To the Editor,
Re: “Residential school survivor calling for Canada-wide search of sites after remains of 215 children found,” from May 28.
The average person might want to consider such an atrocity as having “happened long ago” or “in the past” and believe that (or therefore) humanity could/would not permit it to happen again in much more modern times. However, I doubt that is the way large-scale societies — let alone border-segregated, independent nations — necessarily behave collectively.
After almost 3.5 decades of news consumption, I’ve noticed that a disturbingly large number of categorized people, however precious their souls, can be considered thus treated as though disposable, even to an otherwise democratic nation. When the young children of those people take notice of this, tragically, they’re vulnerable to begin perceiving themselves as beings without value. When I say this, I primarily have in mind Indigenous-nation (and Black) Canadians and Americans. But I know it happens worldwide.
While the inhuman devaluation of certain people is basically based on race, it still somewhat reminds me of an external devaluation, albeit a subconscious one, of the daily civilian lives lost in protractedly devastating war zones and heavily armed sieges. They can eventually receive meagre column inches on the back page in the First World’s daily news.
Frank Sterle Jr.,
White Rock, B.C.