“Perceptions,” by Gerry Warner

Op-Ed Commentary

Professor Joyce Green, I am truly sorry that my recent columns on Colonel Samuel Benefield Steele have incensed you so much that you’ve seen fit to brand Cranbrook as a community of “settler triumphalism,” which is a not-so-polite, way of calling us a hick town filled with wild-eyed racists with the exception of you I presume.

In your recent e-KNOW op-ed piece, you also sneered at the pioneers who built our fine community derisively calling them “settlers,” which is a dirty word to those who subscribe to the woke vernacular. Oh, we get it, professor, even though most of us haven’t ascended to the upper reaches of academia where the efforts of ordinary, hard-working people have been reduced to an academic slur.

And you also refer to the “white settler state.” So, I assume you’re talking about us again. And not very politely. Then there’s the “exceedingly white” Mount Baker High School that you attended and helped raise you to the highest reaches of academe.  And now you use that knowledge to condemn the very people – mainly “white” of course – who, helped you become Professor Emerita of Political and International Studies at the University of Regina. It’s an impressive title. Too bad you can’t show some gratitude to those who helped you earn it.

Then you make the stinging comment that “white supremacy has bred a toxic local form of anti-Indigenous racism, which infects my social, commercial and personal relationships in my own territory.” Assuming you mean Cranbrook and its nearby environs you’re strongly implying that we’re all racists in our welcoming town. Surely you don’t mean that? Or was it just a rash comment made in the heat of the moment. If you do mean it, you’re sadly mistaken and I’d remind you how generous this town has been to refugees from Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere.

But to be fully honest, I acknowledge there are some racists in Cranbrook just as there are in any town you can name. But I’ve lived here for more than 20 years, and I’d say the racists are vastly outnumbered by honest, decent and tolerant people.

Certainly, there was much racism towards the Ktunaxa in the past, but today relatively little.  Don’t you think you should acknowledge the improvement? Certainly, racism should be eliminated completely as should murder, rape, child abuse and poverty. But this isn’t going to happen anytime soon in our deeply flawed civilization and when it does it will be through love, not hate, or making wild accusations against your fellow citizens.

Professor Green we’re both educated adults, a particularly well-educated adult in your case and we both know that the evils I’ve mentioned are excruciatingly difficult to overcome. This is an existential fact of life and no one, not even the best educated, can do anything it.  Therefore, you’re not improving the situation by making hateful, scurrilous allegations against your fellow citizens. I’m sure many of them, like me, deplore the catastrophic impact of colonialism on the Ktunaxa people and millions of other colonized victims around the world. And I commend people like you for not letting society forget these tragic facts.

Believe it or not this was my impulse for writing about Colonel Steele. He could have done what his colonial masters expected him to do, namely engage the Ktunaxa in a war that would have killed many on both sides. But Steele was not a dyed-in-the-wool colonialist himself and he proved it by coming up with a peace agreement with the great Ktunaxa Chief Isadore, who displayed keen sagacity in helping him avoid bloodshed. That’s what’s so unique about them.

They worked for reconciliation ahead of their time and found a path to peace when all the imperialists around them were braying for war. That’s the real mythology of the situation despite what some revisionist historians claim.

In light of this, wouldn’t it be nice if the Sam Steele Society took another look at their unexplained and hasty decision to take Sam Steele out of Sam Steele Days? We should be celebrating the man, who along with Chief Isadore, gave us our most meaningful and historic civic celebration.

e-KNOW file photo

Gerry Warner is a retired journalist, who believes history has much to teach us.

Article Share