A Simple X goes a long way

This blog is going to focus on something that Canadian youth have reported time and time again to be boring and uninteresting. And can I really disagree? Watching a bunch of old guys sitting in a chair talking to some other old guy sitting in a bigger chair is hardly entertaining! But that’s not what I’m here to talk to you about…I’m here to talk about putting a simple X on a paper, I’m here to talk about taking half an hour out of your day to set the political ship’s course for the next term in office.

Canada’s political arena has largely been shaped by its older generations due to the disinterest of Canada’s youth. In 2001, there was 10.6 million youth who are at voting age and, although that puts us at a minority level as compared to the 22.5 million other Canadians, when it comes to voting, 10.6 million votes can make a large difference!

Such is not the case. According to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, In Canada’s 2000 election, only 25% of us, the youth, voted in the Federal election and those who did not vote remain uninvolved in the political system today and will remain in the periphery of politics when they grow older.

In the same study, the IIDEA found that youth voting is down around the world. In 2000, 36% of voting aged youth participated in the US presidential election, low numbers due possibly to Dubya Bush being a candidate. While the same year, the UK attributed their lack of voter turn out to the absence of their youth population.

In 2003 Elections Canada published: Explaining the Turnout Decline in Canadian Federal Elections: A New Survey of Non-voters. What they found is that, among the 18-29 age group 58.4% were “just not interested”, 46.4% didn’t like any of the eligible parties or candidates and 33.8% thought their vote wouldn’t matter! I wonder if they would maintain that same attitude if they knew there is 10.6 million other young people who could vote and actually make a change in politics?

But enough with stats.

I vote in all the elections. I can’t really tell you why I do, I guess it’s because I can. In all the elections that I’ve participated in, not once has the candidate I voted for made it to office but that doesn’t discourage me. I know I at least counted myself in and I have the right to complain about it! By not voting you lose that right to complain because you didn’t have your voice heard. And believe me, when it comes to votes, politicians will listen! They may not HEAR you, but they will LISTEN!

Understandably, bills, legislation, cabinet ministers, convoluted campaign speeches and debates and even the Prime Minister are aversive stimuli. Throw in prorogation, redundant coalitions and immigrant party leaders, and Canada has successfully lost the attention of youth coast to coast to coast.

In the past election, I decided to ask each party how, as a mid-twenties, Aboriginal post secondary student living off reserve, their party would best represent me. Not one of them answered me directly or at all. The conservatives and liberals neglected to call me back, and the NDP replied with a “if you refer to our website, we believe that will answer all your questions.”

Now, you might be asking yourself, “how is all this negative stuff supposed to persuade me to vote in the next election?” I can tell you right now, that voting is our free choice. We don’t have to wait for conflict to dictate to us whether we vote or not. We don’t live in China or any other communist regime where our voice does not matter. We don’t have to worry about whether or not we die on our way to vote.

Take Iraq for example: On March 7^th 2010, the Iraqi people were finally allowed to vote. Insurgents, looking to disrupt the democratic process, killed 38 people who were on their way to cast their vote. 80 more were wounded in attacks that begun even before polls opened. 38 people gave their life for their one vote. At the end of the day, fear gave way to defiance and many people walked away from polling stations with purple fingers, a sign that they had cast their vote. Among them, a young girl dipped her finger in the purple ink despite not being old enough to vote. She was proud that her people finally had a voice.

Nelson Mandela was the first South African President to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before that he helped lead the African National Congress as a political entity that defied the strong hold that apartheid had on South Africa’s politics.

The ANC used non-violent means in their anti-apartheid stand but after an event called the Sharpeville Massacre, the ANC joined the conflict with a violent stand against the Afrikaans, the party responsible for implementing apartheid. Members of the ANC were found guilty to charges equal to treason. Mandela spent 18 years imprisoned on Robben Island and just under 15 years fighting for democracy prior to that. More than 30 years of Mandela's life were spent fighting for the one moment of time it took for him to cast his vote.

People literally crawled out of hospital beds and left their squatter shacks and camped overnight in voter line-ups so they can take part in South Africa’s first election in decades. And like Iraq’s recent election, insurgents aiming to sabotage the South African election killed 21 people and wounded150 more in the 2 days leading up to Election Day. Even more people giving their life for something that we find uninteresting…

Nelson Mandela once said: “your playing small does not serve the world”, voting to us is a small act so in this context I disagree with him. One vote does matter.

On November 4^th 2008, The United States made history with the election of their first Black President: Barack Obama. In the election that would see Obama as the 44^th president, a record high of 18-29 year olds came out to participate: 42.5% of males and 50.3% of females voted in the election. The total population of 18-29 year olds in the US is 29.6 million. Average the percentage of males and females who voted and we get 13.7 million voters, that’s more than the total population of the same age group in Canada. Yes, American youth are doing better than us when it comes to voting. If that’s not reason enough to go and vote, I don’t know what is!

So what about Canadian politics? What can we do to make it more interesting?

Firstly, we need our politicians to listen to us. We need to call our MP’s and ask them what they can do for us, and I’m not speaking about one or two of us. I’m talking about flooding their office and phone lines with  Canadian youth. If we show them that we are interested in politics, perhaps our interests will show up on their election platforms, perhaps they will have the time to tell us why we should vote for them.

If we all show up on their radar then they will have no other choice but to listen. I recommend not waiting until election time like I did, they tend to be busy looking for votes during elections and have no time to do what they are supposed to be doing.

Secondly, we need to pass on the word on how valuable voting is to other youth. Old people telling youth to vote is as ineffective as ineffective as George W. Bush was at his job. Youth telling youth, however, speaks volumes to Canada’s young population and is more effective due to positive peer pressure.

In closing, I just want to reiterate that we don’t have to give our life to cast our vote and we don’t have to sit in a prison cell to make our point that we have the right to vote. In Canada, voting is every person’s right to do much like free speech or following the religion of our choice. I need you, those who do not vote, to ask yourself: “would hurt me to vote?” and to those of you who do vote: you are doing a very simple act and are doing your country a very good thing so keep it up! 

Nicola Valley Leaders of Tomorrow Keynote

Nicola Valley Leaders of Tomorrow Conference

Acknowledge the land, ancestors, and Elders of the land.

I’d like to thank:

The youth

without all of you, this conference would not be possible! This community is here because of you, they are interested in what you have to say, and they hope that you bring the teachings you learned here with you where ever you go. It’s like when you smudge with sweet grass or sage, when you’re done you bring the medicine with you on your clothes and in your hair, really it becomes a part of who you are.

To all of the organizers of this conference

haawa’a for all your time, time is well spent when investing in youth. Your time ensures we have the best resources available to us to make the next right choice. Your interest in these youth show them that you care about their well-being, and that’s all a youth really ever needs, to know they are supported through all their right and wrong decisions by the people they love.

To all the Elders of the Nicola Valley

You are truly the most valuable resource to us young people, the knowledge and wisdom you carry does transfer to us like electricity through a wire, even when we don’t think it is. I’ve witnessed young people caught up in gangs, drugs, and alcohol, but as I struggle with getting my baby, and her stroller through a doorway, a lot of times it is they who hold the door for me. I picture an Elder somewhere teaching a child about respect only for that child to become lost in street life. But that teaching remains. Haawa’a.

To the people of the Nicola Valley Nations

Haawa’a to all of you for ensuring that the youth of your community have an understanding of the adversity they will face on their journey. Hawaa’a for arming them with the tools they will need to overcome those adversities. Hawaa’a for  making sure that your young people are made to feel valued, and cared for.

The Speech

My name is Damian Leo Mathias Abrahams. My first name comes from a little boy in New York who sung my mother a song and read her a poem he’d written earlier that day. My tsiini Leo is where I got my first middle name. He’s an old Irish fisherman who, at close to 90 years old, is still fiercely independent. Mathias Abrahams and his wife Leila were my best friends in the whole world when I was growing up. They were my great grand parents. They were my naani and tsiini.

I tell you all this because this is who I am; I am my family. Everything they did caused me to be standing here in front of all of you today. My naani and tsiini worked hard so the children, I was not the only one, around them would live comfortably. When times were hard they made great sacrifices to make sure the kids would eat. One time my naani choose a bag of oranges over a pack of cigarettes so her grandchildren could have something nutritious to eat. She never bought another pack after that. As I look at the cursor blinking steadily on my computer screen, I wonder why I’m telling you about my great-grand parents.

Family are the most important people in your life, they are your support, they have been charged with the responsibility to protect you, nurture you, laugh with you, cry with you, be with you no matter what. There was a time when my family, aside from my naani and tsiini, didn’t do this for me. I was betrayed and abandoned by a family that was in the next room guzzling the next bottle of booze. My family was the worst kind: They were drunken indians. We tried to be normal, we moved to an uppity neighborhood in Port Moody where the other kids would tease me, calling me “stupid little Indian”. The other kids often asked me if my family and I were from India and why we came to Canada.

