Complicity

I found this week’s topics to be very relevant to my CSL placement in Kindred House, a center for women in the sex-trade. The majority of women at Kindred are aboriginal and face many of the same problems stemming from deeply rooted colonial attitudes and practices that were addressed in both Finding Dawn and Sherene Razack’s article The Murder of Pamela George. When discussing the murder of Pamela George, Razack (2000) argues that “because Pamela George was considered to belong to a space in which violence routinely occurs, and to have a body that is routinely violated, while her killers were presumed to be far removed from this zone, the enormity of what was done to her remained largely unacknowledged” (p. 93). Unfortunately, this lack of acknowledgement is not an unusual story and is a predominant problem faced by many of the women at kindred. The constant violence and destructive forces these women are confronted with are often written off as an occupational hazard that comes with a “high-risk lifestyle” and colonial influence is largely, if not completely, ignored. There are a limited amount of services available to them and they often have difficult accessing these services. The relationships between the aboriginal women at kindred and the police are reminiscent of the problematic relationships Razack outlines between aboriginal women and the police during the early times of colonization. Aboriginal women are often unable to seek protective services or fair representation under the law.

            The “naturalness” of “Aboriginal degeneracy” needs to be dismantled and there needs to be serious systemic change in order to start disrupting the longstanding effects of colonialization on the Aboriginal population (p.95). Although this is a complex undertaking that will undoubtedly take time and careful critical analysis, I think examining “white complicity” is a good place to start (p.95). It is important to acknowledge both how colonization has forced these harsh conditions onto aboriginal women in the past and how colonization is still a factor in these women’s lives. Being complicit to these conditions is the same thing as enforcing these conditions.