Something everyone needs to see, if you haven't already, is the list of locations of mass graves of residential schoolchildren that was made public earlier this week -- stageleft published it.To be honest, I was so shocked and so disturbed by the magnitude of this list that it took me a few read-overs to fully absorb it. The number of victims, the fact that they were kids, little kids, the causes of some of their deaths, the complete disrespect in their final resting places left hidden and uncared for to conceal the crimes that killed them... all so unbelievably horrific.
When confronted with such horrors, it's human nature to automatically try and turn away as a kind of defense mechanism. But that's how things like residential school atrocities went on -- because it was so much easier not to confront the ugliness and one's own part in it, however distant. The list of mass graves makes it impossible not to do so, which is why it's so important to read it, read it slowly and carefully and let it sink in, read it 3 or 4 times if you have to. Read it and weep, literally. Then let the grief become resolve to work towards better understanding.
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