“They have to listen to our truths—it’s not going to be easy. Settler people don’t want us to talk about genocide and racism. But everything that is attainable is truthful.” ~ Mona Stonefish

“Without truth, justice, and healing, there can be no genuine reconciliation.”^1(footnote) ~ Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

The ᑌᐯᐧᐃᐧᐣ (truth) held by survivors must be told and understood to move forward in socially and ecologically just ways. Yet those who feel their white settler privilege is threatened by this truth have a vested interest in not knowing it and, even more dangerous, seeking ways of denying it. In their article, “Truth before Reconciliation: 8 Ways to Identify and Confront Residential School Denialism,” Daniel Heath Justice and Sean Carleton describe ways some are denying the harms of Indian Residential Schools in Canada:^2(footnote)

1. Deniers contest the use of the term genocide and suggest it only applies to specific examples and instances outside of Canada. This denial is refuted by the overwhelming evidence to the contrary as well as globally accepted and understood notions of genocide.
2. Deniers claim Indian Residential Schools were the same as any other boarding school. This ignores the systemic violence, abuse, assimilation, and motivation to control the political sovereignty of ᓂᑕᑦ ᐊᓂᔑᓂᓂᐊᐧᐠ (First Nations Peoples) and take their land.
3. Deniers suggest that life was different when Indian Residential Schools were in operation and people thought differently about their operation and the way people experienced them.

These claims suggest that the anger survivors and their families feel is misplaced and inappropriate. Deniers use this claim to suggest ᓂᑕᑦ ᐊᓂᔑᓂᓂᐊᐧᐠ (First Nations Peoples) are less civil. This is a manipulation used to reapply civilizing discourses and to justify the white settler supremacy of deniers.