom to a 2 bedroom to take Paige in full time. They were denied. Some ass bureaucrat probably assumed they were gaming the system because that's exactly how systemic racism works. Poor child, poor family.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My own parents intervened on numerous occasions to save relative's kids from falling into this system. Once you fall into it, it's like a spin cycle wash machine. The kids that go through it are usually worse off than if they'd stayed with their own parents or guardians the province took them from.
      No, there's gotta be a better way than what's happening, now. First Nations need to be brought into this process at every step. The families of the kids need to be involved at every step,
      No decision should be made without accountability.
      I've had family and friends just disappear, only to reappear years later when they're too old for the system, and most often they're as bad off as those who returned from the residential schools.
      Damn it, there's dozens. hundreds of workers volunteering their time to try and make lives better in Vancouver's downtown east-side. They're doing little miracles so the people living there can have a little easier time. These people are doing this sort of work for free! Why can't BC work with these people to improve the lives of the kids in the downtown east-side?
      There's the Friendship Centre down there, too! And the Friendship Centre is in contact with bands, nationwide. Why can't BC work with the Friendship Centre?

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What'll likely happen in the next couple of years from Covid-19 spread

Honestly, I can't quite wrap my head around the fact governments allowed spread of misinformation that gave them cover to allow spread of this virus unchecked. Covid-19's not going to go away at this rate. Any and all mitigation efforts are left to the individual, and nary a care about society as a whole. Then again, I can believe what has happened. It's happened before, historically. Cholera was allowed to spread unchecked for decades before governments ever bothered to do anything about sanitation. TB was basically controlled on the private level and ignored on the social. Any and every virus/bacteria that could spread was allowed to spread unchecked without much effort to thwart spread from government officials. Edgar Allan Poe didn't write "The Masque of the Red Death" out of a sense of hope for what the rich and powerful were doing in regards to illness in the early 19th century, after all. No, I can believe what has happened, and quite easily. I come fro

Turkey, Russia, Syria

We've reached a new tipping point. Whether this will be localized to merely Turkey, or if it will involve numerous states (i.e., WWIII), is probably up to NATO's response to whatever Russia decides to do about Turkey. The nation of Turkey's been acting as a spoiler these past few years. A dangerous, and stupid, wildcard. It's been flooding Europe with refugees, and continually allowing radical Syrian militants safe haven within their borders. Russia probably won't attack Turkey, militarily, but instead economically. A not insignificant amount of Turkey's energy needs are met by Russian suppliers. NATO needs to find a way of appearing to have Turkey's back, while also burning Turkey's fingertips. If NATO backs Turkey unconditionally, then we're probably in for a cold and dark winter.

The way forward

I've been a in deep, deep depression these past couple years. I'm naturally manic-depressive, but I've also been genuinely sad, without an inkling of what I've needed to do in my personal life. I've been lost, and I've lost some friends. Well, I'm still lost, but I'm emerging from my sadness. I've taken a lot of time to think whilst in my funk. I'd been thinking, "How do we extricate ourselves out of this mess we've placed ourselves? What is the way forward?" I've found no answer. There's no clear path forward. There's no strategy, no long term plan that can really account for every possible setback that will occur. I suppose that's true of all plans, though. "Plans are worthless, but planning is everything." The solution then, I guess, is we need to wing it. Improvise. Get tough, and push forward. Suffer the pains from the blows we will receive, without flinching. Start moving forward to a place we wan