Canada's Darkest Secret: Residential Schools

a gonna be a triumph of the human spirit. So just deal with it. Just deal with it. I'm sorry. Hi, Hi, Sophie UM, and hello to our guest today, Anna Hosnia. Anna. How are you doing? Hello? How should people introduce podcasts? How has that done? I mean, I don't do any better. I'm just like, hi, this is the name of the show, okay, and then I get into it. Yeah. I never know how and I still don't. Um, because, as as I think I've repeated to people, one of the key aspects

of my job is never learning how to do it properly. An, how do you feel about Canada? Um? Canada and I have an interesting relationship. I spent the majority of the end of last year in the beginning of this year making sure I could get into Canada, which was stressful. Remember this criminal behavior on my record that Canada probably wouldn't appreciate. But I got in no big they didn't even care, So I don't know. It's like a nice terrain with nice people. It's a nice terrain nice people

Canada gets. You know, it's nice being next to the United States because the US is always fucking up in like such extreme and invisible ways that as long as like, as long as you're you're just kind quiet, uh, you can get away with murder, which Canada has for for as long as there's been a Canada. Oh yeah, you know, I like it's it's a it's a messy country, right like it it's it's a messier country than you'd expect considering the reputation Canada has for like, oh the nice Canadians,

everything works, like the government's so functional. Um, like, we should all be more like Canada. And I guess if you're the United States, we should be more like Canada because they are a better country than US. But they're still they're still messy as hell. And today we're gonna finally come out swinging against Canada. Anna, We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna knock them down, knock them down. A couple of pegs with you. I had no idea. I let

you have no idea what you're referencing? Like, yeah, like they're mess Oh yeah, they are. They are very Have you ever heard of residential schools? No? Yeah, that's what we're talking about today. And this is um upper particularly ugly chapter of Canadian history. Um that is now fairly well known in Canada, but I don't think most people

outside of the Great White North have ever heard of them. Um, So it's yeah, it's it's a pretty terrible thing, and we're going to talk about it, and um, you know, eventually whip our listeners up into a frenzy and burned down the entire nation of Canada. Probably not that second Party because they're still better than the United States, but like, you know, pretty messy. Still, do you bring get the vibe that like every government is bad? Yes, yes, constantly

every day. It was just me, but like man everywhere is bad. Yeah, they're all it's all bad. It's all bad. Some of them are like competent bad and some of them are incompetent bad, Like the US is consistently incompetent bad and Canada is consistently competent bad um. And that is what I would say is the chief difference between the badness of them. Anyway, let's start at the beginning.

So the beginning of Canada, that is our our our neighbors to the north, got their start as a semi independent political entity in eighteen seventy six, when the British North America Act united the three remaining British American colonies into the first four provinces of the Dominion of Canada, which is a pretty cool name. After you know that act. In eighteen seventy six, Canada got its own government and a federal structure for like the first time. This is

the first time. Eighteen seventy six is when Canada, Canada starts being like a big thing as opposed to like just a bunch of different British colonies. You know, you get your there's this colony that started out as just a bunch of fur trappers, and you know, there's the place where the people actually live and YadA, YadA, YadA. Um, they all get united in eighteen seventy six, and they're

a they're a polity finally. So uh. This went over pretty well with all the white people who inhabited the area that we call Canada, because white people everywhere have always loved Canada, but it was less celebrated among the indigenous people of the region, um, who were super psyched about Britain, being like, now you're all Canada, um, because they had been other things previously and perhaps preferred that

to be in Canada. So the governments of the colonies of Canada had started setting up reservations for indigenous people back in the eighteen thirties, um, and these were kind of patterned off of the ones in the United States. Canada had kind of a history of looking over to how the US dealt with indigenous people and being like, what if we did that? But quieter, um, so less of the of the genocidal wars. You know, you do

get you do get some of that. The Canadian Mounties are certainly a part of of the history of white people with funny hats and guns murdering Native Americans, but it is it is generally a bit quieter in Canada. Um, but they you know, they operate on some of the same premises. And in the eighteen thirties they start setting up reservations, and as in the United States, the goal of these reservations was to give natives unproductive land so that they would stay out of white people's way while

we looted the rest of the land mass. So you would start out as the indigenous people, you know, this all being your land that your ancestors have been on since forever. And then Canada says we're gonna guarantee you that you have land forever. But it's this specific chunk of what used to be a much larger piece of land, and it's the worst chunk of it. And if you, uh,

if you leave, you you get in trouble. So the Dominion of Canada poured it over several old laws that governed how they got to treat members of Native tribes. And these had the kind of startlingly racist names you'd expect, including the Gradual Civilization Act of eighteen fifty seven, UM, which was meant to gradually civilize indigenous people. Um. Yeah, that's a nice way to put it, Like, we're not

going to be too fast for you were Canada. You know, when we when we commit an ethnic cleansing, it's nice and slow, real, real, real, even tempered uh genocide. So the Gradual Civilization Act gave Natives who had educated themselves in white schools the option of being enfranchised as British citizens. Doing so meant that they got all of the rights of a British you know, a citizen of the crown, but they had to give up all legal claim to

the land of their tribe. They couldn't live on the reservations, and they weren't seen as as natives anymore as Indians and the legal parlance of the time. So you got to vote in all of that stuff if you agreed to stop being an indigenous person, like yeah, yeah, that

was that was the rule. What then, Yeah, The goal was basically to get all of the natives in the members of native tribes in Canada to like give up their rights to their native land and their native hunting and stuff that they've been guaranteed by previous treaties, Like treaties guaranteed you the right of you're the member of you know, certain tribes, you get to hunt in certain areas and you know, if you remember, you get to you get to hold certain land. And some of that

land had nice mining on it. Some of that land was good for growing, uh, And settlers wanted it, and they figured the best way to make sure that they could have it was convinced all of these natives to give up their claim to the land and exchange for the unclear benefits of being a British citizen. So that's basically the idea is you all become British citizens and we just kind of exterminate your cultures peacefully. So well,

I mean, is this all because they want control? Like they yeah, what who cares if you have a native? Like why do you have to like forego everything about

your life to become a British citizen. Well, because people found it very unsettling that despite all of the what seemed to be them the self evident benefits of civilization, UM, Native Americans pretty consistently in both North you know, the United States and in Canada and all the chunks of North America that were being taken up by white people, UM,

were consistently unwilling to give up their cultures. And they're they're like the historical way that their families had lived in favor of living in cities like white people because it sucked um and among other things, that was kind of a direct threat to people's white people's attitudes about the nature of of the world. Um. But also like

they wanted their ship right. They kept finding like gold mines and silver mines and coal on Native land, and they wanted it, and the best way to get it was to reduce the number of people who legally counted as natives so that eventually there would be none of them left. And it was like, again, they weren't out their massacre, although that happened to sometimes, they weren't necessarily

out there massacreing people. The goal was to just gradually reduce the number of people who legally counted as native to zero so that all of that land would be open for settlement. This is the polite Canadian way of committing a genocide. Um. Yeah. And so anyone who took the state up on the offer of enfranchisement would receive a grant of land that was not part of the reservation and a one time cash payment, but they would lose all of the rights that they had as members

of their tribe. UM. But people didn't like this offer. Only one guy actually took it, and so the government of Canada had to keep pushing. They they passed a Gradual Enfranchisement Act in eighteen sixty nine UM, which had the same basic goal and mandated that enfranchise natives had to adopt English names. UM. The Act also attempted to lay out how tribes on reservations were supposed to organize

their societies and care for their land. It determined like how many people had to could could be underneath the chief and all this stuff. It was just like trying taking these societies that we're seeing as kind of like inherently disordered and uncivilized and trying to turn them into something that British legal codes could understand. God hate that.

