The Effects of Stereotypes on Aboriginal People

A stereotype in social psychology

A stereotype in social psychology is an over-generalized belief concerning a specific group of people. Stereotypes are generalized since an individual assumes that for each person in the category, the stereotype is true. There are negative numbers of stereotypes linked with Aboriginal people, and they include; violence, unemployment, the cause of drug and alcohol addiction, and the assumptions about the pervasiveness (de Leeuw, Koboyashi, & Cameron, 2011). One particular and persistent destructive description is that Indigenous people are willing 'words of the state,' ultimately better off and depend on others when their affairs are overseen by the federal government (Erickson, 2005). This reason does not only degrade the autonomy of indigenous people and also their genuine right to become self-determining, but it has also destroyed countless people’s self-concepts of groups who at times, unfortunately, adopt such disparaging stereotypes (Harding, 2006). Media plays a significant role in modeling up Aboriginal people’s civic perception. However, even though present-day representations are more inclusive and accurate of Indigenous perceptions than any time in the history, they are often still corrupt by lack of cultural and historical background, tokenism, and misinterpretations (Harding, 2006). The colonial stereotypes heavily influence many Canadians' behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs towards Indigenous people.

Significance

Social groups which have been mistreated historically, such as ethnic and racial minorities, are continuing to suffer through bad stereotyping, perhaps since the groups in authority want to spread false beliefs about them. The stereotypes against Indigenous people are thus rooted in continuing discrimination and the history of slavery. This approach is significant in some significant instances, but it leaves out a lot.

Gustafsen Lake

Gustafsen Lake standoff was a conflict between the Ts'peten Defenders in the interior of British Columbia, Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at Gudtafsen Lake. During the summer of 1995 in Columbia, a small indigenous group of people both from the United States and Canada congregated for a sun dance for the previous five years in which the participation was conducted at Gustafsen Lake. Sun Dance leaders were only not deeply committed to their spiritual ceremonies in what they alleged to be holy place but they held also the belief that the federal government had unlawfully seized much of Canada and their Sun Dance site. Tensions arose when the owner of the property issued a removal notice to Sun Dancers and, together with their followers declined to vacate the site, calling for an international investigation into the matter of their aboriginal lands and protection of their sacred place. Religious conviction was demoted and discharged during the period of the standoff. As the quarrels for political power became more civic, political militants were assumed to be using religion in advancing their agenda. Local elected Indigenous leadership at the same time openly confronted the occupants to assert that the Lake of Gustafsen was a sacred space. As the standstill came to an end, the peaceful member’s awareness of the occupation over the rebels finally succeeded and became the storyline employed by observers outside to know why and how violence break out and how the violence was controlled.

Significance

Interim agreement measures have been among the primary criteria that communities in the short term have been able to protect their sacred sites. Ross (2005) elaborates that these agreements move discussions towards a complete understanding of the significance of a specific holy place. According to Ross (2005), one of the main matters with the handling of sanctified space in courts of Canada is the lack of proper understanding of the ethics of a site.

Idle No More

The idle no more association is broadly understood to be a present-day association. Nevertheless, while the flow of that particular name is comparatively recent, it is prohibited in ancient roots which are longstanding situated within struggles to maintain and define foster effective Aboriginal nationhood and maintain Original identity. The main vision of the idle no more movement is articulated regarding aims to work with associates to identify nationhood and first nation’s power and to employ an active country to nation relationship to protect the lands and environment respectfully and promote social justice. Idle no more has delivered a crucial point which enables modern Aboriginal people and their partners to associate with an aspect of indigenous values which implies a legacy aimed to prevent other people from demoralizing the natural world and respecting the environment. However, within the surroundings of Aboriginal law, Aboriginal people are distinctive since they are different nations within a western state that have their code of awareness. In this law, the Original way entails a mutual association between the animals, plants, water, and earth. Possibly, one of the essential features of the movement is the support that it has established from other groups, environmentalists, supporters, and social justice. Social media facilitated the association to advance widespread exposure and rapid energy while assembling huge gatherings for lots of its proceedings.

Significance

Idle No More movement is important for enhancing focus to its allegations for Aboriginal people in the Canadian context and the complex phenomenon of social inclusion. In precise, the tasks to achieve and define what it means for Aboriginal people to maintain their identities as Indigenous people as well as their indigenous rights while achieving an important contribution in the economic, social and political life of the Canadian state takes place within a landscape that is often unpredictable.

