Labels can be useful to define a community, but not when they become a way of boxing people in. A number of films at this year’s Queer East Film Festival embrace different ways of coming together.
Mary Woo Sims
Yesterday, in solidarity with the Indigenous Peoples of Canada, members of the Tweed community held a ceremony at the Sacred Heart Church in Murwillumbah.
Australia and Canada’s Indigenous Peoples share a common history in that both were colonized with the impact that the first peoples suffered immeasurable pain and continuing systemic discrimination. Tweed residents held a ceremony at the Sacred Heart Church in Murwillumbah. Image Cindy Louise Vallet
A month ago, 215 bodies of Indigenous children were found in unmarked graves at a residential school, operated by the Catholic Church on behalf of the Canadian government.
These residential schools existed to commit cultural genocide. The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996.