I hate everything about this. Yeah, it's all pretty gross. Um. And both of these laws, you know, the ones we've discussed so far, we're eventually superseded by the Indian Act of eighteen seventy six, which is still in a modified form law in Canada today. UM. And as a result of all this legislation, it was kind of established to the late eighteen hundreds that indigenous peoples existed under federal jurisdiction. So the federal government of Canada uh um was sort

of responsible for dealing with indigenous people. Um. Yeah, it's it's it's all kind of a messy history. And I don't want to get too much into the weeds of like Canadian uh law here, but I did find an interesting booklet called Facing History, which is um published by an international organization of educators that focus on teaching like the ugly parts of history to two people. Um. And I'm gonna quote from that, sort of summarizing how Canadian

law about evolved to treat natives. Um. And they use the word Indian a lot. Uh. That's just kind of what the legal term was at the time in Canada because racism. Um. So we will be using that here when we're referring to the actual laws. Quote. The Indian Act of eighteen seventy six created the legal category of status Indian, a category that had long lasting implications for the First Nations of Canada once it entered into law.

The Act imposed a single common legal definition, lumping together different nations and languages into the broad category of First Nations. What does it mean to be a stab at us Indian? The original document of eighteen seventy six to find someone as being legally Indian if that person fit these descriptions. First, any male person of Indian blood reputed to belong to a particular band. Secondly any child of such person. Thirdly,

any woman who is or was lawfully married to such person. Now, a key element was the law's definition of who was Indian and what Indian. This was. The term Indian was used several centuries before the laws simply formalized its use. It is worth noting, however, that none of the many clans, bands,

alliances and nations ever called themselves Indian. And it's really messy talking about like a lot of people think that you just used the term First Nations for like the Indigenous peoples of Canada, but that's actually only that was a specific legal term for a specific subset of tribes, and there were a bunch of other tribes that aren't

First Nations but are Indigenous peoples in Canada. It's very I'm not an expert on it by any means, but it's like there's a really weird legal history that's basically it's focused around the fact that the Canadian government really didn't want to recogn as certain tribes as actually being natives, because those tribes regularly rosen rebellion against the Canadian government, like thematists um, and so they they they defined them out of existence. So they made a definition of Indian

that didn't include the tribes. They had problems with that. Those people wouldn't have rights either. Again, it's like the polite, liberal, white person way of committing a genocide. Just you erased them on paper, so you don't have like, yeah, it's

it's it's pretty pretty interesting, pretty Canadian. So this process, yeah, so this is how they attempt to do it at first, like just kind of slowly write these people out of existence and give them an option to like become citizens so that they because clearly nobody who could become a British citizen would want to still be a member of,

you know, whatever tribe. But this really didn't work out very well, and Indigenous people continued to want to be indigenous people, and this was a problem for the new government of Canada. Uh Prime Minister John A. McDonald found this very frustrating and ticular he was a big believer in civilizing the Native and he felt that the government had to do whatever it could to sever the connections of individuals to their tribes so that they could be Canadians.

The best way to do this, he felt, was boarding schools. Quote. When the school is on the reserve, the child lives with his parents, who are savages. He is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to write, read and write, his habits and training and motive thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. Prime Minister McDonald decided to commission a study into how Canada

might most rapidly civilize her indigenous people. He commissioned a journalist named Nicholas Davon to travel to the United States, since the Good Old USA was clearly the best at

getting rid of North America's native peoples. Davon traveled to Washington, d c. And he met with veterans of US Grant's administration, which had enshrined a policy of What's Grant called aggressive civilization, which is a polite way of talking about forcing people to live like white folks, forcing Indigenous people to live like white folks, taking them off their land, taking their children from them, throwing their children into these what they

called industrial boarding schools. Civilization aggressive civilization. Yeah, that was Grant's term for don't. I don't know, don't a lot of these terms like savage and civilization. Uh, and like what you just said, is there such I mean to refer to anyone as a savage because they come like from a Native background. To just be like you're a savage because you are a Native American. It's like, fuck you culture. You don't know their culture. You don't know shit.

Because the words savage, I think would be a great term to use, like bodacious, Like some kid does like a sweet skateboard trick and you're like, bro, that was savage, Like that's that would be That's that's so much better. But it's been poisoned because of racism. Just just another crime of of of colonialism is that we can't the word savage to talk about sweet skateboarding tricks. I hate

it so devastating. Yeah, it's heartbreaking and also heartbreaking is um the story of Ulyssie Simpson Grant's kind of relationship to the genocide of Native People's. Grant is one of those guys who you really want to like because you know the Confederacy and stuff, um, and you know the destruction of the KKK like he did. He has some he has some good moments as a president, as both as a president and as a general um. And he'd spent most of his career with like a pretty vocally

uh positive attitude towards Native Americans and against US imperialism. Um. As a veteran, he had condemned the US Mexican War as quote one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. In eighteen sixty nine, after taking office, he'd promised peace in the American West and admitted our dealings with the Indians properly lay us

open to charges of cruelty and swindling. Um. So Grant was guy like when he came to when he came into the presidency, you might have felt like, oh, he might actually be pretty good president in terms of like US Native relations, Like he clearly understands, like, yeah, we've been sucking these people over for a while. But shortly after he came into power, gold was discovered in the Black Hills, which was land guaranteed to the Lakota by a very clear treaty. So there's gold in them hills.

And then Hills is owned by the Lakota um and so the only thing to do was to orchestrate a war for resources, uh, and lie about the fact that the Lakota had started it, even though Grant actually like sent in troops and yeah, it was like the Iraq War of the day. Actually, if you read, um, there's a good Scientific American article will quote, but if you read about like what Grant did to the Lakota and the Black Hills, it sounds a lot like the the

Iraq War. So the whole thing snowballed. And I was gonna say, like us going for oil, right yeah, yeah, just like you've got the like the basically using a mix of lies in provac cation in order to justify a war for resource extraction. Now I have a question, was there any oil in Canada also on like India Native American land that we also tried to do. I haven't heard anything about. But people didn't give a shit about oil at this point, right, like yeah, baby, we

were all about golden coal back in them days. Yeah. Um yeah. So this is like the whole thing, you know, the ship in the Black Hills turns into a cluster fuck. It includes the massacre of George Custer, and the Seventh Cavalry. Um. But despite the fact that it was a huge disaster, the policy of aggressive civilization that Grant had initially announced in eighteen sixty nine was seen by a great idea

by Nicholas Gavin and eventually by the Canadian government. Um So, they they basically decided, like, look over at the United States waging a genocidal war in the Black Hills, and they're like, it's too loud. But like the fundamental idea of forcing these people off of their land and into cities and into schools where we teach their kids, that's a good idea. Um So, in eighteen seventy nine, Nicholas Davin traveled back to Canada after his time in d C and he wrote a report called Report on the

on Industrial Schools for Indians and half Breeds. Now, Yeah, interestingly enough, half breed isn't a general term. Uh, that's a specific term. That was the official Yeah, that's the official Canadian government term for the Metiste people. Um was

half half breed um. And the short version of the stories that the Matists had rebelled against the government a number of times and the white people in charge didn't want to recognize them as real Indians because that would entitle them to land and hunting rights and all that stuff.

Um So, while the Matists weren't considered to be an Indigenous people under the Indian Act, they were considered to be an Indigenous people when it came to um the Canadian government's policy of abducting Indigenous children and forcing them into these uh what what we're called industrial boarding schools. Um So, like they both were and weren't Native people under the government side. But yeah, that the Canadian government just called the Mattie's half breeds. What the funk? This?

Almo feels like a j K Rolling book, just like so filled with weird terms that you're like, this is the kind of like racism in a way. It's very racy, super straight up racism in our I mean, I'm just referring to like j K Rolling books, but like this is just fucked half breeds. Fuck how to hear? That's I can never wrap my mind around like caring about a person's culture this much. It's like who cares? Who

cares so much? To be like you are labeled this because this happens to be your background, Like leave it the fun you know what, I'm just I I hate it, you know, I just hate it. It's it's not great, and it's a there's a complicated history there that we're not gonna get into in tremendous detail. But what's important is that, like the the overall policy, while you have the Canadian government considers like UM only recognizes some Indigenous

groups as as actual tribes. Any person who is like an Aboriginal person UM in the area that becomes known as Canada is kind of covered by the rules that the Canadian government puts in place about residential schools. And basically what they start to mandate is that Indigenous children cannot stay in their homes. They have to be taken away and educated at schools that are located away from the reservation because like native schools are they teach you

to be a savage? Like yeah, yeah, yeah, Davin Wright wrote wrote in his report quote the day school does not work because the influence of the wigwam was stronger than the influence of the school. UM. So basically, like people like natives, even if you teach them to read and write, you know, in English and whatnot, they're going to like at their own culture there's something and this is this is like a long standing like thing with

white people in North America in particular. Is this like kind of admission that when people have the choice between quote unquote civilized life and living the way that like native tribes had for generations, they almost always preferred to live the way that the tribes had lived. Um, Like nobody nobody wanted to live in cities or whatever. Um. But yeah, so that really bummed out the Canadian government. Uh yeah, um, and we gotta do something about that.

So can I just say there's something very interesting about how white people are so and especially like white governments are so good at creating identity crisis within like people of color, like to a point of like almost like you don't feel healthy mentally at all because you don't

know where you stand. And it's because white people are constantly trying to be like technically like if you want to be this, you have to do that, and it's like you fucking suck like a lot of Like I feel like I struggle with that same thing because growing up I was constantly told I had to be a certain way to fit in with like other like white kids. I was growing up with and it fucked me up for a very long time where I felt like I had to go away from my own culture of like

being Iranian. And then it took me a long time of like therapy to come back around and be like, why I appreciate where I come from. And I felt like I was mine fucked to a point where I was my name is Anna, but I was called Anna so many times so long by people that I started introducing myself as Anna because I was like, well, that's what they keep calling like. I was literally mind fucked

and yeah, oh god, it's this. It's this. The people in charge of these these polities of the United States government, of the state governments of Canada, UM are kind of inherently horrified that there might be other ways to do things. And maybe I don't know. I was sure there's a number of reasons, including the fact that people who are in power feel like their power arrests on everybody believing in the system they believe in. But there's a bunch

going on here. A lot of it's just about resource extraction, right, is that if you if you break up the tribes um, then they can't hold on to their land. And that's I think really at the core of what Canada is doing here. So the understanding they have is that like if you take away the kids of indigenous people, you send them a great distance away to these these schools, they will grow up not feeling like a part of

their tribe. And the thing that they the initial term they used for these places was industrial boarding schools, which is a horrible name. Um. And they these were what they sounded like, massive boarding schools filled with children who had been forcibly taken away from parents by the government. Um. And these they were kind of based not on like the nice English boarding schools of the past, um, but on the kind of places that like in England, if you're your family was in debt or two poor, your

kids would be taken from you would put in these workhouses. Um. It was. It was based on the workhouses. It was ba done these places for the storage of poor children whose parents were seen as unfit to take care of them. Um. And the hope of the Canadian government was that these kids would be educated in such a way that it would kill the Indian inside them. Uh. Nicholas Davin wrote, quote, if anything is to be done with the Indian, we must catch him very young. The children must be kept

constantly within the circle of civilized conditions. So the Canadian government big fans of this idea, and they started building a series of industrial boarding schools and these were managed by the Anglican and Catholic churches. Um so yeah, yeah, yeah, what is there? Something? Is there something you know about I don't know, say, the Catholic Church and the raising of children that that might be relevant? Here is there a history there? Oh? Boy? Everybody loves everybody loves the church?

Is yeah? I love that sitcom. Everyone loves the Church and everybody loves yeah yeah products and we're back. Oh my goodness. Those products really washed the taste of a slow cultural genocide out of my mouth. How about you anna always love products? So yeah, the Canadian government starts putting up these industrial schools, these industrial boarding schools, and

puts the churches in charge of them. And this saves the government money and it also helped various Christian denominations with their plan to gradually convert all the indigenous peoples of Canada. Uh. The idea was that it would be easier to get kids to adopt a new religion after they were forcibly taken away from their family and everything they had ever known. Um, which is a tactic I plan to steal when I get my COLT up and running, like it does seem to be like credit to the

Canadian government. The earlier you abduct the kids, the easier it is to get them on board with your COLT. And then you know, the f d A let you on fire. Anyway. The first wave of these boarding schools numbered about sixty nine institutions with only students, but the program quickly grew and by nineteen thirty one there were eighties some residential schools operating in Canada. And that's the name that like industrial boarding school is kind of too harsh.

They transition to calling them residential schools because the kids live there. Uh. And I'm gonna quote now from a rite up in Indigenous Foundations, which is a a website that's kind of a project of the University of British Columbia to tell the stories of the kids who wound up in these institutions. Quote. Authorities would frequently take children to schools far from their home communities, part of a strategy to alienate them from their families and familiar surroundings.

In nineteen twenty, under the Indian Act, which is like the most recent update of the Indian Act, it became mandatory for every Indian child to attend a residential school and illegal for them to attend any other educational institution. The purpose of the residential schools was to eliminate all aspects of Aboriginal culture. Students had their hair cut short, they were dressed in unif forms, and their days were strictly regimented by timetables. Boys and girls were kept separate,

and even siblings rarely interacted, further weakening family ties. Chief Bobby Joseph of the Indian Residential School Survivors Society recalls that he had no idea how to interact with girls and never even got to know his own sister beyond a mere wave in the dining room. In addition, students were strictly forbidden to speak their languages, even though many children knew no other or to practice Aboriginal customs or traditions.

Hihilations of these rules were severely punished. Oh boy, yeah, so it's basically you're you're you're trying not to kill them, but you are trying to kill their culture. Right, which kind of internally kills them. Yeah. Yeah, definitely destroys people on the inside as human beings. Um yeah, it's it's fun stuff Canada. So punishment for speaking one's native tongue is among the most common traumatizing experiences you'll hear from

the survivors of residential schools. Um. Because spoilers, this ship continued up into the present day. There's a ton of people who will talk, like a ton of different stories out there are people's experiences here because the very last residential school didn't close its doors until nineteen nine six. Um, so this started in eighteen eighty three and continued into the late nineties. Like Bill Clinton was in office when

they finally closed down the last residential school. So there's like there's like fucking people in their twenties who went to these places. So uh yeah. One of the survivors of the residential schools is an author named Gilbert oscar Boos who attended the Guarnier Residential School. Now, his native tongue was Ojibway, and the Guarnier School punished all uses

of Ojibway with physical violence. And I'm gonna quote now from a writ up based on Gilbert's experiences titled The Welcome, It begins with an encounter between little Wolf based on Oscar Boos and Catholic priest the Black Robe quote. Little Wolf saw it, but couldn't believe it was actually happening. The black robes huge hairy hand flew up, appeared to hang in mid air as it drifted through a lazy semicircle,

and exploded violently in the boys face. The blow blow slammed him into the hard stone ends of an iron gate. Dazed and shaken, he lay in the dust, dimly aware of split ripped lips and warm salty blood making angry red patterns on a brand new buckskin shirt. Indian language is verboten. You will not speak it again. Far off in the swirling mists of pain and confusion, Adore slams

a lock turns. Empty walls bear mute witness to the sounds of muffled, muffled sobs torn from a small, frightened boy huddled in a darkened corner, and like locking kids in cellars and whatnot, sometimes for days on end was a common punishment for them speaking their language, but physical punishment in particular um was a really consistent um Uh

response to kids using their native language. George Gwaren, a former chief of the Musquem Nation, later recalled quote Sister Mary Baptiste had a supply of sticks as long and thick as pool cues. When she heard me speak my language, she lift up her hands and bring the stick down on me. I've still got bumps and scars on my hands. I still have to wear special gloves because the cold weather really hurts my hands. I tried very hard not to cry when I was being beaten, and I can

still just turn off my feelings. And I'm lucky. Many of them in my age they either didn't make it, committed suicide or died violent deaths, or alcohol got them. And it wasn't just my generation. My grandmother who's in her late nineties to this day, it's too painful her to her to talk about what happened to her at the school. And both of these cases, these stories actually kind of weigh in on the more minor end of punishments meeted out to Indigenous kids for speaking their native languages.

It was not uncommon for students guilty of language speaking to be beaten and shackled to their beds. Um and another common punishment was to have needles shoved into their tongues to remind them not to use forbidden words. That's some That truly feels like a story from like the Dark Ages, not like yea yeah yeah yeah, like was going on when a lot of us were in school. Um, I'm going to quote again from that booklet published by

Facing History. Quote. Many in the school's administrations believe that the student's independent spirit had to be broken in order for them to accept a new way of life. Students who did not adhere to school schedules and regulations received strappings, whippings, and were often humiliated in front of peers. Students who tried to escape from the schools had their hair cut very short. Indeed, such offenses would earn students long hours

even days in a dark, secluded closet, often without real food. Uh. The cutting of the hair on the first day at school or for punishment had a profound meaning. Long hair has a deep and spiritual meaning, and indigenous cultures, too many it serves as an extension of a person's mind, reflective of its strength and beauty. The hair length and style also distinguished between different indigenous nations and Symbolically, the cutting of a person's hair by an enemy is an

act of humiliation and forced submission. The staff at the Mohawk Institute even built a prison cell for those who tried to escape. Indeed, disobedience and escape were two of the most common forms of resistance to the harsh foreign discipline, and sometimes kids would die trying to escape from these places. Are escaping and winding up because they were out in the middle of nowhere, winding up in the middle of like a desperate Canadian winter, trying to get back home

wasn't uncommon at all. Yeah, there's sorry, there is no like absolutely zero regulation of these schools, and if there is, they just don't care. Yeah, they just don't care. Treat it. They that's really it. They don't care. The actual education at these places is piss poor at best. Residential school students did not receive anything close to the same education as white Canadians and public schools like The goal here

was not to give these kids a good education. The goal was to break their connection to their culture um and in fact, they didn't learn the normal classes that other Canadian students were supposed to learn. Indigenous children were taught only practical skills. Girls learned how to become domestic maids. They learned to do laundry and cook and clean. Boys were taught how to do carpentry or farm or other

manual labor tasks. UM. So again, they're training them to be low level, working class people because that's all they think they're good for. They don't want them to be in natives. They don't want them to live like indigenous people had lived for centuries. But they also don't don't see them as really really being Canadian. They just want to take their land and make them into farm workers

or whatever. Um and yeah. Residential schools were, of course chronically underfunded and often only kept the lights on with the help of child labor. Uh. Most of them operated under what was known as the half day work day system, where they would have half days of classes and the

students would work unpaid the other half of the time. Um, not just cleaning and maintaining the school, but also you know, growing food or what not, doing things you know that that essentially helped pay the bills and keep the lights on. Um and yeah, it was again unpaid labor. And we all know what another term for unpaid labor is many students spent so little time in class that by age eighteen they'd only reached the fifth grade. Um they were,

as a rule, discouraged from pursuing higher education. So that's good, that's good stuff Canada. UM. I didn't know any of the US about Canada, and I am deeply disturbed by all of it. I don't understand. I'm going to drop kick a maple leaf right after this, Yeah, drop kick a maple leaf. Yeah, I'm gonna beat the ship at us and leaves out of this. I imagine you're trying to, but it keeps like, you know, it floats down and you're just trying to kick it, but it keeps moving.

You know. It's troublesome. That's why Canada's never faced justice is how difficult it is to drop kick a maple leaf. Very hard. One day our scientists will figure it out, but until then, you know, we just have to let the anger live in our hearts. So to make matters more heartbreaking, a significant number of Indigenous parents willingly took their children to residential schools. Um it was required, but some of the parents saw it as like an opportunity,

like something. It was not uncommon for parents to try to hide their children, but some saw this as an opportunity for their kids to actually like have a better chance of success in white society. And it was also a matter of like the different churches, the Anglican and the Catholic churches would compete for students because they kind of wanted to beat the other church and saving the

most souls. UM. So it was not uncommon for like churches to come on to different reservations to kind of induce parents to pick their specific school to send their kids to. UM. One student who later attended a residential school and Saskatchewan recalled quote, we had these two competing religions, the Anglican and Catholic churches, both competing for our souls. It seemed, you know, I remember growing up on the reserve here when they were looking for students that were

competing against each other. We were the prizes, you know, that they would gain if they won. I remember they the Catholic priests coming out with you know, used hockey equipment and telling us, you know, come on, come to our school, come play hockey for us, Come and play in our band. We've got all kinds of bands here. We've got trombones and trumpets and drums and all that kind of stuff. They use all this stuff to encourage us or entice us to come to the Catholic school.

And then on the other hand, the Anglicans, they would come out with what they called bail clothes. They bring out a bunch of clothes in a bail, like a big bail. It was all used clothing, and they'd give it to themen on the reserve here, and the women made blankets and stuff out of these old clothes. But that's the way they competed for us as people. So that's cool, fun stuff. Yeah, good on the churches. So most residential schools kept students away for ten months out

of the year somewhere year round. All correspondents from children back home had to be written in English, with most which most children's parents could not read. Uh. Families were deliberately split up inside, with brothers and sisters kept as far apart as possible. And as you might imagine, the teachers who would willingly work in such an environment did not tend to be the cream of the crop. Um. Yeah, and I'm gonna site again from that Indigenous Foundation's website

by the University of British Columbia quote. Another significant problem at residential schools was the quality of the teachers these institutions attracted and we're willing to hire. The Anglican run St. John's Indian Residential School was the rule rather than the exception, when it reported in nineteen forty seven that the teachers at both junior and senior levels had some teaching experience

but no qualifications for their jobs. In nineteen fifty two, federal government survey found that ten people employed as teachers claimed no formal education beyond grade eight. Unqualified teachers were hired because no one else was willing to brave the Canadian wilderness to work for pitifully low rages at cash strapped schools. Residential school teachers did not, in general approach

normal standards. In ninety eight, a departmental study conducted of the qualification of the teachers and the residential schools disclosed that over of the teaching staff had no professional training. Indeed, some had not even graduated from high school. Where do they they just pull any like you just show up to the interview, You're like, honestly like I don't like Native Americans, and they're like, you have a job. Are you willing to hit kids who use their native language? Yes?

All right, you're a history teacher. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty great. So if the quality of the education was bad, then at least residential schools were also pestilential death chaps that murdered thousands of children. I wrote that in a more positive way than it than it is. So there were there are numbers of kids dying, huge numbers of kids dying. Will never know how many, but thousands for sure. Um. Yeah.

In nineteen oh seven, a government medical inspector named P. H. Bryce reported that twenty four percent of the time in Canada, when a previously healthy Aboriginal child died, they died in a residential school. Um. And this number undercuts the amount of deaths because one of the few things that would actually get you sent home from a residential school was

being deathly ill. Uh. Students who were sent away from the school back home, UM died with their parents and stayed out of government statistics and the data suggests that between forty seven percent and seventy of all Indigenous students discharged from residential schools died immediately after coming home. Um. Yeah, and these kids just getting tuberculosis, spreading it back to the tribe. Will never know how many died. Um. Now,

a lot of kids did die at the schools. The minimum you'll hear bandied about is somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty two hundred, you know, over this period up until the late nineteen nineties, but there are credible estimates that placed the death toll at well over six thousand children. The reason there's such a discrepancy is that virtually all residential schools made use of an age old tool for

committing genocide without pissing off the neighbors, mass grades. When small pox or tuberculosis would sweep through a school, surviving students were often enlisted to hide the corpses of their classmates from prying eyes. So Vester Green, who was forced to bury the corpse of an Inuit boy in nineteen fifty three, later recalled we were told never to tell anyone by Jim Ludford, the principal, who got me and three other boys to bury him. But a lot more

kids got buried all the time. And that big grave next to the school, yeah, so they there. Did your school not have a mass grave on a fortunately? Um people weren't dying at my school because I guess white people ran it and they cared about the other white kids. I guess no one died at my school because there were white people at it. Yeah, I mean, you know, I do believe that every school could eventually have mass graves,

And I think COVID nineteen is going to get us there. Actually, I think finally we will achieve, we will defeat racism by bringing mass graves to all kinds of schools. Um. And that's really that's an improvement to cheer for, right, Yeah, I mean, let's cheer for it. Damn. So at the United Church School in Edmonton, dead Indigenous children were buried under a hedge. At Blue Quills Catholic School near saddle Lake, skeletons and schools were regularly spotted near the basement furnace.

At the Mohawk Institute, ran by the Anglican Church in Brantford, children were buried under the orchard at the side of the school building. We'll never have any idea how many kids were disposed this way. They're still digging up mass graves around residential schools today. Um, like you'll, you'll they're regular stories about them finding more and like, yeah, it's

it's horrible the Canadian government. One of the reasons why it's so hard for us to know how many kids actually died in residential schools is that the Canadian government stopped recording the deaths of Aboriginal students in nineteen twenty because so many kids were dying and it made them look bad. The deadliest years were probably the interwar period, the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties, but Indigenous students kept right on dying at residential schools up to the modern era.

Sue Caribou was taken from her parents at age seven and forced into a residential school in the nineteen seventies. She believes that dozens of other kids died while she was in turn there quote, remains were found all over the fields, but student numbers do not reflect the reality.

