Nothing About Finding the Bodies of Thousands of Children is Surprising. That's the Problem.

The story Remains of Hundreds More Indigenous Children Found at Another Residential School is horrifying, but hear me clearly, nothing about this is surprising.

The story Remains of Hundreds More Indigenous Children Found at Another Residential School is horrifying, but hear me clearly, nothing about this is surprising. There are thousands of bodies of children buried throughout North America. 

• https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7bdbd/remains-of-hundreds-more-indigenous-children-found-at-another-residential-school

They go unacknowledged, and their ends often unconfirmed, but they were never forgotten by the people from whom they were taken. Never.

E. Rosalie @NovelSci

31/ Clergy and lay employees raped, sodomized, and molested the stolen children. Court documents detail bizarre, violent, and humiliating sexual abuse, along with horrific physical abuse that broke children's lives as well as the lives of their descendants today.

Many continue to look for confirmation today so they can put to rest a search for their missing children. They have been denied that by our government, by the Catholic Church, and so many others.

E. Rosalie @NovelSci

13/ Maybe you could condemn this disinformation, which is a White Supremacist tenet. Also, can you clarify if it's remote cooperation with evil when Catholics take money from White Supremacy?

Jason Campbell @JasonSCampbell

CNN's Rick Santorum: "We birthed a nation from nothing. I mean, there was nothing here. I mean, yes we have Native Americans but candidly there isn't much Native American culture in American culture" https://t.co/EMxOEYDbg7

csmonitor.comWhite supremacist campaign donations: How did Republicans not know?Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Rick Santorum all got donations from Earl Holt III, head of a white supremacist group that appeared to inspire Dylann Roof.

I have spoken with indigenous people in the past 2 months. Their overwhelming response has been telling, gut-wrenching, and it can only be expressed in their words.

E. Rosalie @NovelSci

15/ How many schools exactly were there where children were torn from their families and systematically abused, beaten, raped, and murdered? A lot. You got time to remember these children, snuffed out despite their innate human dignity?

• "Thank you for believing that our children mattered." 

• "Thank you. Just thank you for listening."

This is not how people whose children were slaughtered en masse should be responding to someone being outraged on their behalf. In no world is that acceptable. Their responses communicated in a few sentences how little their children's lives mattered to the people who stole them. 

E. Rosalie @NovelSci

12/ What followed that papal bull were egregious acts of violence, genocide, enslavement, and theft that included 50-100 million Native people suffering and dying. So murderous was the Catholic doctrine, it has taken more lives than Mao Zedong.

washingtonpost.comRemembering the biggest mass murder in the history of the worldMao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward was the biggest episode of mass murder in the history of the world. But it rarely gets the recognition it deserves.

We may tell ourselves fables, but this is our legacy. Saying so doesn't make me unpatriotic. This is transparent, cowardice. No person of laudable character denies injustice has taken place and refused to help repair the damage. These are the actions of insecure autocrats like Mao, Xi, and Putin. 

It is precisely because my family recently immigrated to the US that I appreciate that criticism of the government and free discussion of history are not to be taken for granted. In China, history is what they say, and none may speak to the contrary.

E. Rosalie @NovelSci

2/ Where were you when the last vestige of a voice was stripped from the Chinese people and our leader said "maybe we will give that a shot” in the US in response to learning Xi made himself President for life, in an un-American and legitimizing comment. youtu.be/09ZCJnf-qMw

We are approaching that here with possible first amendment violations where state leaders ban certain ideas from schools, deciding what parts of history are acceptable to discuss. 

• Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signs law targeting critical race theory, saying she's against 'discriminatory indoctrination'

Now we see demands that people reveal their personal beliefs so the government can monitor them. These are not the actions of people who speak the truth and who have nothing to conceal. 

• New Florida Law Requires Universities To Survey Political Views of Students, Faculty

We can avoid accountability, but it will never change our legacy of not helping the families who lost these children to heal. Giving up our freedom and surrendering our educations to state censorship to avoid it is an egregious mistake. 

• US to Investigate Burial Sites of Indigenous Students at Boarding Schools

Until we take responsibility and cease to deflect, this will be our legacy. They deserve to know where their babies went. 

• How the US stole thousands of Native American children

They deserve to hear a clear and scathing rebuke from the @USCCB currently preoccupied with protesting the removal of a policy that dramatically increased the abortion rate in most affected countries.

• Pro-Life Groups Decried Repealing the 'Global Gag Rule,' But It Increased Abortions by 40% in Multiple Countries.

If you want to make a difference, you can. Share their statements, their words. Please support their efforts to get answers. They are largely ignored by American society. You can change that.

• Non-Indigenous People Have to Be Good Allies. Here's How to Start