Cultural Trauma In Residential Schools

Improved Essays
According to Moore (2014), “Cultural trauma occurs when members of a collectively feel they have been subject to horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marketing their memories forever and changing their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways” (143). Today, many people around the world are unaware of the history of the residential school. The story of the residential school is being kept out of the side not allowing people to know about what exactly happen at the time.
For instance, children that are growing up in this generation are clueless about the story of residential school. They are not being given enough education regarding the overall history of how First Nations people came to be in this country. Cultural trauma fits the definition of Residential Schools because of the long term impact and marks that are left on children that attended the Residential school. Children who attended the Residential school experience different trauma in their lifetime. According to Chansonneuve (2005), Many survivors experience ongoing trauma from flashbacks. Although this is the body’s ways of signaling that healing is needed, too many survivors resort to substance abuse to numb these feelings instead of using them to heal” (p. 47). However, Indigenous people make up Canada, yet the history about them is being heavily ignored. The Indigenous people have faced a traumatic event throughout the history. They are often presented in a negative manner or being blamed for a crime that occurred. For example, in the case of Pamela George media relay more on the college student blaming the Aboriginal man for the death of this innocent woman. The two young boys claim that they left the Pamela in a good and pointed the finger to the Aboriginal man. As the case proceed to the court, Pamela George was being identified as a prostitute and not as a young loving mother. Another example is that in Canada, the media should take the issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal women more seriously. Often time when we hear of terrorist attack, the media goes viral for almost one month presenting the attack and finding a solution of how it happen. However, when an Aboriginal woman goes missing, the media only show a brief overview of what happen without going into more detail. The media could help in addressing the myriad issues related to the experience of cultural trauma in our society by addressing the negative issues toward different group of people. Mawby (2010) states, we need “changes in our society which require the police officers service to communicate with diverse communities”. This will help in normalizing issues and validate issues that are going on in our society. For example, children that are growing up watching media portraying a negative image towards their race, they are more likely to have lower self-esteem and believe that this is how the society function. This is also connected to our class article title, Common Portrayal of Aboriginal People. This article states that the media “Portrayals of Aboriginal people as being primitive, violent and devious, or passive and submissive, have become widespread in movies and TV programs and in literature ranging from books to comic strips”. This types of portrayals sticks in our mind and allowing us to think that this is how we are suppose to act and behave in a society. On the other had, Eschholz sates, “it is widely assumed that the popular conflation of crime and race is tied to the media images of race and of crime” (p. 402). The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada was
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One of the first step media could do in addressing the TRC calls for action, is to create awareness and educate people about the TRC. The dilemma of the TRC is that people are not fully aware of these calls for action and if they do they, they don’t know about where to get more information and to take actions. The media have access to people than any other program they know how to influence people and often time their programs have an impact on people in many different ways. They could also help in empowering and liberate people in terms of

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