THE CANARY EFFECT

Last night I saw a documentary on Native Americans. It was a powerful, perceptive portrayal of what we have been studying throughout the Master’s of social work program. It was called “The Canary Effect.” For those of us who attended this filming, we were awe-inspired. It drove home the patriarchy of manifest destiny. It spoke of the battered and bruised and despairing lives of those on the reservation, and in our cities, who are accosted with an enormously high suicide rate (10 times the national average), the scourge of alcoholism, the rate of unemployment (at 85% on some reservations), the effect of environmental atrocities on reservation lands which result in unsafe, unsuitable drinking water for the population, high rates of domestic violence, child abuse and neglect-which are rampant, high crime rates, including murder, and a number of other social ills which plague the Native peoples. What have we done to them? What are we responsible for?
In Red Lake, Minnesota, on March 21, 2005, a horrific crime was perpetrated in the school there. A young 16 year old boy killed a teacher and a security guard, a policeman, and his grandfather-who also was a policeman, as well as five students and finally, himself. Jeffrey Weise’s father committed suicide. His mother sustained a brain injury in an automobile accident. He was living with his grandfather at the time of the shooting. This was the worst shooting since the Columbine massacre in Colorado. I had heard of the shooting in Minnesota when we were living in Eureka. It was downplayed quite a bit-there was no public outcry for the victims-as there was for the Columbine slaughter. This was a horrendous catastrophe. It left those of us who saw it, with many questions and much sadness. It is the boredom of reservation Natives that we have contributed to. It was brought up again tonight, in this excellent film.



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