Trauma meme12/31/2023 ![]() We never believed that we mattered, or that we could amount to anything.”Ĭharlie says the emotional aftermath of this trauma extended far beyond the schools, into Indigenous communities, poisoning them and creating a skewed perception of Indigenous peoples that inadvertently gave surrounding non-Indigenous communities misguided resentment toward them. “They were continuously called ‘stupid Indian,’ and that they will never be anything but ‘stupid Indian,’ and that stayed on our minds, and preyed on our confidence. “There were 150,000 children or more that were taken away from their homes forcibly, and sent to these residential schools, and children were starved, denied family visits, physically abused for speaking their own language, for practicing culture,” says Charlie. “When children needed help and protection from whoever was bothering each other, or bullies, they were turned away from the teacher, because there was no safety or protection because these authority figures were also physically, emotionally, mentally, sexually abusing the children.”Ĭharlie says Indigenous children were systematically crushed by their colonizers, robbed of their identity, and made to believe they were worthless. “There were stories of how teachers, nuns, priests, encouraged children to hurt one another, to reward children for hurting each other,” says Spray. Spray says that residential schools deprived children of the most basic sense of safety because the people who were supposed to take care of them were in fact abusing them. We will never be able to heal from residential-school trauma, but it gives us one small opportunity where we can sit down together in a circle and talk about the trauma that we experienced, and work together to find ways to make a path that is better for children so that they don’t have to carry our trauma anymore.” Camosun College alumni Eddy Charlie and Kristin Spray are the founders of Victoria Orange Shirt Day (photo provided). “Orange Shirt Day has taken on a very important role for healing in our community. “We don’t need Band-Aid solutions to help our people, we need people to hear our stories and understand that this is what happened to us, this is why we are the way we are, this is why we don’t have any success in our community, because they traumatized us to such a point that change seems so impossible,” says Charlie. “I always hear people say it’s good to forget, and I want to say, hell no, it’s really hard to forget,” he says. Orange Shirt Day was on September 30, but for Charlie and Spray, the work keeps going. These people say that survivors should simply move on with their lives, but Charlie does not agree. Charlie began this mission after hearing people express irritation and mockery at Indigenous people who keep talking about residential schools. Camosun College Indigenous Studies alumnus Eddy Charlie is a residential-school survivor along with fellow Camosun alumnus Kristin Spray he created Victoria Orange Shirt Day, which allows Charlie to share the tragic stories of his youth in order to educate people.
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