A serial killer convicted in Winnipeg of murdering four Indigenous women reflects the ongoing genocide referred to in the report from the MMIWG inquiry.
Article content
This week, serial killer Jeremy Skibicki was sentenced to four life sentences in a Winnipeg court. He won’t be eligible for parole for 25 years, but it’s doubtful he will ever be released.
I will only mention his name once because I refuse to give this serial killer any notoriety. He was called a monster by a victim’s grandmother and I agree that he committed monstrous acts, but he was really a weak individual.
Advertisement 2
Article content
He preyed on women at a homeless shelter and, after strangling them, disposed of their remains in a garbage bin. He was a weak and pathetic white supremacist who felt he was superior to Indigenous people, particularly women.
Serial killers who prey on vulnerable people are weak individuals. They don’t go after men who might be their physical equal, but prey on women because they feel superior and it’s safer to take down a vulnerable person.
He may have been a monster, but he was a product of his society.
We tend to separate offenders from the mainstream. If a man is charged with spousal abuse, people say, “He went nuts, he lost it, he wasn’t himself.” He is separated from the rest of us and occupies a nether world of evil.
By making excuses and separating the offender, we don’t take any responsibility as a society. Racism is another tool to separate the individual from the mainstream. We live in a world of one form of racial conflict or another. Racism and prejudice are the best ways to turn people against each other.
This was discovered in the American civil war; the commanders found that their soldiers were reluctant to kill each other. Both sides were made up of white farm boys who had a lot in common. They saw the “enemy” as people just like them.
Afternoon Headlines
Article content
Advertisement 3
Article content
It was up to the commanding officers to make up stories about the enemy and make them appear less than human. When persons are seen as less than human, then it becomes easier to kill.
The practice continued for both world wars, with the Germans portrayed as ugly, subhuman and evil. During the Vietnam War, the Americans had a derogatory name for the Vietnamese. The British also had one for south Asians that gave them the twisted licence to colonize Pakistan, India and Siri Lanka.
To justify his war with Ukraine, Putin has described the Ukrainian people as Nazis. And so it continues.
The mythology about stupid, lazy Indians is still rampant across Western Canada. It gives people licence to discriminate and make racist conclusions, and it gives certain weak people the justification to kill.
When our kids were in elementary school, some of their friends assumed that we lived on welfare. It was obvious they were learning that at home. These examples are not one-offs; they are built right into the cultural fabric of a nation.
At school, we were taught that the Spanish conquered the Americas; we weren’t told that they brought diseases that destroyed civilizations. We were taught that the Aztecs were violent and bloodthirsty, cannibalism was rampant among the Polynesians and Islam was spread by the sword. We were lied to at every step.
Advertisement 4
Article content
The Europeans represented civilization; white was good, and anything other was evil. The final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls states: “The thousands of Indigenous women and girls who were murdered or disappeared across the country in recent decades are victims of a Canadian genocide.”
Genocide is a loaded term and should be used with caution, but when individuals feel that they can murder a race of people with impunity, it amounts to a form of genocide.
A more subtle form is when one race is held up above others. It creates a world where evil individuals think they are superior and can murder with impunity.
Canada can’t continue to turn a blind eye to the racism built into the fabric of the nation, but must confront it for the good of us all.
Doug Cuthand is the Indigenous affairs columnist for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix and the Regina Leader-Post. He is a member of the Little Pine First Nation.
Recommended from Editorial
Our websites are your destination for up-to-the-minute Saskatchewan news, so make sure to bookmark thestarphoenix.com and leaderpost.com. For Regina Leader-Post newsletters click here; for Saskatoon StarPhoenix newsletters click here
Article content