In my silence I wondered what they meant by that. I was born in Vancouver in 1981, shortly after that we moved to Haida Gwaii. At the age of two, my alcoholic mother lost me to the BC government. My experiences in the foster system weren’t as bad as some of the stories I’ve heard. I wasn’t beaten or molested. Religion, though, was pushed on me. I was told that I would burn in fire and brimstone just for being me.  As I hopped from one foster home to the next, I started feeling rejected. I didn’t know why my mom wasn’t there for me, and I wondered if she ever would. None of my foster parents showed me any sort of affection and I had no emotional bonds with anyone. The times that I was with my mom, she was still drinking. When I was 16 I went to my last foster home. It was there that I turned to drugs and alcohol through the influence of my foster brother Andrew.

When they say that marijuana is the gateway drug, I’m pretty sure it’s true. When I turned 18 I was a grown-up in the eyes of the government, free to make my own choices. Weed turned to acid, acid turned to shrooms, shrooms turned to exstacy, exstacy turned to coke, coke turned to crack, and crack turned to Crystal Meth.

My journey on Crystal Meth was terrible. It brought me to the streets begging for money, it brought me to the streets to find a place to rest my head. My whole world was consumed by Meth. I spent my time either doing a hit, or getting the next hit ready, hours turned to minutes, minutes turned to seconds. 5 years I was on meth, it only felt like 5 months. All of the sudden I was in Edmonton, 144 pounds, lost and confused.

I came to Edmonton to start my life anew. I started helping out at sweatlodges, pipe ceremonies, I started dancing the Sundance. I went from street culture to the our culture and it helped me feel good about myself, I felt included when I walked into the arbour at the Sundance and someone made room for me to sit. I felt the power of the ceremony at the end when all the dancers came together for the first time since the ceremony began and for the first time in my life I was overwhelmed by the positive rather than the negative.

TELL THE STORY FROM YOUR FIRST NIGHT’S DREAM

From that first experience of our culture, I knew that was the road I wanted to travel. I began to explore Cree culture and Haida culture. I learned a lot from my gaagi, my uncle, Frank. I learned Haida songs with him 15 years ago with my skaan, my Aunty Roberta. We all huddled around a tape deck listening to one of our relatives sing. We’d play 10 or so seconds of a song, pause it, sing it ourselves, and rewind it to make sure we got the words right. I was so happy that my gaagi and I were singing Haida songs again because while on meth not one verse passed through my lips.

As I explored my people’s songs and dances, I slowly learned who I was. I wasn’t that stupid little Indian from India anymore. I am Haida, I am strong, I am smart, I am handsome! I learned through the performances that my gaagi and I did that I have a voice that people will listen to. My culture is also who I am.

I learned a lot from listening to the Elders at the Sundance, and I carry those teachings with me wherever I go. One of the most important teachings they gave me was about the Buffalo. They told me that in the old days, the Buffalo would provide their community with absolutely everything it needed. The meat would feed everyone, the bones gave them the tools they needed to survive, the hide clothed and sheltered them, and even the skull would give them ceremony. The Buffalo was very important to them. The Elders told me that today, my Buffalo is Education. Education will feed me. Education will give me the tools I need to live. Education will clothe me and shelter me. Education will strengthen me, my family, and my community.

So I went to school, graduated high school, and enrolled in university and am now 3 credits away from my first degree. That will be something that no one can take away from me, it represents my hard work over the past four years, it represents the hard work of our ancestors ensuring that education is a part of the agreements with the government. My education is also who I am.

TALK ABOUT KHAILA AND ALL HER LESSONS!

CONCLUSION

You might have noticed that all I really talked about today is my failures and my accomplishments. I use my story not be high on myself, but it’s really the only way I know how to show people that any adversity can be over come. I stopped trying to prevent failure and worked on failing better because I recognized that failure is bound to happen and that if I learn from failure it’s not really a failure at all. Because of that ability people began seeing me as a leader, I always moved forward with my life.

