Citation

Dennis MK. Qual. Soc. Work 2021; 20(1-2): 149-155.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1473325020973301

PMID

34253961

Abstract

For centuries, Indigenous people in North American have endured a vast array of interruptions and disruptions affecting all aspects of our culture and societies. As a result, Indigenous people have had to respond by continuously adapting traditional ways and have grieved these losses individually and communally. The ongoing conditions directly associated with settler colonialism are revealed in systematic and systemic racism and violence in the present. The global COVID-19 pandemic revealed more publically these structural inequities that are experienced by Indigenous people living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. In April 2020, three Indigenous people were killed by police, causing Indigenous people to adapt the ways they participate in end-of-life ceremonies. Through our communal connections, when something happens to one Indigenous person, it happens to all of us. As the community addresses these losses, they do so under the constraints of the pandemic and the systemic racism propagated through the colonial lens of the police and the news media which continues to misunderstand and critique Indigenous people's ways. This essay will explore the ways in which grieving is a communal experience for Indigenous people and how the global pandemic COVID-19 further complicates grieving for Indigenous peoples.

In April 2020, over the span of 10 days, three Indigenous people were killed by Winnipeg police officers in three separate incidents. They are Eishia Hudson (age 16), Jason Collins (age 36) and Stewart Kevin Andrews (age 22) (Berman, 2020). Unfortunately, untimely deaths caused by police violence are all too familiar in Indigenous communities. In Manitoba, Indigenous people form 15% of the population but represent 62% of the deaths by police (Palmater, 2020). Because of this, when the news notifications stated that a 16-year-old girl was killed by police, I knew she was Indigenous...

Language: en

Keywords

violence; death; loss; Indigenous