Many of my friends committed suicide after their release. Which is something that all of these kids, these people will will point out, is that, like the death toll, One of the reasons will never know the death toll is that a lot of the people who died, uh, you know, killed themselves years later. And so she's just like, oh, no, It's just part of the weirdly high suicide rate that Natives have in in in Canada. Um anyway, Sue's experiences give you an idea of how brutal residential goals remained

right up into the modern era. From a rite up in the Guardian quote, Sue Caribou contracts pneumonia once a year, like clockwork. The recurring illness stems from her childhood years

at one of Canada's horrific residential schools. I was thrown into a cold shower every night, sometimes after being raped, the frail fifty year old Indigenous mother of six said, mother of actly Cariboo was snatched from her parents house in nineteen seventy two by the state funded, church run Indian residential school system that brutally attempted to assimilate Native children for over a century. She was only seven years old. We had to stand like soldiers while singing the national anthem,

otherwise we would be beaten up, she recalled. Cariboo said. Catholic missionaries physically and sexually abused her until nineteen seventy nine at the Guy Hill Institution in the east of the province of Manitoba. She said she was called a dog and was forced to eat rotten vegetables and forbidden to speak her native language of Cree. I vowed myself that if I ever get out alive, out of that horrible place, I would speak up and fight for our rights.

She said. Uh. And it's worth noting that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, you know, the is everybody with the hats and they read, yeah, they were the ones who would drag these kids out of their houses. Oh my fu Yeah, proud urcmp history there. So Sue's experiences being molested at her residential school were not at all extreme. To date, more than two thousand people have sued the Canadian government as a result of sexual abuse they endured

while they were interned at residential schools. This experience was remarkably consistent across the different religious denominations. Catholic priest right tons of kids, because that's what Catholic priests do. Anglican pastors also raped raped tons of kids because the residential schools were an almost deliberately perfect environment for child molesters. One of the most successful molesters was a man with and I'm gonna need you to strap in for this

name Anna because it's it's he's a child molester. So we can't we can't laugh about it too much. But his name is William Peniston Starr. What the fuck Peniston? Yeah, I know, I know, I know Peniston Star Peniston Star. No, no, no, two different words. I had to like triple check to make sure Peniston wasn't like, how how is that a name? Peniston?

William Peniston Star. Yeah. Anyway. In nineteen fifty six, this guy starts working as a physical training teacher at the Glycan School in Alberta, uh, and then he gets promoted and transferred to be the principle of an Anglican school in Quebec. In nineteen sixty eight, he's appointed the director of the Gordon Residence and his evaluations as an employee. As an employee were like consistently positive, which is why

he rose so rapidly through the ranks. You know, there weren't a lot of good employees at the residential school, so he was kind of seen as a superstar. But there were some early signs that there might that everything was not all above board with Mr Peniston star Um. In the late nineteen fifties, he had to suddenly leave his job at Glycan after an unidentified conflict came between him and a group of senior boys. Indian official Indians

Official WP identified conflict. Yeah, they never go into detail. The Indian Affairs Department published a report on the matter and said that there were issues with the within the Gymnastics Gymnasium tumbling team that Star trained, but didn't say what those issues were. He conflict. I'm just like that. That phrasing is truly trash. Well, do you know what it sounds like to me? Like maybe they he tried to pull some ship and they confronted him. Yeah, that's

exactly what it sounds like happened. Is he was trying he wound up molesting or attempting to molest some of the kids on his wrestling team, and they complained and the Anglican churchs transferred him and promoted him. God, yeah, yeah, it's cool. But you know what doesn't abused children on a wrestling team. Are you doing a horrible transition to an adverct? I don't know. I don't know what else to do in times like this, Sophie. I have no

other comforts but botching an ad transition. That's my whole that's my whole world. You can don't find our faces comforting. I I have lost all ability to take comfort in the human form. The only thing that comforts me now is transitioning to ads awkwardly products. Okay, so we're back and we're talking about William Peniston star Um. I can't

get over that. That makes me think of like I remember in history class growing up, they'd always be like, so many American names are just made up because you know that. But to me to think that someone years on years, you know, hundreds of years ago, was like, okay, now, what can we name this family? Maybe Peniston and it's

what you just named it after an anatomy. Maybe their family was a bunch of dicks sore, because you know how they always say like, well, your family owns land, so you guys are the lanterns or whatever the fun but this maybe it's like the whole family was a bunch of fucking dicks. So they were like, and these guys will be the Penistons. I like, I like that version, Yeah so do I. So yeah, So this guy Um gets in trouble for molesting his wrestling students, and they

promote him Um. He continues to teach wrestling. He leads a lot of trips overseas for like hold On Fallout Junior just took an indefinite leave of absence from Liberty University. Oh that's that's unfortunate, poor Jerry. You know what, I bet Jerry Fallwell has never done molested wrestling students at his school. I'm kidding, he's he's almost certainly done that. I was gonna say, I don't know, I'll be shocked if Jerry was Liberty University president after posting a product

of provocative photo on social media. He was. What's best about that is how he initially tried to argue that he wasn't drunk in the photo when he was so visibly drunk that he couldn't even cover his stomach. It's amazing. I do think the like Righteous Gemstones the TV show, truly. I think it's such a like outing of what it is to be that type of like television pastor of Like it's like you, what do you even try? Like

don't even pretend anymore? Like everyone knows you guys are not these like righteous like god fearing people, like come on, give me, it's good break. You know who is a righteous, god fearing person, Anglican educator Peniston Star. Um, yeah, rapist. So this guy's this guy's career continues like a rocket for years and years in years, um and while he's teaching kids and you know, leading overseas trips for you know, the school dance troupe and stuff, he is just molesting

the ship out of a bunch of children. And I'm gonna quote now from the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report on Residential Schools. Quote. Throughout his time at the school, Starr had been using his position to sexually exploit students. He instituted a system of bribery and intimidation to establish a regime under which he could sexually assault students. Those who refused to participate were punished through the denial of privileges.

He was arrested on March fifth, nineteen nine, on twelve charges relating to sexual and child abuse, all arising from the years that he worked at the Gordon Residence. According to an internal government document, at the time, the department had not received any complaints related to sexual or other abuse during the time that Star was employed at the residence.

On February second, nineteen ninety three, Star Wars pleaded guilty to ten counts of sexually assaulting ten boys between the ages of seven and fourteen while he was the administrator of the Gordon Residence. He was sentenced to four and a half years in jail, and it's since come out that it's it's likely that he's he has victims in the hundreds. Um, yeah, four years, you said four four

and a half years. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty good. Uh. Sexual assault by students against other students was also unfortunately very common, and this was the natural result of several terrible things. For one thing, huge numbers of residential school teachers sexually assaulted their students. Again, thousands and thousands of kids were victimized by their teachers, and this normalized a lot of aggressively sexual behavior to the kids, and some

of them went on to copy it. For another thing, all these kids had been pulled out of their families and communities, so they've been like ripped out of the moral universe they had inhabited as children, uh, and stuck in a completely new one. Their parents were replaced by nuns and priests and teachers who I'm sure sometimes cared about them, but just as often beat them or molested them, or helped them had them help dispose the corpses of

their peers. So just a bad place to be a kid. Uh. Students were often victims, but they were not necessarily passive ones. The book Survivors Speak notes to the extent that they could, many students try to protect themselves and others from abuse. At the Gordon School in Saskatchewan, the older children tried to protect the younger ones from abuse at the hands

of the dormitory staff. Hazel Mary Anderson recalled, sometimes you'd get sometimes you'd get too tired to stay up at night to watch over them, so nobody bothers them because those workers would, especially night workers, would bother the younger kids. The younger kids dorms were next to the older girls dorms. It's like the older girls would stay up and not sleep at night to protect the little kids from being

molested by night workers. Yeah. By the nineteen fifties, it had become clear to even the most idiotic of soulless bureaucrats that the residential schools were not working as intended. Indigenous children were meant to assimilate to lives as lowly paid laborers. Aboriginal cultures were meant to be wiped out, but it became clear that things were not working as intended, and so the government pulled back. In nineteen fifty one, the Indian Act was amended and the half day work

school system was ended. Next, the government decided children could live with their parents whenever possible. In nineteen sixty nine, the Department of Indian Affairs took control of the system and pushed the churches out. All of this sounds good on paper, but abuses continued. Schools were still underfunded, and teachers were still underqualified, many of them had not even

graduated high school, and fits and starts. The Canadian government tried to close the residential school system, but this often just meant changing the words they used for doing the same thing. In the nineteen sixties, thousands of Aboriginal children were apprehended by social services and taken away from their families. The sixties scoop, as it came to be known, kept the last few residential schools full up through the nineteen eighties and into the mid nineteen nineties, when the vast

majority were finally shuttered. The last residential school closed in nineteen nineties six, by which point indigenous groups around Canada were already organizing to sue their government over what they considered to have been an act of genocide. By mid April two thousand, Canada was being sued by an estimated seven thousand survivors of the roughly hundred and fifty thousand children who had been interned in residential schools since eighteen

eighty three. The Anglican Church was named as a codefendant, and three hundred and fifty nine cases of abuse involving sixteen hundred plaintiffs. It was enough that there were fears that the national sign out of Canada might go bankrupt. Over All the lawsuits, which eventually totaled more than two billion dollars, lawsuits continued to stack up, and calls for a government investigation and apology were repeatedly denied by the

Conservative administration of Stephen Harper. Finally, in two thousand and eight, Canada launched its Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which spent seven long years compiling an exhaustive report on the residential schools. The head of the commission, Justice Murray Sinclair, is the second Aboriginal judge in Canadian history. His conclusion was stark and he did not mince words, declaring Canada clearly participated

in a period of cultural genocide. So the Canadian government has at least been like, yeah, we um, we did us a genocide. Yeah that's good. Yeah, yeah, that's the least you can do. Uh. Stephen Harper himself apologized on behalf of the government UM in two thousand eight, although he and his government refused to agree that Canada had committed genocide. Uh. The Anglican and Catholic churches apologized to although the Pope's representatives noted that his apology was a

personal one and not an official apology by the Catholic Church. Um, you wouldn't want to do that. More than one point six billion dollars has been awarded and handed out to the survivors of residential schools so forth. Yeah. UM. This is also very fresh, and there's new stories dropping regularly about, for example, the scope of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's involvement in this new mass graves that have been found

in different locations. In two thousand thirteen, the news broke that in the forties and fifties, nutritional experiments had been carried out on malnourished Aboriginal children at these schools with the federal government's knowledge. Yeah, it's really fucked up. Um. Basically, they found out that all these kids were malnourished, and instead of giving them all vitamin supplements, they only gave some of them vitamin supplements so they could watch how

different only the two groups reacted. UM, just used them as tests something. They're like, on top of um, putting you through the most truly traumatizing experience of your probably your whole life, that could potentially ruin you as a being. Um, let's see, let's just try and use you as science experiments as well. Well. They wanted to know the effectiveness of vitamins supplements for white people, and they had all these kids that were not white that they could test

it on. So about kids were used as test subjects. Uh. Subjects were kept on starvation level diets, they were given or denied vitamins, minerals in certain foods, and dental services were withheld from some students because researchers thought better teeth and gums with skew results. So that's all fun. Fuck, that's the fun story of the Canadian residential school system that is wow, fuck you Canada, I know, what the

what the funk Canada? I mean, I'm glad they gave some me back, but that doesn't that does not change a fucking thing. I would not say they've made it right now, No they haven't. You know what I don't go ahead is that I don't like that. Oh you know they're gonna be like is that and then go on?

But is that now? I also don't like that. And I think there's this I don't understand it, but I feel like it's just like the human being was like and if this happens in all, like most countries, just like if you find someone less than kill them off, and it's like it's so devastating to be like why has it take? Like even now it's still happening, but like at least some people are coming around to be like, oh, yeah,

maybe we shouldn't just kill people. And it's like barely are we coming around and we are barely kind of turning a corner of like, yeah, maybe we shouldn't just kill people because we think they're less than And there is I don't understand, like what world was I raised like I have very strict Iranian parents like, how was I able to get to the point where I'm like, you know what, that's really evil, funked up and not a thing we should do. But then yet so many

people are so far behind. It doesn't make any sense to me. It doesn't I don't Yep, it's bad. Yeah, shake the country of Canada. Yeah, let's just let's just kick the ship at us some maple leads and not look too closely at our own history because everything candidate was kind of based on the actions of the US government earlier. And there's if you by the way you

go to Australia, very similar things were done. Um. Yeah, the schools and stuff, like Canada's program was really particularly extensive and lasted shockingly long period of time, Like they kept it going a hell of a lot longer than the US government kept their kind of residential schools agoing um, But yeah, pretty much the same story. It does feel like the more remote you are, the easier it is

to kind of like get away with here genocides. People don't know how much Canada gets away with right, Like when when we were in when I was in Guatemala,

I talk about that time a lot. Uh, my Canadian friends like I was hanging out with a bunch of Canadians, um and as an American, despite all the ship that I Americans had done to Guatemala, we actually got like less negative responses than the Canadians did because a number of Canadian mining companies had been guilty of like horrific behavior and like we're at that point doing horrible, horrible things in Guatemala. Um. Which is a thing about Canada.

You could actually, if you wanna really look into Canadian history, a lot of very specifically fucked up things around mining that happens constantly, both within the country itself and with companies that are headquartered in Canada but are mining concerns. UM. And we talk a lot about all the wonderful social programs Canada has a lot of that is funded by resource extraction on a globe scale that generally ignores the rights of a lot of people in the areas where

the extraction is occurring. It's good stuff. So it's almost as if we shouldn't exist, it would maybe just countries. Maybe just countries, because like I always do feel shitty, like there's so many things to criticize Canada for. But also I'm like, but I'm an American, like like like it does. Like the reality is that they're all bad there.

