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This article was published 31/1/2015 (2058 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

Of all the harsh words spoken about Winnipeg, and hard headlines written, none could ever be more offensive than this: There was a murdered girl in the river.

There was a murdered girl in the river. Murdered women in Dumpsters. Women found lifeless and tossed in the bush. In many cases they simply vanished, their gaze fading from the rain-spattered page of some street-lamp poster. Date of birth. Height. Hair colour. Eye colour.

Someone put them in these places. Someone snatched their lives away. But before that final violence was meted, most of the vanished indigenous women had this much in common: They were vulnerable, pushed to the edge by the glaring assaults on health, wealth and safety that haunt so many indigenous families in this city.

It is not villainy to name these things. It is not smear, to hold a torch over the spot where skeletons are spilling out of our civic closet.

If we are honest, then we can admit there was little that Nancy Macdonald wrote in Maclean's magazine last week that wasn't already known. And yet, we've learned so much since it was published 10 days ago. We've learned that many Manitobans are still dark on the difference between individual bigotry, and systemic racism. We've learned that a woeful number of us lack a real grasp of the unvarnished facts of Canada's woeful settler colonial project.

Oh, how quick some of us were to "defend Winnipeg's reputation," as if a hard headline is more damaging than the cold horror of a murdered girl in a river.

Even Saskatoon's mayor couldn't help but tumble into the pointless debate about which cities make a podium finish in the racist Olympics. That city is "eons ahead," Don Atchison said, to which I would reply simply: The mayor ought to remember there are no moral victories in this case, no matter where in the standings you place.

Above all else, we learned there is still so much about the nations co-existing on this land that non-indigenous people do not, or do not want to, understand.

Here is a fact: The above-mentioned disparities in wealth, health and safety are not demographic accidents. This is the system working as intended.

As in other settler colonial states, the architecture of this nation was designed to leverage indigenous people from land earmarked for settlement and resource exploitation; to limit indigenous self-sufficiency and force dependency on the Canadian state; to sever ties of community, family, culture, language.

When a system has been designed with this in mind, no tweaks will make it just. No tweaks will make it become something else.

In the end, the architects of the colonial programs -- which still dominate Canadian and indigenous relations, such as the Indian Act -- didn't get what they wanted. Indigenous people, communities and identities proved more resilient than those architects predicted. Those who hoped to erase the Indian from the child, well, they failed -- but not before inflicting incredible trauma and long-lasting harm.

Enough. To begin on this topic is to go on forever, and there are other things to cover.

Now, it is time to talk about hope. On Tuesday, Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman announced he would launch a website to solicit ideas about how to combat racism. Truthfully, though I am relentlessly cynical about elected officials, I admire him for setting a tone on this issue. So in the spirit intended, I'd like to toss out the first of many ideas to my fellow non-indigenous Canadians, about how we can claw back the shroud of racism (institutional, individual) that still smothers these lands.

First, we can start by consciously trying to take up less space. Step back from discussions on race, where there are indigenous people to lead (and yes, I realize how awkward it is to write that from my cushy column space.) Make an effort to invite indigenous people to the table, the podium, the head of the parade. Trust me, you won't lose anything by doing this -- but you may just forge some important connections.

Second, we can insist on centering the idea of being in partnership with indigenous people. This can include everything from how we receive indigenous people in our lives, to what we teach our children. It can start with simply acknowledging, at events or on business cards, that we in Winnipeg are rooted in Treaty One territory and the traditional territory of the Metis Nation. To me, that alone can be a simple and powerful way to begin reshaping how we see the land and society, and honouring its honest history.

Third, we must actually be willing to listen to indigenous people. I consider one of the most common complaints about the struggles of indigenous people is that they themselves are not working to fix them. This is egregiously false: Countless First Nations, Inuit and Métis people have been engaged in the work and discussions of how to heal their communities, and have been for generations.

Their views are diverse, the debates vibrant and wide-ranging, and most of all they're doing most of their work outside of the spotlight. It's just that most non-indigenous people haven't bothered to listen, let alone seek out these perspectives. For an easy place to start, I suggest following APTN news anchor Michael Hutchinson on Twitter; he regularly shares a remarkable breadth and depth of indigenous people's perspectives.

Corollary to this is realizing indigenous people have spent the last several hundred years listening to non-indigenous people tell them what's best for them. It's time to stop that, immediately. Just stop. It has never once helped anyone.

Finally, for those folks who were angrier, more upset that a magazine called Winnipeg "most racist" than they ever were about a murdered girl in the river -- if nothing else, I hope they would be quiet for a time, and ask themselves why.

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca