Chagal4's Blog

Red Dress Road

Lights…two

No, three…far up the road

Glit…tering…glittering, yes

But far…see? And they’re bright too

In the past thirty years in Canada more than twelve hundred Aboriginal women have been murdered or gone missing . That number is an estimate and may be too low 

There are noises on the highway

Not cars…not trucks

Just sounds in the trees

In the dark…small animals moving

Hunting…if I listen I can hear them

I’m tired and nobody will come

Why won’t they come?

I’m here….waiting, tired

Why won’t they come?

Recently Aboriginal leaders and others have been calling upon our government to launch an inquiry that would look at the overall picture instead of just treating each situation as an isolated case (which also needs to be done, of course) and to look at ways to find patterns, break patterns and increase the safety and security for all women but particularly for Aboriginal women…on reserves and off reserves.

The lights are too far

My legs are asleep

My arms are asleep

Everybody was laughing

Dancing…drinking…smoking

The music was loud

And…I was wearing my…

Oh my head is splitting

Splitting in two

Maybe I’ll just go to sleep

Who was that guy?

The one with the beard

Did he say he knew my dad?

The government refused. Even though Aboriginal women are three times more likely to be abused  or murdered than non-Aboriginal women…our government denies the possibility of any “cultural” issues. Maybe they should rethink that bias…after all they held national inquiry on salmon.

I’ll just sleep here by the road

Somebody will come

Take me to the lights

They’ll see my

Pretty red dress.

In the summer of 2014 an artist from Winnipeg, Jaime Black mounted an exhibition at the University of Saskatchewan.130 red dresses on hangers were hung around the campus where people could see. touch and brush against them. They were there to raise awareness of the issues of murder and abuse of Aboriginal women. But they should remind us of these issues for all women.

I made this drawing before I heard about the exhibition…I decided to post my drawing here and to say that I think the show at U of S is brilliant.

If you think this is important …please pass it along.

Blues

22-09-14

Click on drawing for larger image.

This entry was posted on September 22, 2014 at 8:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.