File Photo (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By James Peters

Two and Out

PETERS: Tk’emlups doesn’t owe the rest of us anything

May 31, 2024 | 12:30 PM

A CANADIAN WRITER named Sam Forster has written a new book based on an experiment.

Forster disguised himself as a black person and travelled around the United States to see just how racist that country still is.

It’s reminiscent of ‘Black Like Me’ by John Howard Griffin, a similar project published more than 60 years ago.

Griffin carried out his experiment in 1961, a time before Jim Crow laws were abolished and racism was not only legal but institutionalized in the U.S.

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For white people to dismiss the experiences of black people was not acceptable, but it certainly was accepted at that time. White eyes could only be opened to racism by a white man.

For Forster to feel the need to mimic that experiment in the 21st Century is baffling and shows that a lot of white folks still won’t take people of other backgrounds at their word when they say racism still exists.

Very much related, this week marked three years since Tk’emlups te Secwepemc announced the findings of ground-penetrating radar studies on a plot of land outside the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

The work found 215 anomalies believed to be remains of children who died at the school.

This was not some discovery out of left field. It was a confirmation of what the community had known for generations, based especially on oral history and testimony given at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings.

Ever since that announcement three years ago, there has been a persistent and growing chorus from the outside calling for excavation of the site.

The thought is excavation would “prove” the existence of graves. Until then, we would just have to take Indigenous people at their word. For many, it seems that’s not good enough.

Tk’emlups has conduct over the site and what happens to it, and the First Nation doesn’t owe the rest of us anything.

Its obligation is to its own community, its own customs and to the families of the dead.

Regardless of what Tk’emlups eventually chooses to do, attempts by any outside voices to force their hand are tantamount admissions that, even in 2024, white folks only believe the truth if it is spoken by other white folks.

We aren’t so far from John Howard Griffin after all.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.