Comments on Indigenous peoples, Tailfeathers unwarranted
By Lethbridge Herald on January 11, 2022.
Dennis Bremner, your thoughts on our Indigenous neighbours is so wrong.
Not everyone using drugs is Indigenous.
I believe that there’s a lot of people that would like to see our friends that use drugs to just disappear.
But everyone is someone’s daughter mother, sibling, father.
So our communities need to start coming together to solve the problem.
My personal view is harm reduction does help.
But there are three other pillars that we need to help harm reduction that we can agree with.
Dr. Tailfeathers and her daughter have done a lot to help with harm reduction and help the community as a whole.
For you to attack her as you did is cowardly.
This is some information on the four pillars.
Chris Rowley
Lethbridge
14-13
The only way to get a dialogue going is to confront the situation head on. In your rant above, you do realize of course, you never touched on one comment that was made in the actual Letter sent to the Editor? Nowhere does it suggest all addicts are Indigenous! Nowhere did it mention the 4 pillars, Nor did the letter require your belief in harm reduction as an input. Nor was it said that their work in Harm Reduction was in question.
So I can only conclude your comments are strategic and opportunistic! You must need to build a broader voter base among SCS supporters and are considering on running for Council again? Good Luck with that!
Chris Rowley, you say “Not everyone using drugs is Indigenous”. That may be true but what we see staggering the streets of our community are *mainly* indigenous. They are everywhere and numbers are growing. Why are they coming here? They’re huddled in corners of buildings; have taken over our library, new bus station, are aimlessly wandering about looking to be fed and watered; adding nothing of value to our community just being a drag and an eyesore destroying the good vibe that was once here.
SAGE clan has set up a big yellow T-pee right across the street from the library. How disrespectful!! They found a loophole – are on ‘federal’ land so they don’t need a permit. SAGE clan is part of the problem and not the solution. Getting ‘their people’ use to hanging out in certain locations like by our library only adds to the problem. Why aren’t they at their Sik-Ooh-Kotoki Friendship Society? Our library has been hijacked. Few want to use the library when so many of them are hanging about outside or inside looking for a bathroom to shoot up in.
Indigenous have pushed their way into our city and social problems are so bad that we’re known across Canada as a drug and crime hotbed. Ironic that they can come here yet we need a permit to enter onto the reservation.
You also state, “everyone is someone’s daughter mother, sibling, father.
If that is the case, WHY aren’t the parent’s or relatives taking in *their* people? Why unload them on Lethbridge? They certainly we’re born here. Problems started on the reserve and that’s where the problems should stay. It can all be traced back to poor parenting. Every child deserves a good life. There is nothing more irresponsible than an addict having defective kids whose brains are riddled with holes – fetal alcohol spectrum disorders etc.
I didn’t think it’d be possible to be more racist than Dennis Bremner’s letter, but you pulled it off! After all, what else but racism could explain your belief that Indigenous people are not part of this community but some malign invading force (ironic given the history of who invaded who here)?
Then there’s the sheer ignorance of why the reserves have such severe social problems (hint: it’s not bad personal choices or poor parenting). It’s people like you who have earned Lethbridge its deserved reputation as a small-minded, racist backwater.
Common behaviour to blame everyone else and scream racism.
It was never said that Indigenous are not part of this community. The response was based on Elissa saying that Lethbridge was allowing Indigenous to freeze in the Cold and it was only because Blood stepped in and saved the day, they did not freeze. Has nothing to do with who is part of the community at all. It was a Racist rant that suggests that there was no room and Lethbridge was prepared to let them die. In fact the “group refused to comply with NOT shooting up and NOT partying. Thats what cause the comment.
The same group ended up at the Friendship center, which if you are following at all Windy_Dancer, was totally trashed by the partying group. Broken Toilet, 3 fires set, and a supposed sexual assault.
The same group continually forces AlphaHouses patience. So if people put things in proper perspective things would be more readily understood.
In answer to your question, I never invaded you, you never invaded me, you live where you live, I live where I live. Its time the Indigenous start realizing that screaming racism every time they do not like something falls on deaf ears. Every time its used against citizens of this city , they harden even more when it is unjustified! I think most of us are becoming more sensitive to racism and it takes time, for sure. Screaming it when its not racism does not help.
So, we have someone complaining we are allowing Indigenous to freeze to death at the same time they want to destroy the place they reside in for the night. Who’s facility do you think should be offered up to these people next?
Then we have seen a jump in Indigenous/non-indigenous drug addicts by about 70 over the last 15 months. We are told by a few people who live on the reserve it is because the Blood Housing authority is boarding up the houses used by the Addicts. They are saying 22 houses are boarded up at this time. Do you dispute that information Windy_Dancer?
Those people leave the reserve and tend to come to Lethbridge. Then once here we are criticized for not keeping up with housing them? Do you see how that is a lose lose for Lethbridge?
Racism, you have no idea what the word means, if you think the comment is racist.
Some of the phrases you used: “our community,” “they are coming here” “our library” etc etc, which clearly indicates you think these indigenous people don’t belong. I’m not Indigenous, which means I actually hear the way “citizens of this city” talk about Indigenous people and the casual racism that is commonplace here and it is usually couched in the type of “us and them” language you use here.
As for the rest of your letter, it’s all hearsay and anecdotes without any actual evidence (for example, what is the source of your claim that we’ve seen a jump of 70 per cent in addicted persons in the past 15 months?)
Finally, you offer no solutions and I have no doubt if ideas like more housing for homeless and addicts were proposed, you would shoot them down too.
the concern raise in d.b’s letter is why is the blood reserve offloading its addicts to lethbridge? the cost to lethbridge has been dear, in terms of resources and increased crime. the concerns would be the same were we being inundated by addicts from medicine hat. nowhere was it stated or even implied by the writer that natives do not belong here. the concern expressed is that lethbridge has a significant issue in dealing with, and the fallout from, addicts that are grouping here from the blood reserve. ideally, would it not it better for people with addictions to be served in their community where there are friends and family to further support well being? is the reserve unwilling and/or unable to provide care and support? why must lethbridge be the hub of southern alberta’s addictions issues? people are concerned for their safety and property, as well as the diminishing effect on their quality of life. the further consequent effects are that lethbridge is increasingly becoming an undesirable place to raise a family and to retire; property values are suffering, too.