The Ipperwash Crisis

On September 6, 1995, a tactical squad of the Ontario Provincial Police trooped on a small band of protestors who had been occupying a provisional park quietly for three days near the shores of Lake Huron. They were people of the nearby stony and kettle point reserve, and they claimed that they were there to get back a burial ground. The protesters waited until the closing of the Ipperwash Provincial Park and the keys were handed over to the washroom by the superintendent. What occurred next would occupy authorities of Ontario for the coming 12 years, until a provincial judicial inquiry ultimately established a protector of the First Nation, Antony Dudley George was shot dead. Dudley George was the first indigenous to die in protests of land claims in Canada, and for that reason, Ipperwash became a news story that was important nationally. When the 30 OPP officers moved in, no protestors were present, and snipers flanked them. Three days later, this was remarked in a column that was published by the London Free Press. By then, conflicting views of what happened had emerged. The police said that the protestors were armed and fired first. Arguably, the First Nations sources claimed that the police attacked them and there were no guns in the park that night.

Significance

The question in the study has great importance because more than 70 percent of written stories about Ipperwash, suggested that occupiers were involved in activities that were illegal or questionable, rather than being caused by frustration for 53 years over broken government promises to return the Stoney Port Lands.

Oka Crisis

The Oka Crisis was a standoff between the Canadian army, the Quebec police force, and the Mohawk protestors. The Crisis which occurred in Quebec Oka on 11 July 1990 is a crucial moment to examine as it underlined relationships between the government and the aboriginals brought awareness to Indigenous claims and their rights for land and set forth future protestors movements on both an international and local scale. However, even though the occurrence lasted three months, its effects both positive and negative were influential and long-term. The 1990 Oka Crisis is a moment that truly matters in Canadian history from those who witnessed the events unfold on a television screen, to those who were directly involved. The infamous face vividly explains the Oka Crisis in its social context to face photograph.

Does the infamous face to face photograph adequately explain the Oka Crisis in its social context?

The infamous face to face photograph adequately explains the Oka Crisis in its social context since it describes how the Oka Crisis arose and to what extent it reached. The Oka Crisis was a consecutive explosion of frustration of the different Mohawk reserves Kahnawake and Kaneshatake in which they were having different immediate grievances and different historical experience. However, the common kinship and culture that bond these communities together and tie them to the conflict of Akwesasne on Mohawk reserve, community area and their struggles over control, at the same time related and similar but specific and local. In essence, ‘The Last Indian War’ was a series of incidents that stretched across the triangle of the three Mohawk reserves struggling with others and with each other over ideologies which gave rise to barricades in 1990. For non-residents, the Oka Crisis began when the barricades were built. However, for the Mohawks, the crisis which was established in centuries of exclusion and dissension began several months earlier. When the land claims were ignored in a move to extend a golf course into the grounds of an ancient Indian cemetery in Kaneshatake, the seeds of conflict were sewn. Women who were clan mothers or cousins sat in ‘the pines’ through the media silence of a restless winter where the cemetery is located. Their vigil was peaceful but vocal a heresy voiced and a statement of heritage expressed without the guns that attract the attention of media.

In June, the weary voices of the women became shrill in the pines, the mayor of Oka summoned the police to remove the protestors and obtained an injunction against them. Mohawk warriors were called upon by the women to resist their removal from consecrated land, to defend their vigil, and the festering wounds of Kaneshatake changed from a campfire to a barricade (Valaskakis, 2005).

The reserve of the media eventually led to Indian blockades both in Kahnawake and Kaneshatake and the town of Oka’s resolved. Confrontations between Indians, army, police, and townspeople focused on the local and immediate incidents of a gun battle between the police and Indians which later on led to the death of a policeman (Valaskakis, 2005).

In summary, the infamous face to face photograph clearly explains the occurrence of the Oka crisis because the story of the crisis depicts whatever the picture entails. This is because, during the crisis, the people involved became more aggressive to an extent where they met face to face to express their grievances. The people affected included, the Mohawk protestors, police, and the army. Therefore, the infamous face to face photograph explains the emergence of the Oka Crisis in its social context.

