Rights are never truly thought about until they’re removed.
And it’s simple why that is. The idea of human rights comes from the expectations that a human should be granted, which is why when people have them, they don’t think twice. They’re the norm.
But the moment the things that are be expected to be had by everyone are taken away, it makes noise. Lots and lots of noise.
And yet not everyone choses to hear it.
In the first project in BC First People’s 12, we chose to listen to the noise, and learn about the history of Indigenous rights in Canada.
My Thoughts:
To summarize the entire project, we spent 3 weeks learning about the history of indigenous rights in canada, and then as a final product we each created infographics that would teach the public about a certain historical event and its importance. But to be honest, I actually feel like there was quite a large missed opportunity to learn here, starting with the driving question that we never actually ended up discussing as a class:
“How might the acknowledgement of rights impact Indigenous peoples now and in the future?”
Our three weeks were more or less answering this question instead:
“How can we learn about indigenous rights, and present our knowledge in an efficient and effective manner?”
All the feedback I received was on how I can make my infographic flow better, as well as how presenting certain facts without full context could persuade the audience in a direction I wasn’t intending. It was very much taught from an English Language perspective, in that it was centralized around being able to gather and present information effectively.
And even though I enjoy english, it left me with a massive unanswered question.
Answering The Unanswered Question:
Answering the driving question of this project is honestly not something I feel fully prepared to do, for the reason that it involves a very complicated big idea that is very relevant throughout the entire course:
”Why does knowing things impact the world?”
It’s something that I’ve always wondered about, and will continue to wonder about throughout the rest of BC First People’s 12, and later on will hopefully be able to answer in detail. But for now, I’d rather not give a simple answer, and wait until I can answer it in depth.
Understanding why it helps indigenous peoples to acknowledge, which implies being aware but not taking action on their rights is rooted in social and political sciences, as well psychology and isn’t something an english course really prepares you for.
Fortunately, this is PLP, and from my experience, there will be lots of opportunities to explore those ideas later on.
My work in this project
I chose my topic for my infographic because I wanted to explore something other than just blatant injustice. I made mine about the Gradual Civilization Act, which offered indigenous peoples the ability to trade their status for the right to vote. I was really interested in the dynamics of choice, and how it can be more powerful to make someone choose to give something up rather than just taking it away. But to be honest, I don’t think I was able to show that very well in my infographic. The idea had to much depth to be summarized effectively in an infographic, at least from what I could do. I’m sure professionals could do a great job at it.
Here was my completed infographic:
I actually had quite an interesting conversation with Ms McWilliam about my very last point, involving the fact that only one person confirmed to have chosen to give up their indigenous status for enfranchisement. Its actually a true statistic, but its only counting the number of people who made that decision while the act was in place, and later on, new acts were put in place that pressured thousands of people into doing so. We weren’t sure whether or not to include it, as it could persuade the audience into believing that the oppression wasn’t that bad, which is definitely not something we want to do.
Why Don’t People Care About Rights?
The reason that I think people generally don’t seem interested in rights is because rights are considered a norm. Rights are meant to be expectations of what a person should and shouldn’t be able to do, as well as expectations around how one should be treated. We live our lives filled with things we consider normal. We expect the same things, and those things never change. Rights are cemented in us because we have never actually seen life without them.
And thats why we struggle to understand what it means for them to be taken away. To the people struggling, it’s obvious what they need, but to us, we can’t see. Compared to any other time or place in history, our lives are frighteningly easy. Easy to the point where we’ve developed social and mental challenges due to not having enough physical challenges in the way of survival. We no longer understand what injustice is, and we view solving it as an opportunity to gain social status. Sadly it’s the main reason why many people chose to care about issues such as the environment, poverty, and in this case reconciliation.
If justice is to be solved in any logical way, most of us are bias, most of us are deaf.
Including myself.
A Personal Note
After learning about what rights are, and how rights were taken away, and even traded for in Canadas history, I noticed something about myself. Why was I not interested in this? It felt like even though I wasn’t bored, I still felt a lack of connection with the material. And I wanted to find out why. I’m not just writing this because I want to “tell a story of my growth”. I’ve read like a thousand blog posts that are trying to convince the teachers that their learning “opened their eyes” or that they “didn’t really know the importance at first”, cause I guarantee none of those people actually felt that, because if they actually felt it, they wouldn’t chose to say it. I actually considered whether or not I should even admit that I’m not passionate about this material. To be honest, I didn’t want it to seem like I don’t care about the course. But I realized that there’s a difference between not being interested, and not being interested but choosing to find out why, in order to learn how you can still help, as well as to reveal things about yourself that you may not realize.
I think that be not being interested actually offers me a unique perspective. Understanding why that is helps me to understand why the general public doesn’t seem to either, which brings us one step closer to finding solutions.
I’m very much looking forward to the year to come, because I’m excited to see how my mind will change. I’ve always been someone who has a constant urge to play devils-advocate, and I’m hoping that it maybe gets balanced out by trying my best to sympathize ideas rather than question them. It’s something that I do even when I agree with things, and may be one of the reasons I generally don’t feel passionate about my beliefs or opinions. Who knows, maybe that might change.
This post was a bit messy, as I had a bunch of different things to talk about, and I really struggled with structuring it all in one post. But those were my thoughts on the first project in BC First People’s 12 PLP, and hope you found them interesting! Writing after the project has finished lets me think about things that I never really thought about during the project itself, and in this case ended up laying out how I plan to approach the rest of the course!
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!
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