M’CHIGEENG—Indigenous women are killed at 12 times the rate of non-Indigenous women. It’s a statistic that’s repeated every year on Red Dress Day, a national day to raise awareness about missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit (MMIWG2S+) people.
“How can we change the statistics so more people, Indigenous women, girls, two-spirit people do not go missing and can’t be found, and not put men in correctional institutions?” asked Jean Debassige, Native language instructor, Indigenous studies, at a Manitoulin Secondary School (MSS) assembly last Friday.
“How are we going to avoid this? By understanding, care, love and support,” she said. “Take it. Do I have that agreement with you? Understanding, care and love?”
Indigenous Graduation Coach/Student Success teacher Dianne Debassige said that in coming together as a community, “what we are doing here today” is one of the keys to changing the statistics. “Collaborating with other families, Indigenous peoples and communities is a way to support one another and build each other up.”
“We all have sovereignty over our bodies and stories,” Dianne Debassige continued. She said we need to trust that people, especially women, are capable of making decisions about their bodies, safety and lives, and that we all need to support, not shame or stigmatize, other people. “No one in life is more or less valuable than anyone else. We must unlearn stereotypes about people who use drugs, trade sex, experience homelessness or housing security, etc. This includes encouraging conversations about how to reduce harm associated with these behaviours.”
“Red Dress Day acknowledges the crimes and hate perpetuated against two-spirit individuals,” said Dianne Debassige. “Unlearning homophobia and transphobia is required to support two-spirit, trans and gender non-conforming people.”
Resisting and shifting victim blaming approaches, languages and narratives about who can go missing or face violence will help in changing the story, she said.
Two-spirit people did not live among the community, Jean Debassige explained. They lived on the outskirts because they were considered holy. “Most people have one spirit, male or female, but two-spirit people are blessed with both. They can communicate on both sides of the border.”
It was the job of two-spirit people to look after the community, who went to them for counselling and acceptance. “Obviously, most of us didn’t have a problem with two-spirit people but our country did,” Jean Debassige said.
Women, boys, girls and two-spirit people kept going missing and couldn’t be found.
“I wanted my message today to be about love,” added Jean Debassige. “Why love? For one thing, it is the first teaching of the Seven Grandfather teachings. How we teach, come by, and recognize love: that is where I want to go. Yes, I understand the statistics, but what do you or I do to bring change? Education is about change.”
May 5 is the day set aside to honour the missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, boys and two-spirited people in our communities and throughout the country. A Winnipeg artist named Amy Black first used the red dress as a show of support in 2010.
“My students asked me if they could make dresses in white, black or other colours,” said Jean Debassige. She told them no: the colour red means something. “It represents the four quadrants of the medicine wheel. Red represents love, fire, energy, passion and blood. It reminds us to care for one another and Mother Earth.”
“It is important that she (Amy Black) chose red,” said Jean Debassige. “Blood has been spilled.”
The red dress has become a strong symbol of MMIWG2S+ in Canada and the United States. “We are sisters, mothers, aunties, grandmothers and grandfathers, cousins, neighbours, people who care, friends, students and educators,” Jean Debassige said. “We have so much to love.”
Unfortunately, MMIWG2S+ is “regular and common,” she said, and we fail to really think about it except on May 5, she added. “It is something we should pay attention to every day.”
People often think ‘it didn’t happen here’ or ‘it didn’t involve me’, but MMIWG2S+ concerns everyone, said Jean Debassige.
“We wear red on May 5 to encourage support of the missing and murdered women, girls and the two-spirited people,” said Dianne Debassige. “Public mourning shows we care, even when it seems society doesn’t.”
MSS Principal David Wiwchar, who had earlier delivered the opening acknowledgment recognizing that we live on traditional Indigenous treaty lands, invited everyone to take part in a walk of awareness around the school perimeter following a closing prayer by Jean Debassige.
The entire school took part in the MMIWG2S+ walk around the school.