In March 2009 I was recognized on a provincial level by the Alberta Aboriginal Youth Achievement Awards and in July of the same year I was selected to be a part of the Lead Your Way! National Aboriginal Role Model Program where I travel to communities to give talks about drugs, education, and the Haida culture. As a National Aboriginal Role Model, I’ve been honored to witness what being an Aboriginal youth means. In all the communities I’ve been to, I often wondered why they needed to request a role model because they have so many youth that are doing amazing things for their community already, just as I’ve seen here today. From all the experiences I had during my travels, I concluded that youth aren’t the leaders of tomorrow, we are the leaders of today!

HAAWA’A!

Beware...of the truth...

I did a lot of work on myself over the last 5 years or so. The only way I can effectively say it is it's like I went through a storm and my boat got really messed up. The only way that I was able to successfully fix my boat was to go back through the storm again. The past had to be re-visited and in my mind I had to be there again and instead of running away from them, I was forced to go see it through  to the end.

My emotional issues, feeling shitty about myself, learning not to cry when I'm sad or laugh when I'm happy (Don't cry or I'll give you something to cry about; what do you have to be happy about?) was pretty hard to unlearn. The hardest part was to identify my emotions. Knowing what parts of my body did what during different emotions helped. When I'm angry my ears get warm and my chest flutters and then get tight. My brain tickles and I feel like exploding with laughter when I'm really happy.

My mentality was quite possibly the hardest aspect to work on. I believed I was worthless, that I was a stupid little indian, and that I wouldn't amount to anything. There was no hope for me. But it was all a matter of perspective, I chose to look at all the negative rather than all the good stuff. I failed to see the forest through all the trees. It wasn't any one thing that helped me through these issues, one exercise that helped was this guy held up a $50 dollar bill and asked who wanted it, all of us of course! He then crumpled it up and asked again, we all still wanted it. He threw it on the ground and stomped on it. We still wanted it. Then he tore it in half and asked if we still wanted it. Yes we did. He then listed all the stuff he did to the $50 dollar bill and asked why we still wanted it even though he "dragged it through hell." We said that it's still $50 and we could repair it. Exactly, he says, it still has value, just like all of you. No matter what is done to you, you still are human, and you still have value.

My sexual issues were address simply by taking back the power my abuser had over me. When he took my innocence so many years ago, he held a power over me. He used fear to keep it. I wrote a letter to him, a letter which was very hard to write. In it I said his name, I told him that enough is enough, you have no power over me and it was time for me to move on. In addition to that letter I did some inner child work. My counsellor had us picture in our minds a photo of us as a child. I pictured one of when I was about 2-3 years old. I was on the back of a couch with my head turned to the left. My great-grandfather was sitting on the couch in front of me. We were asked to animate that picture, so in my mind, the little boy in the picture turned his head and looked at me and jumped down onto the floor. He came running up to me and gave me a big hug. I told him that "everything is okay now, I'll take care of you now."The main symptom of physical abuse is powerlessness. Never being able to be good enough. I remember some of the dreams I had back then were when I had to run for some reason and I was never able to run fast enough. Simply being able to make my own decisions and live with the consequences and to take leadership positions empowered me, it gave me a voice which I use today.

Financial abuse...that one is on going. Not having enough money, or being forces to spend the money I did have, or having the money I did have be controlled by someone else, foster parents etc..., it was hard to understand money for what it is. So when I did get some money I had to spend it fast before someone else took it. Today I'm understanding that I have spend it one important things, bills, rent, groceries, FIRST, before anything else.Spiritual abuse, forcing one's own beliefs on another, is intergenerational. Starting with rez schools. It was hard to overcome those issues but just immersing myself in Aboriginal culture worked those issues out easily. Singing Haida songs and dancing Haida dances with my uncle solidified my beliefs and gave me direction.

Stats

I've decided to make my first blog about an enemy of mine. This enemy is a common enemy among psych majors. My enemy beat me three times before I won. Without a doubt, if you're a psych major, the first thing that comes to your mind is statistics. I first came across stats in my second year of studies, a friend of mine advised me that I should take sociology stats (SOC210) as they are a lot easier than psych stats (PSY211). I've never been keen at math, I struggled through Jr. High, and Sr. level math. In UCEP program I withdrew from my math class when I was sitting at 40% with 3 weeks of classes left!


You can imagine my dismay when I found out that I cannot graduate without stats. Figures. So my first attempt at stats didn't go so well, I blame my prof. She doesn't speak English very well, and she zoomed through all the topics and she didn't leave any room to ask questions. I hated it during the exam, I stared at the problems without a clue what to do. FUCK! Often times I just wanted to get up and leave and never come back, I hate feeling dumb. I kept on thinking what the point is, I never planned on being a researcher, which is what stats, or should I say that's what parameters, are used for. My first fail.