The legacy of the Oka Conflict and the Canadas commitment to reconciliation

After the end of World War II, necessary changes occurred and these made people aware of the need for an agreement between the Canadians and other First Nations. Numerous crucial implementations were brought about by the legacy of the Oka Conflict, and some of the significant changes that the legacy of the Oka conflict and reconciliation brought about included;

End of the Second World War

The atrocities that were committed during the Second World War forced an alteration in social consciousness and brought about numerous political and social changes across the world. Canada joined the other countries in the signing of the universal declaration of human rights. A lot of people in Canada saw the disconnection of the service of the indigenous war veterans, who on the battlefield, stood alongside other Canadian soldiers, and also their treatment when they made their way back home, mainly the fact that they could be able to vote in elections (Regan, 2010).

Oka Crisis Quebec

The Crisis of Oka was a standoff between the Canadian army, Quebec police, and the Mohawk protestors. The clash arose over the proposal of development on land which included a burial ground for the Mohawks. The accelerating levels of the armed response by the government brought public attention to many unresolved Aboriginal issues and shocked many Canadians. This was the primary factor which led to the creation of a royal commission of Indigenous peoples in 1991 (Regan, 2010).

Indian residential school agreement

Indian residential school survivors in the 1990s began to take legitimate action to get compensation for the sexual and physical abuse that they had suffered. There were more claims against the central government by the year 1998. The growth of the number of assertions continued, and in a National Class Action in 2002, was filled for compensation for all residential former Indian school students who were in Canada and also their family members. As a result, the overwhelming number of lawsuits seeking compensation and further judgments by the Supreme Court going against Canada, nearly 80,000 and Canada survivors came to an agreement in 2005 called the Indian School Residential Agreement. This agreement was implemented in 2007 and ratified in 2006. A commitment came out of the deal not only for personal compensation but for the creation of money dedicated to a healing process and reconciliation and truth commission (Martin, 2009).

Indian Act amendments

The signing of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and in the wake of the post-war social conscience, Canada was forced to develop the Indian Act. Generally, many of the clauses that are oppressive were removed. As an example, a 'persons' definition as someone who was non-Indian was removed and also the anti-potlatch laws were taken out. Arguably, automatic enfranchisement of universities graduates was no longer. In concern to education, the government was allowed by the act to enter into agreements with schools from provincial systems for the knowledge of the children of the First Nations (Martin, 2009).

In summary, the legacy of the Oka Conflict brought about crucial significance, including the end of the Second World War, the declaration of National Aboriginal Day, the truth and reconciliation commission created, Indian Act amendments, Indian residential school agreement, and many more. The crisis at the beginning was so aggressive to an extent that protesters like Antony Dudley George lost his life as he was shot dead during the protests. However, as much as the Oka Crisis resulted in high violence, the Canadians came to reconciliation and soon afterward, positive changes came through. This benefited a large number of Canadians, especially the ones who were underrepresented, since the emergence of the Oka Crisis denied them limited access to education and other critical human rights. The legacy of the Oka Conflict has brought numerous positive impacts, especially Canada joining other countries in the declaration of universal human rights. In essence, the legacy of the Oka Crisis conflict enabled the Indian residential school survivors to get compensation for the physical and sexual abuse that they had suffered, and as a result, a significant number of the Indian school survivors acquired the fair treatment that they deserved. This reason united the people of Canada, and the Indians gained their human rights.

References

de Leeuw, S., Kobayashi, A., & Cameron, E. (2011). Difference. In A companion to social geography, V.J. Del Casino, M.E. Thomas, P. Cloke, & R. Panelli (eds.), pp. 17-37. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

Erickson, L. (2005). Constructed and contested truths: Aboriginal suicide, law, and colonialism in the Canadian west(s), 1823-1927. The

Canadian Historical Review, 86(4), 595-618.

Harding, R. (2006). Historical representations of Aboriginal people in the Canadian news media. Discourse & Society, 17(2), 205-235.

Martin, K. (2009). Truth, reconciliation, and amnesia: Porcupines and china dolls and the Canadian Conscience. ESC: English Studies in Canada, 35(1), 47-65.

Regan, P. (2010). Unsettling the settler within: Indian residential schools, truth telling, and reconciliation in Canada. ubc Press.

Ross, M. Lee. (2005). First Nations’ sacred sites in Canada’s courts. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Valaskakis, G. G. (2005). Indian country: Essays on contemporary Native culture. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press.