[IPSM] Correction: Sept. 26: Indigenous Women, Two-Spirited People and Resistance to Police Violence and Prisons

[mattm-b at resist.ca]

Indigenous Women, Two-Spirit People, and Resistance to Police Violence and
Prisons

Monday, Sept. 26 at 7pm
McNabb Community Centre
180 Percy St.
Wheelchair Accessible

Speakers:

Tania Dopler, Ontario Aboriginal HIV/AIDS Strategy
Kim Pate, Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry
Societies
Other Speakers TBA

Part of the "30 Days of Justice"

Organized by Families of Sisters in Spirit (FSIS) and our allies, ‘30 Days
of Justice’ brings together families of missing and murdered Aboriginal
women, grassroots Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal women and men, and the
wider Ottawa community to raise critical awareness, support Aboriginal
families affected by violence, and demand justice and accountability in
the disappearances and murders of more than 600 Aboriginal women and girls
in Canada in recent decades.

This event will focus on the violence experienced by indigenous women and
two-spirited people by the police and prisons, their resistance to this
violence and alternatives to both the police and prisons.

"Aboriginal women are over‐represented in the federal correctional system,
representing only 2% of women in Canada and 29% of women in federal
prisons in July, 2003. In July, 2003, 60% of Aboriginal women serving
federal sentences were in prison."

"Native peoples' experiences are often completely erased from mainstream
discussions of law enforcement violence. Yet, since the arrival of the
first colonists on this continent, Native women and Native Two Spirit,
transgender and gender nonconforming people have been subjected to untold
violence at the hands of U.S. military forces, as well as local, state and
federal law enforcement. Movement of Native peoples across borders with
Canada and Mexico has been severely restricted, often by force, separating
families and communities. Integral to the imposition of colonial society
and enforced assimilation, the notion of “policing” was forced on
sovereign nations and cultures that had previously resolved disputes
within communities."

"Developing community-based responses to violence is one critical option.
Community accountability is a community-based strategy, rather than a
police/prison-based strategy, to address violence within our communities.
Community accountability is a process in which a community – a group of
friends, a family, a church, a workplace, an apartment complex, a
neighborhood, etc – work together to do the following things:

Create and affirm VALUES & PRACTICES that resist abuse and oppression and
encourage safety, support, and accountability

Develop sustainable strategies to ADDRESS COMMUNITY MEMBERS’ ABUSIVE
BEHAVIOR, creating a process for them to account for their actions and
transform their behavior

Commit to ongoing development of all members of the community, and the
community itself, to TRANSFORM THE POLITICAL CONDITIONS that reinforce
oppression and violence

Provide SAFETY & SUPPORT to community members who are violently targeted
that RESPECTS THEIR SELF-DETERMINATION"

http://www.elizabethfry.ca/eweek06/pdf/aborig.pdf
http://www.incite-national.org/media/docs/5676_toolkitrev-native.pdf
http://www.incite-national.org/index.php?s=114


-- 
"...education alone will not raise mass consciousness to the point
necessary for resistance." - Kevin 'Rashid' Johnson, Minister of Defence,
New Afrikan Black Panther Party - Prison Chapter