The Creator didn't make any garbage

Page 5

At a band council meeting just this last month, we were talking about justice. This conversation has stayed with me since that meeting. I have been both worrying and thinking.

I have not made it much of a secret - there was a time in my life where I had lots of run ins with the law. It was not my experiences of being jailed that led me to changing my life around. It was having people in my circle that cared about me - who stood up to me and stood up for me.

My oldest son is now 15. His name is Brandon and some of his friends have had contact with the police, been arrested and been sent to youth facilities. One of them is there now. He calls here all the time. He wants to get out. For me, it's obvious that he is looking for the same thing I looked for, people to care about him. I've heard my wife say many times that it's not a youth justice problem we have, but a parent problem. I suppose you can take that back generations and point to what the residential schools did to our people. But knowing where the harm to our parenting skills originates from doesn't mean that we are going to fix the problem.

Probably because of my experiences with the justice system - from child welfare apprehension to provincial jails - I really worry about creating more justice institutions that just mimic the mainstream system. We have been building jails on First Nations lands and making Aboriginal police forces. I am not the least bit convinced that getting brown people to do the jobs that white people have done in the past makes any difference.

Creating brown systems that control people by force (and what else is Canadian law and jails about) is just more of the same-old-same. What's it going to fix?

One of the staff at the school, recently brought the four "baddest" kids from the school over here to visit. Well, I am still wondering why people think these kids are "bad." An Elder who has now passed on, Art Solomon, told me that the Creator didn't make any garbage and I agree with him.

There's no such thing as a "bad" kid. When those kids were over here they listened to me. I was sad when I asked one of the boys to help me and he looked surprised. In my opinion, a lot of the times when our youth are acting out it's more about them needing caring and needing to know they are important. The boys wanted to use our boat and ride the bikes. They seemed surprised that I would let them (which tells me that a lot of people don't trust these kids). They played with my youngest son Jack who's just three. They looked after him real good and were kind to him. They rode horse and took turns. The boys were polite to each other. I was left to wonder just what the problem was.

I don't want to sound like I am blaming the parents either. I remember all too well what it was like to be living moment-to-moment. When you are worried about how you are going to survive the day, where you are going to get numb so you don't have to live with the pain in your life, it's awfully hard to think about the long term future of your family or your community. The solution, as I understand it, isn't in building jails or brown police forces.

It is in building community. This is the tradition of extended family that we Indian people have always had. It's about kindness and carrying. And it's about understanding that we have responsibilities toward every young person in our community.