[BRIEF NOTE] On the "Got Land" shirts and the First Nations of Canada

[rfmcdonald]

This CBC article caught my attention.

A Saskatchewan student was told not to wear a sweatshirt in school that has the words "Got Land? Thank an Indian" on it, although officials have since relented.

Tenelle Starr, 13, is in Grade 8 and goes to school in Balcarres, about 90 kilometres northeast of Regina. She is a member of the nearby Star Blanket First Nation.

"It supports our treaty and land rights ... It's important." Starr told CBC News Tuesday, as the issue over the message on her shirt reverberated at her school and online through her Facebook page.

The front of her bright pink sweatshirt says "Got Land?" The back says "Thank an Indian". The message references the link between historic treaties and land for what would become Canada.

In Saskatchewan, most First Nations have treaties with the Crown dating to the late 1800s. The so-called Numbered Treaties, which cover all of Saskatchewan, are formal agreements that created a relationship between the Crown and First Nations.

The shirts, made by Manitoban Jeff Menard, are available via website and Facebook. Melinda Maldonado's MacLean's article interviewed the man.

Jeff Menard knows first hand the colonial angst his line of T-shirts can invoke.

The message — “Got Land? Thank an Indian!” — has prompted unsolicited complaints about tax exemptions for Aboriginal people, for example. Menard, a member of Pine Creek First Nation, north of Dauphin, Man., says he welcomes the dialogue.

[. . .]

Menard says the sweatshirts, T-shirts and baby bibs celebrate Aboriginal peoples’ “rich heritage,” but also point to history.

“When the Europeans came over, we took care of them. Thanksgiving was actually the first welfare line,” said Menard. “Somewhere along the line the Europeans figured they can conquer us and take over the land and all that. In retrospect, I just want a thank you.”

Menard first saw the phrase on a hoodie in the U.S. He set up shop in 2012 on First Nations land at the Red Sun Smoke Shop and Gas Bar in Winnipeg, Man., and Turning The Tide in Saskatoon, Sask., but stresses he doesn’t care about turning a profit. “I just want everybody to wear the hoodie or T-shirt, because it’s a true statement.”

His immediate goal is to get people to say thank you. “That would satisfy my appetite for now.”

There is one person, however, that he’d like to see in one of his shirts. “By any chance do you know the size of Prime Minister Stephen Harper? What size hoodie he might want to wear?”

I like his thinking.