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Today's newsletter touches on the painful subjects of MMIW and MMIP. Please read with care for your spirit, or do not read at all. If you require immediate support, please contact this national, independent toll free 24/7 support line at 1-844-413-6649 to speak to a counsellor. The service is available in English, French, Cree, Anishnaabemowin (Ojibway) and Inuktitut.

ᑖᓂᓯ ᓂᐚᐦᑰᒫᑲᓇᐠ ᐁᑿ ᓂᑑᑌᒼᑎᐠ᙮ 
tânisi niwâhkômâkanak êkwa nitôtêmtik,

Hello my friends and relatives,

I did not write a newsletter last week, because I was away. For the second year in a row, I participated in a ceremonial fasting camp that is held over the May long weekend. 

This year, the camp was held in Jasper National Park, at a sacred spot in the mountains that has been set aside by Parks Canada for ceremonial use by multiple First Nations and Métis organizations. It is a stunningly beautiful place.

Since returning home from my fast, I feel stronger and more clear in my purpose and my identity. But I came home to a difficult news week.

The sign for the Cultural Use Area in Jasper National Park. Photo by Eden Fineday

Last week, Castanet published a dehumanizing article about a young man from the Penticton Indian Band who was murdered. His family and friends, already struggling under the weight of his loss, were outraged and hurt. This "news" story only added pain onto a grieving family.

It's really incredible to me how little some news outlets seem to care for Indigenous people and communities. We are humans, too. If the family is interested in us doing so, IndigiNews may cover this young man's death in a way that honours him, with compassion and care.

But that's up to his family.

A Facebook post from a member of Thomas Kruger-Allen's family. Photo from Facebook

On Monday, Robert Pickton was in the news cycle again, because he was injured in an attack in prison. 

Reading his name brings me back to the time when women were going missing and the police did little about it. The Vancouver Police Department had identified Pickton as a suspect nearly 4 years before he was arrested, and in those intervening years, more women were murdered on his farm. 

Once again, the message to Indigenous women was clear: our lives are worthless in the eyes of the colonizer. 

Anytime I see his name or face show up on my feed, I feel a little bit triggered. I cannot imagine how the families of his victims must feel. 

A red dress hangs from a street sign in "Enderby" in Secwépemc homelands on July 13 for the vigil for Caitlin Potts last summer. Photo by Aaron Hemens

Finally, yesterday the RCMP came out with their new ribbon skirt that, after five years of consultations, had finally been approved to be a part of their ceremonial dress. 

The photo they released on social media with the announcement was of a woman, but only from the neck down. In the same week as a serial killer who dismembered Indigenous women is in the news cycle and another serial killer of Indigenous women in Winnipeg has confessed to dismembering Indigenous women, the RCMP chose to publish a photo of a headless woman. 

The person in the photograph is presumed to be Indigenous, but why not show a whole human being? Perhaps they couldn't find an Indigenous member who was willing to pose for that photo so they used a non-Indigenous woman and tried to hide it.

Whatever the reason for the gaff, for me it was another example of Indigenous women being disrespected by a police force that should know better by now. The lack of comprehension of the reality of Indigenous women on these shared lands is infuriating and exhausting. Once again, they got it wrong.

That's why we are happy to publish former IndigiNews reporter Kelsie Kilawna's fierce op-ed on the subject. You can read it here. 

to our readers, I say hiy hiy for being a part of IndigiNews' community. kinanâskomitin (I am grateful for you).

Aunty Eden

Eden Fineday is a nêhiyaw Iskwew and the publisher of IndigiNews.

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