THUNDER BAY -- A local compaign is teaching Indigenous historical perspectives to address misconceptions and combat racism.
Confederation College Native Child and Family services students presented part two of their Stand Up Against Racism campaign at Lakehead University's Agora Circle on Friday.
The Kairos Blanket exercise encouraged participants to stand on blankets, which represented different parts of Turtle Island, also known as North America.
Each particpant represented an Indigenous group holding colored cards showing the processes of colonization, resistance and treaty-making.
A narrator and an European colonizer directed participants through storytelling by eliminating.each particpant based on the cards, which signified disease, death and loss of land.
Organizer Jerri-Lynn Orr said the exercise reduces 500 years of Settler-Indigenous history in a 90-minute session.
“It’s a really good representation of what happened to the land and the relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples,” Orr said.
“We need to understand what happened and this event will hopefully make people stand up and be aware of the racism. We want to make sure all those stereotypes are dispelled.”
Participant Terri-Ann Palmer-Thompson, 10, said during the presentation she learned a lot about the history of Indigenous peoples.
“I learned that the Indigenous peoples are drifting apart. We are learning our languages, how we used to live and everything that we used to do,” Thompson said.
“It made me feel sad because we all lost our languages and we don’t really know how to speak it anymore.”
Thompson added that she wants to run the Stand Up Against Racism campaign when she grows up and hopes racism will comes to an end so people no longer have to worry about being judged.