Beware of assumptions and stereotypes in the Rinelle Harper case
Some people are tempted to read more than they should into the fact the alleged perpetrators of a brutal attack on Grade 11 high school student Rinelle Harper are aboriginal.
Others might claim this impairs the narrative that racism is behind the tragically high number of missing and murdered aboriginal women. But this just reveals the danger in making generalizations and extrapolations that don’t fit.
You can’t take one incident and start making assumptions and rationalizations all over the place. You look at each case and try to determine exactly what happened — then see what we can learn from that, balance it against what we actually know and try to prevent such incidents in the future.
Rinelle met and befriended a couple of males who are about the same age and background as her: young and aboriginal.
She is most likely to socialize with others from her social and cultural group because that is the way it has always been in her life growing up in the Island Lake area and now attending Southeast Collegiate in Winnipeg, which is owned and operated by the Southeast Tribal Council.
If anything, we might connect this with statistics that indicate many victims of violence know the perpetrators or have a social, economic or cultural connection with them.
And other statistics that reveal aboriginal people are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system. We can listen to claims by First Nations leaders that this dysfunction stems from a cycle of poverty and cultural genocide, which can be traced back to colonization. And that most of the violence is internalized.
First Nations leaders who want a public inquiry into the high numbers of missing and murdered aboriginal women know that many of the the murdered are victims of domestic violence in the home or local community.
The only way we can reduce these numbers is by determining exactly why this is taking place, and by asking the right people the right questions through testimony and studies that are relevant and effective, not academic and self-perpetuating.
We don’t get anywhere reminding First Nations leaders that some of the violence is inflicted by their own people.
Political leaders don’t get anywhere by reflecting negatively on the people they represent. But it’s obvious that the solutions these leaders are advocating are directed at First Nations people, so we can assume their leaders are aware. It is better to direct their their words and deeds toward positive solutions and hope.
A connection is being made between the Harper incident and the high numbers of missing and murdered aboriginal women because of the recent case of Tina Fontaine, whose body was found wrapped in a plastic bag in the Red River.
Miss Harper had to scramble out of the river before being attacked again and left for dead, but there are key differences between the two cases despite the fact a similar location happened to be involved.
A witness claims that Tina was picked up by a man in a car in Winnipeg’s west end and ended up the most extreme victim of sexual exploitation. Rinelle’s victimization was also an act of extreme violence involving sex (fortunately, it appears that Rinelle will recover from her injuries) but the perpetrators were more familiar.
The murder of Tina Fontaine may involve racism because many such crimes have have been perpetrated by a white “john” whose image of aboriginal women is so low that he can discard her life so carelessly.
The cries of racism here have been mostly focused on the relative lack of attention and care that was being paid to these incidents, many of which remain unsolved.
A public outcry has caused police forces across the country to make such cases a higher priority. This can’t continue to be glossed over by claiming the solve rate of murders involving aboriginal women is the same as others.
We have to know that the difficult cases involving aboriginal women are receiving the same attention as others and not being tossed into the “cold case” files because the lifestyle of some of these victims are transient, and witnesses are uncooperative, and people just don’t care as much.
And why are there so many more of these cases?
We have come a long way. Witness the sympathetic and supportive response from the general public and the police to the victimization of an aboriginal child that we saw with Rinelle Harper.
This hasn’t always been the case in the past. And there are still plenty of people and police who carry racist attitudes and stereotypes which reflect negatively in their dealings with First Nations people.
Some of the high numbers of missing and murdered can be attributed to dysfunction which is rooted in poverty and which is multi-generational. We need to help First Nations people overcome this, not just say: “Your own people are doing it.”
We also have to find out why some people believe they can discard an aboriginal person’s life so easily. There is inherent and systemic racism at work here.
If we take the time to examine each case individually, and try to relate what we find out with what we actually know, we can resolve these situations in a better way.
And what we don’t know we should find out through a public inquiry which examines all cases of missing and murdered aboriginal women no matter how they came to be.
Don Marks is the Editor of Grassroots News.
