Wednesday 6 June 2012

To blog or not to blog

Blogging has been an interesting experience for me. I had never really used technology to express my opinions other than word document and power point so this was a new endeavor and I am happy that I gave it a chance. Technology is an amazing tool to do research, to spread your message around the world, and to utilize the different programs on the internet.This has positively impacted my learning and my thinking as it allowed me to benefit from other people's ideas and to see many different points of view of all the issues.
Another benefit with blogging is the ability to share one's ideas with ease. I thought it was much simpler than I had first thought and being able to share my information without much hassle proved to be a selling point.

So... Why bother?

My father’s friend was sentenced to three years in jail. He is an aboriginal man who, because of repeated abuse from his girlfriend, made the grave mistake of retaliating. He deserved his sentence. What he didn’t deserve was the racism and prejudices he received once inside the prison gates. The aboriginal community does not receive the same treatment as non-aboriginals. They do not receive the funding for their programs; they do not have the funds to have decent lawyers who care about their freedom; they are not treated like they ought to be. In the case of my dad's friend, the programs that ran for Aboriginals weren't even run by Aboriginals, but by outsiders who didn't know the customs or the heritage. Some of the guards even took the art they had made and sold it for a profit, giving the artisan only a small portion. Also, whenever a non-aboriginal wanted food from their culture they were granted it without having to pay; Aboriginals had to pay to have traditional food and it was rarely offered to them. These small things make a huge difference in the lives of Aboriginal offenders.For me, as a young girl thinking Canada was a perfect and free place, I was appalled. Ever since then I have had the strongest desire to help those aboriginals who are emotionally abused in our justice system.This, along with the horrible stories my dad's friend has told me about reserve life, have steered me towards this issue. I feel very strongly about the issues and it has since been my life goal to make Canada an equal place for Aboriginals, the very first Canadians.Through this blogging endeavor I have learned even more about the terrible inequality problems they face and I have come to understand that the causes are so complex and confusing making the multitude of problems difficult to solve. I used to think that I could simply 'fix' the problems with a few anti-racism policies and some funding for their schools but I now realize it goes much, much deeper than that.