- by David Robinson

"I want to get rid of the Indian problem...Our objective is to continue until there is not an Indian that has not been absorbed into the body politic, and there is no Indian question, and no Indian department..."
-Duncan Campbell Scott, Minister of Indian Affairs, 1920

Kent Monkman uses this quote at the heading of one of the "chapters" (as he calls them) which form the structure of his current show, Shame and Prejudice, on right now and until early May in Montreal at the McCord Museum.

This chapter, which, in Monkman's chronology is chapter three of nine altogether, is called "Wards of the State / The Indian Problem.
He describes the lives and efforts of Poundmaker and Big Bear, who were great leaders that ultimately were taken in chains to Stony Mountain prison.

In Monkman's painting, "The Subjugation of Truth" Poundmaker and Big Bear sit facing each other on chairs, surrounded by six white men; RCMP officer, politicians, lawmakers, powerful men, and you can see them all looking at the two warriors, trying to get them to talk, or give the other one up, or somehow fall into the trap set before them. In the eyes of the two warriors you can see the steel of their focus to communicate with each other non verbally. You know they are facing prison, being put away and made unavailable to their people. They face the end, and they are angry, strained beyond all imaginable extent, and meanwhile, the white men are all pushing their agendas. One is proffering a pen. The police officer keeps his hand clenched on one's shoulder. Other men look at each other as if they have separate plans.

It is an intense image and it translates how, at crucial junctures, Native leaders have been taken custody, disempowered, and forced to endure the white man's will, who, as referenced above in the words of Duncan Campbell Scott, only wanted to eliminate Native culture, Native freedoms, Native identity, language, spiritual ways, in other words, everything that defines and embodies the value of life for the people of Turtle Island.

It's as true and essential a moment from history as you will find, although you will never find this moment portrayed in any Canadian school textbook, because our history does not tell us the truth.

I saw the show Shame and Prejudice just this month and it still is reverberating and teaching me more and more as I think about it. Monkman uses humour, irony, and reverse appropriation amongst his many methods to imbue his paintings with intense multiple levels and layers of meaning and power. There is much sexuality included in some of the paintings, but the one image that became a key part of it all for me is the painting that summarizes chapter Five  - Forcible Transfer of Children.

In a darkened room, spotlights illuminate the big scene from, it looks like sometime mid twentieth century, where RCMP, nuns, and priests are grabbing infants and toddlers while mother's scream, held back by men, a teenage boy already lying lifeless in the grass, as he may have met with his fate simply by trying to protect his younger siblings. In the distance, three teenagers flee into the woods, seeing what's going on and how powerless they are to stop it. 

Monkman's words for this chapter are:
"This is the one I cannot talk about. The pain is too deep. We were never the same".

Today, I asked my next door neighbour Dave, a painter and close friend, "did you ever cry while looking at a piece of art?" He said, fairly quickly, "no". "Me neither. Until this week in Montreal. And I've seen so much great great art. Never cried until I saw Kent Monkman's painting of what white settlers did to the children all across this land. I cried, and I felt the anger growing and growing". My neighbour Dave understands. He said, nodding, "It's what I've been saying all along. It's a holocaust".

There is no more accurate a word than that.
Holocaust, right here in our front yards.

It's my firm belief that all students in Canada, let's say high school age, should be brought to see this exhibition. At this time in political changes, discussion happening in different directions, we have an opportunity to look back and re-educate ourselves. Forget about feeling guilty just because you may be white and descended from settler ancestors. We need Truth now. We need Truth before we can have proper Reconciliation. 

You cannot get these paintings properly through your screens, although by all means look at Kent Monkman's work online. But go and see this exhibition.

In the gift shop, after touring through Shame and Prejudice twice, I wanted to buy a copy of the booklet, and a poster with one of the images from the show, and the woman on staff in the shop said "we are seeing so many people here in tears. They wander into this shop and they're a mess".

One more quote from Shame and Prejudice; 
Chapter Four - Starvation
"A long time ago, my father told me what his father told him, that there once was a Lakota holy man, called Drinks Water, who dreamed what was to be...that the four-leggeds were going back into the earth and that a strange race had woven a spider's web all around the Lakotas. And he said "When this happens you shall live in square gray houses, in a barren land, and beside those square gray houses you shall starve" - Heháka Sápa (Black Elk), holy man, medicine man and sacred clown of Olglala Lakota Sioux, 1932.

All images reproduced with the kind permission of the artist