Idle No More Calls for Action

THUNDER BAY – Aboriginal – A student wearing a sweat shirt asking “Got Land? – Thank an Indian” has sparked a controversy. The student was asked to remove the shirt that she was wearing at school. That move was reversed.

However the next step was the thirteen year old teen was harassed on Facebook to a point where she de-activated her account.

Idle No More has stepped in on the situation.

In a statement issued by INM, “A 13 year old Indigenous teenager, Tenelle Starr, prevented initially from wearing a sweatshirt at her school in Balcarres near Regina that read ‘Got Land? Thank an Indian’ is now calling, along with the Idle No More movement, for people everywhere to don the shirt as an act of truth-telling and protest”.

“Now and up to a January 28 Day of Action, Tenelle and Idle No More and Defenders of the Land are encouraging people across the country to make the shirt and wear them to their schools, workplaces, or neighbourhoods to spark conversations about Canada’s true record on Indigenous rights”.

They have created a website www.idlenomore.ca/got_land where people can get stencils to make a shirt, to buy it, and upload photos of themselves wearing it.

“Everyone can wear the shirt. I think of it as a teaching tool that can help bring awareness to our treaty and land rights. The truth about Canada’s bad treatment of First Nations may make some people uncomfortable, but understanding it is the only way Canada will change and start respecting First Nations,” says Tenelle, an Idle No More supporter who has participated in many Idle No More rallies with her mother.

Tenelle will also be appearing as an honorary guest at the Neil Young Honour The Treaties concert in Regina on Friday night. Chief Allan Adam and the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation have gifted her and her mom with tickets to pay respect to her courage.

Since the media started reporting on Tenelle’s acts, she has has been attacked on her facebook page by an online hate group that has threatened her safety, forcing her to disable her facebook account.

The January 28 National Day of Action is also a day of Teach-ins to raise awareness about the federal Harper government’s attack on native education through the First Nations Education Act and his continuing agenda to “terminate” or abolish Indigenous peoples rights, sovereignty and status as Nations and dispossess them of their lands and resources.