shennong posted:
"first people" also sounds really weird to me but i can't swear that ive never heard anyone use it

I have seen it a couple times but ya I'm p sure the main term is first nations.. that's obviously the more common one.

shennong posted:
it doesn't really make sense to call a group like the inuit "first people" tho because they aren't

the innu are not considered first nations in canada i don't think, they are considered the innu, but both are aboriginal, so both are referred to as (collectively) "the first nations and the innu"

Groulxsmith posted:
what about the metis

the metis consider themselves a nation

babyfinland posted:
does it really make sense to talk about pre-european contact native americans as having constituted themselves into nations

Well wikipedia (i know i know) says for Australia:

The population was split into 250 individual nations, many of which were in alliance with one another, and within each nation there existed several clans, from as few as 5 or 6 to as many as 30 or 40 members. Each nation had its own language and a few had several.

I suppose you could call those groupings nations

getfiscal posted:

babyfinland posted:
my understanding is that this was in response to european nationhoods/white solidarity

as with nationhood everywhere i guess?

yeah

getfiscal posted:

shennong posted:
it doesn't really make sense to call a group like the inuit "first people" tho because they aren't

the innu are not considered first nations in canada i don't think, they are considered the innu, but both are aboriginal, so both are referred to as (collectively) "the first nations and the innu"

you're right, i hadn't realised that the inuit are not considered "first ntaions"! its weird because the forced settlement of the inuit by the RCMP was basically 50 years ago

Ironicwarcriminal posted:
Hahahaha.

But getfiscal: What’s your opinion on What Is To Be Done to improve the livelihoods of indigenous Canadians? What have people been doing in Canada, what works and what doesn’t?

First off people haven't been doing much. For example, the conditions of native women are horrible to the point where like they make up maybe 1% of canada's population and 25% of all street sex workers. They go missing in the dozens and no one really follows up on it. A bare minimum thing to do is just partner with aboriginal women and be like okay how can we build basic security for people so they aren't murdered. Even like the Liberals have been calling for an inquiry on missing native women.

The obvious place to start otherwise is with services. Aboriginal communities don't have clean drinking water and they don't have adequate housing. Many don't have schools and a lot can't even hope to pass on their own language. The other day someone told me that like 90% of speakers of first nations languages are over 65 or something like that. The Liberals had built a small but important token towards poverty relief in the form of the Kelowna Accord, which would have committed about $1 billion a year over 5 years, but the Conservatives tore it up when they got into power. Obviously large new funds need to be put into basic living conditions.

Then there needs to be an economy that can welcome people into full-time, family-supporting jobs. If people see an economy that largely excludes them then they will be stuck at the periphery. Most people want to work if they can find it. Large numbers of aboriginal people have severe abuse histories and come from families with multigenerational abuse and unemployment, so there needs to be an enormous investment in building the right conditions for change. That includes building up self-governing institutions and land transfer and so on, too.

Another issue is just either stopping private resource extraction on first nations communities or, at bare minimum, making them the primary beneficiaries of resource extraction, which is presently just tending to make them sick and displaced.

Ironicwarcriminal posted:
When the settlers moved out into good agricultural lands they fought the Aborigines and drove them off the land.

were the aboriginals engaged in agriculture on that land or was it mostly pasture etc

babyfinland posted:

Ironicwarcriminal posted:
Well you know i'm more than willing to acknowledge Australia's racism but the accusations are a bit overstretched sometimes.

For example, i've been doing this little hypothetical with friends: There's a big crisis on North America or Asia and Australia has to accept over the course of the year a mass influx of:

a) 3 million Chinese
b) 3 million Americans

I've been conducting a straw poll with friends and family and 90% of them would choose the Chinese

wow, australians are so racist they would accept the farkin chinese over americans just to avoid the 12% black demographic. startling truths itt

lol

Ironicwarcriminal posted:

EmanuelaOrlandi posted:
Vampirachrists post was retarded but so are yours. I'm not 'outraged' I'm just saying there was a very noticeable racist element in that commercial. I find it strange that you seem unwilling to notice this apparently because it's not an American sport? As if cricket and Australias relationship with the West Indians via cricket is completely divorced of the racist history that Australia has as a former part of the British empire and as an independent nation...

Obviously there are other far more important issues i just find this sort of willful cognitive dissonance to be strange

But the primary historical relationship we have with the west Indies is cricket, not slavery or racism.

lol