Being First Nations In A White World

Court these days has involved extensive testimony of expert witnesses and the
evidence being marked and documented in court. I think the hardest thing to
listen to was the discovery of the body parts. Imagining it made me nauseous. I
imagine a bullet hit the back of their head first, and I hope they were not
tortured. As stated in court, they found a .22 caliber wound in the back of
their skulls. It makes me question how someone could loathe a person so much,
just because of how they looked or how they lived their life. As the saying
goes, "Don’t judge a book by its cover." So many of the missing women were First
Nations. It makes it seem like a lot of people judge us as less valuable. But
that's not true.

Throughout this trial, I’ve had fellow First Nations
people come to me and share their feelings about prejudices toward Native
people, and in particular, Native prostitutes. I didn’t really pick up on the
fact I was different when I was working the street. I got along with anyone who
got along with me; I didn’t worry about the color of people's skin. I befriended
transsexuals. I was fairly opened-minded.

That’s not saying being First Nations never troubled me throughout life. When
I was a teenager, my girlfriend Sheri from school got a job in McDonald’s. She
tried to get me a job with her. However, she talked to her bosses and they told
her that they weren’t hiring me because I was an "Indian." They don’t hire
"them" because they can’t be trusted. Little did they know, I lived in Upper
Lonsdale, in a mid-high class neighbourhood with white people; she quit her job
because she wouldn’t work for people like that...

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