The second time around I was set, I knew the material and I knew what to expect. I was going to pass. Turns out I didn't know, I still couldn't grasp the material and I couldn't quite put my finger on the prof's accept. I think he's Sri Lankan or something. He too zoomed through the course material, so that, coupled with his accent, made it hard for me to get through the course. It didn't help that the first class he told us that 80% of us will fail the course. That same blank stare came back during the exams, I recognized nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio scales, I could navigate SPSS moderately well, I could read the statistics language (understanding it was another matter), but that was it. My second fail.


The third time around was psych stats. I bit the bullet because I figured I was a psych major, I should have psych stats. My prof was Canadian and he spoke English clearly and humorously, he presented the material in a way that was memorable and I actually liked going to class! By now I could recognize most of the material on the exams and my stares weren't so blank, but my prof was clever with his questions. He keenly chose things that I wasn't so good at. But I'm not blaming him for my inability to get the material, I spoke to a learning analyst and he told me that I was jumping into the middle of a lake without first knowing how to swim, that made perfect sense. By the second exam I was at 48% and it would've taken a miracle for me to pass the course. Mathematically I needed 80% on each item on the syllabus to pass. My third fail.


Psych stats was harder, we had to learn about linear regression, ANOVA, Multiple linear regression, plus we needed to write an APA paper. My fourth and final time (Pass or fail) at stats was with the author of the stats textbook. I was determined to pass this class, I armed myself with the advice given to me by the learning analyst, I recruited a tutor who, as it turns out, help write the stats text, and I had a classmate that I could compete with throughout the semester. Things were going well into the first exam, not so well at the second exam, and I bombed the third exam. My prof was cheering me on, my tutor was basically holding my hand the whole way through. After the third exam I just wanted to give up again, I needed a miracle again. I couldn't withdraw, I needed to maintain my student loan. I prayed to my late naani for help, I prayed to everybody! Everyday that I walked up to campus I imagined my naani walking with me, I pictured all my ancestors walking with me. I just did my best for the rest of the class.


On the morning of the final exam I decided that I wasn't going to go. There was no point. As I laid in bed something literally pushed me out of bed, it was like I didn't have a choice in the matter. I walked into the exam room, pen and cue card in hand, and nothing else mattered, even my love for my baby and little family at home. It was really just me and the exam. No blank stares, I knew the material, it was just a matter of time. The big thing for me was chose the appropriate test. We were given a scenario and we had to chose the right test based on the info we were given. On my cue card I had written a flow chart that described what variables go with what tests. Every time I was using the flow chart, "follow the yellow-brick road, just follow the yellow-brick road" ran through my head. I did very well on the paper, I never kept track of my grades on my labs, and I needed at least 50% on the final exam to pass the course. But I needed more than 50% to compensate for my past failures


I left the exam and everything came flooding back into my conscience again. All my worries, my fear of this class preventing me from grad. I went home and rested in the fact that I had tried and I did my best. At 5pm that day I received an email from my prof:


Prof: you got 67% on the final exam
so if your lab mark is really great- you will almost make 60% for a C-

we will see what we will see


Me: SERIOUS??!! I'm CROSSING MY EVERYTHING!


Prof:I claim the discretion to up a student's grade if he or she has shown great improvement over the term


Me:Let's hope I've improved enough!!! It would be thanks to the tutor
Me:I'm cleaning my floor in hopes to up my karma points! Seems silly...


Prof:Seems to have worked out for you-floor cleaning:)

CONGRATULATIONS DAMIAN - YOU MADE IT ON YOUR OWN- You ended the course with 60.4% and you earned your C-

I can tell you that it gives me great pleasure to see you achieve this. I would have bumped you up if you were close but I did not have to do that.

WHOOOOOOO HHAAAAAAAA WALLA WALL

GOOD FOR YOU

Whenever the Chicago Blackhawks score, a song called Chelsea Dagger plays. That was the song that was playing when I read that last message, I was hootin and hollerin, I was dancing and singing, my heart was the most happy it'd ever been since my baby was born!

I'm in intermediate stats now (PSY319) and things are so much better. It's the calm after the storm and we just completed our first real-world study and wrote our paper, and did an oral presentation. As it stands, I'm sitting at a B. Oh yeah, stats aren't so bad now that I look back!

Don't tell any Canucks fans that I listen to Chelsea Dagger by the way.