123die
Member
- Feb 16, 2019
- 95
Since colonization, forced relocation, and land theft, suicide rates of Indigenous people, especially youth, have gone up by such intense proportions, many Indigenous communities/nations around the world have declared states of emergency based directly on how many of our youth are dying at their own hands. A few years ago, seven girls from Poplar Hills First Nation and Wapekeka First Nation killed themselves. Their names were Amy Owen, Chantell Fox, Alayna Moose, Kanina Sue Turtle, Jolynn Winter, Jenera Roundsky, and Jeannie Grace Brown. All of them were fifteen and under. Indigenous people have higher rates of addiction, poverty, and mental illness than any other group of people. Because the white man saw us, thought we were wrong, decided because we were wrong that they had more right to our land than we did, took our land, killed most of us, and put the rest of us in residential schools, or tried to assimilate us into Western culture. And the pain of this has endured through generations. I am a statistic. I am an Indigenous person who has mental illness and may or may not be dead by the end of the week. Because my heart hurts too much. And no one seems to want to do what I need them to so that maybe my heart could heal one day.