They all do terrible things to people. Um, if you want to look at any country that's considered to be one of the good countries and you scratch it a little bit, you'll find that they're operating horrific rare earth earth mineral minds that rely on the mass, you know, enslavement of children or something. It's just one of the fun realities of the cool world we live in. Yeah, can someone if there is any country I don't know, like like Norway, Like I don't even know what's good.

Maybe I mean your best bets Uruguay, but like still probably a bunch of fucked up ship you can find. Um. All right, Well, can someone tweet at us if there's any single good governmental run country please? Yeah? Maybe I see. I think they're doing better. And I'm concerned a little about ice and like what goes up what goes on up there? You know. Yeah, they might not be a real country. It might just be a Canadian mining front, Like that would be a Canada thing to do, fake

in Iceland on us, fake and tricky ass Canadians. Okay, God, damn it. Yeah, I am dying to know what's a good place yep um if it exists, because a part of me feels like it just doesn't exist. Yeah, let us know if a single good place exists in the world. Otherwise I will continue with my plans to hold up with a bunch of children in a compound until the f d A burns us alive. Oh that'll happen. Yeah, it's gonna be a good time. Oh man, looking forward to it. Really just watched that Waco TV show and

I was don't bring up Waco. I rewatch it every single night on a yeah, eleven or twelve hours a night of just pure Waco. I just can't get enough

of that David Koresh you know. And it's such a funny thing in like popular culture because these like home flippers from like h G TV like built their like silo weird, Like I don't even know home Goods company out in Waco, and I'm like, stop trying to rebrand Waco, Like we shouldn't just know, we shouldn't forget what happened here, Like this was such a fucking bullshit operation done by

our own government. Yeah, it was, don't forget. It was horrible that they burnt that compound to the ground, and the only way to make it right is to burn the rest of Waco to the ground and finally free the world from Waco. Yeah, just get rid of Waco. But just we don't need a Waco I have. I've spent many months there and it's a bad place. I would apologize to Waco, but Waco knows that I'm right fascinating. I would like to go see it, but no, you don't.

You don't need to see Waco, Okay, finn, I won't go. I'll go to the silos. Image of a big truck stop. That's what it is. That's the whole city of Waco, big truck parking lot. It does feel like like when I look at the photos of this, these these people um chipping go go Anna Joanna Gaines who created this,

like Magnolia Market. At the silos, there's something so dark about it, like it's just in the middle of nowhere, and there's like these giant silos that are all like aged and ship and I can't help but think, like, boy, I can't believe somehow this is turned into Waco. But I can't every everything turns out goes back to Waco. That's the magic of Waco. Always if you're not Waco a b w baby. Yeah, if you're not wacoing, you're asleep and that's a problem. Yeah, be a Waco, not

a Sleepoh well, new shirt, be Awaco not asleep. Yeah, we can have like a really nice, a really nice depiction of of David Koresh's just just ripped cum gutters. I mean just just cum gutters, cum gutters. Yeah, that's what you call abs. That's the medical term. Yes, I've heard someone recently call them a penis ravine. Yeah, that's another medical term for abdominals. Yeah, both of those are proper in doctor speak. Ask your doctor about penis ravines

and cume gutters today and David Koresh. Always be asking your doctor about David kor or you could invest your time into something else, like listening to some of the podcasts, and it does on this very network. And it's like to plug your plug double so that I don't have to hear about Waco anymore. Yes, that's true. I begged Sophia to book me so I could plug these goddamn shows. So I have to do it. I I yeah, you know, speaking of um penis ravines UM. I actually heard this

on the Penis Ravenus Penis peniston ravenus. Um. I do a show right now. Well, I do ethnically ambiguos, as you guys know, with my co host Green Units, who has been on the show many times. Um, it's called ethnically ambiguous, which saw about being a person of color in America. Uh, and we that's you know, we're really that's what we do. We talked about being a person of color, child of immigrants, or even an immigrant in

this country. And actually I would recommend our episode with um Joey Cliffs, who is a Native American man, who is uh he. I honestly didn't know a lot about um Native American culture because even though I live in this country, you're taught nothing in history classes or your schools because they just try and disregard the fact that

we live on Native land. All we learn is the thing about the corn that you bury with the fish, right, yeah, exactly, and then they ignore the fact that we also like killed a bunch of Native people to be on this land in you know, the United States. You're like Mayflower, You're like yeah, murder Boat. Uh. But also yeah, we do that show. I recommend the Joy Clift episode because he is a native American man. He actually I learned a lot from him, So check that out if you

guys want to. But also my other show, which is less about anything. Uh, it's called Deckheads and I host it with Nick Turner. Uh, and it's all about the TV show below deck on Bravo. UM, and a lot of people like, why do you watch these shows? Honestly because it's the only thing that lets me turn my mind off. And I nothing makes me more calm than pure nonsense. Uh. And that's why I love reality TV. It makes you feel alive in a way I haven't

felt in years. Um. And you know, me and Nick Turner, comedian Nick Turner hosts the show, and I personally enjoy it because it's about super yachts that really really rich, horrible people, uh, rent for tens and thousands of dollars, just so much money for like three days. It's absolute nonsense and why would you ever spend your money like that?

And super yacht didn't cost that much money. But uh, we just basically, uh, we're going over every single episode of the show to ever exist, and we just fucking rip these people a new asshole about their behavior. And it's fascinating to see how white America works. It's fascinating to see how rich people just sexually harass whoever they want and get away with it, and how they just

treat everyone like fucking dirt. So if you want to hear us really break down these these truly lovely times, uh, because we we have been recording them all in quarantine. So it's a great juxtaposition of what we understand as reality. While like the Black Lives Matter movement is going on like as we speak and continuing will hopefully continue to go on until we have full justice. Um. But then you just said and then you cut to us being like,

what the fuck are these people doing? And it's fascinating. I truly enjoy it because these people have no shame, and I think more people need to see how the one percent live so you can understand like being rich and owning all the fucking money in this country, Um, it's bad and why would you ever want to be a person like this? So if you guys like a really interestingly dark social justice angle of us watching reality TV, check it out. Because Jesus fucking Christ, these people have

no shame. I don't get it. I just don't get it. And it's fascinating to observe. So yeah, check out Deckheads also on iHeart Radio. Okay, yeah, alrighty, And that is I was just gonna say. And you can follow me at Anna, host me on Twitter if you would like to see me, you know, tweet, find Anna on Twitter, check out her shows and you can find us here every Tuesday and Thursday talking about real sad ship that bumps you out. That's the episode you need to know it