Today’s the day that Stephen Harper is scheduled to apologize for the horrors of the residential schools where Aboriginal peoples in Canada were imprisoned for decades, creating generations of abuse and also of survival.

The apology is scheduled for 3pm today in the House of Commons and you can watch it online livestream on the CBC here.

For me, the government’s apology comes too late to be meaningful. It isn’t happening in concert with acknowledging the multiple thefts of land and culture that are still ongoing in land claim disputes, cultural appropriation, and lack of basic resources like clean water, culturally-relevant and sustaining education.

If I can find any hope today, I want this apology to galvanize and influence white settler folks. Sadly, I think that white folks are more likely to respond and react to white people talking about racism and cultural genocide than the survivors themselves. Will hearing Stephen Harper apologize start the unlearning?

For many, it will do nothing. For others, it will mean something. What does it mean to you?

One of our readers sent us this article about a woman in Owen Sound, Ontario who raised $2,700 for Cops for Cancer by shaving her head, only to be ordered to take unpaid leave from her waitressing job until it grew back.

Her employers had this to say:

“Our staff is expected to come dressed appropriately and we did not feel that this was appropriate…She could have done a multitude of different things to support her cause that wouldn’t have affected her work, but she chose to do it in a way that we told her was inappropriate for our business.”

They suggested she use her summer off to “spend time with her kids”. The suggestion being that she was doing them a terrible disservice by going to work in the first place.

What exactly is inappropriate about a waitress with a shaved head? Could it be that it’s - *gasp* - unfeminine? What’s the bet that if one of the mail waitstaff came to work with a shaved head, the owners wouldn’t bat an eyelid?

There’s an interesting trend developing in US queer rights cases at the moment. Hot on the heels of the California marriage decision, the federal appeals court in California has reinstated a lawsuit challenging “don’t ask, don’t tell”.

The lawsuit is being brought by a decorated Air Force flight nurse who was thrown out of the military after a civilian tip-off about her six-year relationship with another woman. The case was initially dismissed, but the US Court of Appeals has reinstated it.

What’s interesting is the reason for the Court of Appeals’ decision. There was an article on Slate earlier this week that explained the significance of the California marriage decision (it’s written by Kenji Yoshino, who is incidentally the author of Covering, a discussion of the ways in which society’s limited tolerance of race and homosexuality demands that nobody flaunt their difference).

The article explains, with the minimum of legal jargon, the difference between “rational basis” and “strict scrutiny”, two different standards of review applied by the courts to constitutional laws that constitute the main distinction between the gay marriage decision in Massachusetts, and the one in California.
(more inside…)

Okay this just annoys me.

From the Ottawa citizen:

First Place Pregnancy Centre was one of three charities designated by the Sens Better Halves, a group of Ottawa Senators’ wives and girlfriends, to receive funds from the SENSational Tree Raffle organized last November. In December, First Place withdrew from the fundraiser after Planned Parenthood issued a press release saying the group was “anti-choice.”

First Place executive director Terri Mazik said her group has since noticed “a severe decline” in clients. The statement of claim names Planned Parenthood, executive director Stephanie Piché, and Heather Greenwood, program co-ordinator.

For real? This is what First Place has the time and funds to be doing?

And for the record, there is absolutely no doubt that they are anti-choice, anti-woman, and extremely judgemental. It is ridiculously unfair to trick people into thinking you are going to support and give them “options” when you get through their doors and the tactics to steer you away from actual choices (with what you want to do with your body) interestingly enough begin. It is part of the ongoing problem with these so-called “pregnancy crisis centres” popping up across the country that SHAMELESS has blogged on before.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has announced that he will make an official apology on behalf of the government for the horrific abuse suffered by victims of Canada’s residential school system over the past 100 years.

Harper will make the apology in the House of Commons on June 11th.

While it is good to see the government showing some sort of accountability to the extreme genocide they have inflicted on Aboriginal peoples, I have to wonder if Harper even really knows what he’s apologizing for.

Because his government has so far:

-Refused to sign the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, making Canada an international human rights laughing stock

-Cut the Status of Women which included major funding losses for the Sisters in Spirit Initiative that advocated for victims of violence at the Native Women’s Association of Canada, which was their largest contribution agreement

-Thrown out the Kelowna Accord, which, say what you will about it, was the first time the government actually asked Aboriginal people to be at the same table and collectively make decisions for our own people

-Has not done anything to help our people protect our own land and silently watched our leaders be thrown in jail, from the KI6 in Northern Ontario to Mohawk territory to the tar sands in Alberta, etc. More than 20% of inmates in Canada are Aboriginal, while we only make up roughly 3% of the population.

And the list goes on……..

90% of Aboriginal people today are affected by the residential school system on some level, the last of these schools closing in Saskatchewan in 1996.

So is an apology in order? Absolutely. Does the Conservative government really know what they are doing? I think not.

For starters, it’s going to take much more than an apology.

Fort Resolution residential school, North West Territories

Good news from Ontario health minister George Smitherman yesterday. Looks like OHIP could be changing to cover sex reassignment surgery. This from Xtra:

Helma Seidl is a counsellor who helps people prepare for their transitions.

“There are lots of people who are very happy once they transition, who don’t want this surgery,” says Seidl. “But there are lots of people who waited because they don’t have the money — $16,000 per surgery or more. If we have it paid by they government, that will open up the opportunity to a lot of people.”

There are some details that need to be worked out before the coverage is a reality, but all and all a step in the right direction. Read the details here.

Same sex couples can now legally marry in California! A domestic partnership option for gay couples was already in place, but the California Supreme Court today struck down state laws that limited marriage to a union between a man and a woman.

That brings the number of states to have legalized gay marriage to a grand total of two (California and Massachusetts), but with the current trend of constitutional amendments being brought in to “defend” the institution of marriage, it’s nice to hear some good news on the queer civil rights front across the border.

If you’re a legal geek like me, or if you’re interested in seeing how judges reach their conclusions, you can read the full text of the court’s decision here.

Dove’s still keepin’ it real, and by real I mean an unrealistic, retouched kind of real.

Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ Pics Could Be Big Phonies?

In a May 12 profile in The New Yorker posted online, Pascal Dangin of New York’s Box Studios is quoted as saying he extensively retouched photos used in the Campaign for Real Beauty, which, if true, could seriously undermine an effort that already has subjected Unilever to considerable consumer and activist backlash in recent months.

The best quote of all?

“I mentioned the Dove ad campaign that proudly featured lumpier-than-usual ‘real women’ in their undergarments,” wrote Lauren Collins in the New Yorker article. “It turned out that it was a Dangin job. ‘Do you know how much retouching was on that?’ he asked. ‘But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone’s skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.’”

This comes after Dove has maintained there was no retouching done to the images. Their response is that Pascal Dangin is a liar.

The Shameless Blog has talked extensively about the controversy behind this campaign, namely the hypocrisy of an “accept yourself as you are” and “beware unrealistic marketing” ad hook produced by the same company that brings us female sex slave imagery. Again, it seems that accepting yourself the way you are still involves a lot of retouching.

“No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted.” Um, yah.

Shameless magazine is a feminist magazine for teenage girls. So we have to ask the question: what is life like for feminist teenage girls?

Well, for one thing, high school is depressing.

(Via Feministing.)