 Behind it, there's a lot of things for shameful of, but really without the truth side, you're not going to get to their reconciliation. And this is really what a lot of the poems reflect on. They also reflect on the spirit of resistance and resilience and survival. What they really discovered was how much they had in common coming from countries that have been colonized. So, I'm going to introduce the youth, Raven Obey. I'm going to stand up because we're going to have to cruise it for them here. So, Raven Obey. Raven is 18. She studies at Willis College, and she's of Algonquin, Crete, and Bohawk descent. She's also published all of it. Adam Harman King, the baby of the group, he's 15. He goes to South Carlton High School, and is watching his first performance today. He is of mixed Iraqi Arab and First Nations descent, I believe it's Galbey. Is your aunt here? Where's your aunt? Is your aunt here yet? Is your aunt here yet? Okay, but you're such an aunt here yet. Okay. Oh, too bad. His sister's here with Galbey First Nations. Okay, next is our facilitator, Sara Musa. She's Somali Canadian. She's also an accomplished spoken word poet. She's performed at Urban Legends, and really at the print events across the city. And she's really committed to social justice issues. Next is Dustin Pilon Plainer. He's of Ojibwe, Italian, and French Canadian descent. He's a student at Milan Pilata High School, and is 12th year. And his stage name is Disaster. And his spirit name is Sunder Stewart Walker. And last but not least, we have Alan Angel Vesenga. She's Carlton Lee's Canadian, currently studying at Carlton University. And she also is very committed to social justice issues. Thank you. And right now, they will perform any of their group piece, which is called Who Are You? Who am I? They say I am an angel of death, a bird of misery. I will take to get and get to take. For that, I am a trickster. I have soul and fire to ignite the sun, then taking water to quench thirst when the heat became too much. I was even office companion at a time when God was powerful in Greece. I have lived many lives. That of a man, a twig, a child, and a dove. But for now, I am a woman. I am the raven. Who are you? Who am I? I'm Alan King. Well, not really. My name is Alan Lee, the same king. I bet the first in the Canadian line is that I'm a terrorist. Well, no, you're wrong. I'll tell you a story. The reason why I picked Alan King was because it was a common name. Not only that, but it was a person I don't know. My Aboriginal name is Hawkins. The reason why I picked that is because I got a big nose. Who are you? When people look at me, they expect an exotic and complicated name. I am Saara Musa. My name has historical significance. For example, Saara was the name of the wife of Prophet Abraham. And my last name is Musa, which is the name of Prophet Moses. Somali seemed to have trouble grasping the fact that my name is pronounced in the Arabic way. Because usually, when you meet a Somali girl named Saara, the way to pronounce her name is seven. And Musa would be pronounced Musa, but an English that would be written as Mus. I get asked where I'm from like it's a question I've never been asked before. A child birthed into the land of the free with diasporic roots, I couldn't begin to tell you who I was or what made up my ethnic DNA. I'm a Muslim Canadian Somali. It's like the world has a problem with my very existence. As if knowing or rediscovering your identity is shameful. I speak on behalf of myself. I am me, no gimmicks. Who are you? It depends which name you mean. My social, documental name. The name I've been called on my life in terms of my head too. Every request and demand, compliment and criticism has been directed to this name. Dustin McChulkin O'Clan. So it depends which name you mean. The name that gave me a surge of life the first time I heard it. The name I now hear in my dreams by which every spirit I mean calls me. The name that excites and terrifies me, that lifts my spirit, but also confuses the interior of my mind because no one knows how this name describes the exterior of myself, Thunder Spirit Walker. So Dustin Pilon Planner. That sounds normal, right? Coming from a huge Italian family, you'd think my dad would have a more Italian name. Pilon fits my mother's side, however, because she is half French. But in this case, half and half do not make a hole because where does the native fit in? That is why I ventured around in the spirit world for smoking the sacred pipe to find Thunder Spirit Walker. Who am I? Who are you? Who am I? Apparently I'm black. What is that? How do I go about being that? What does it mean? What is its history? So I'm filling out this form and it says, Are you black, African, or African-American? And I wonder, what am I? My mom always told me to speak. Speak who you are and stand fast in it. Be who you be and walk in it with pride. My name is Amoy Anjan Sena. Amoy, the roots and the condo, the land of riches, the land of beauty. That's who we are. This is my every Aboriginal home. For those who feel pain or understand it's not a game. Those people should be ashamed. It's not that you can forget. Those people should have regret. You're not the toy. You're not the pet. They thought you were bad. You have every right to be mad. It's hard for you to be sad. Now, we're the ones that pay. They took our rights and yet we still stay. It's time, it's still the same. Each and every other day. Now, let's gather around and pray. We've been told lies, but truth still hides. My grandmother, she still cries because all her friends is dead. She's had trouble telling me why. It's time to talk. We're somewhat free to walk. Elders are still in shock. It's something that hasn't stopped. I'll show you my heart. It's somewhat hard. They forced me to go to school. Trust me, it wasn't cool. Take it from their homes. They've been tossed and thrown off their feet. If they resisted, they gotta be to the point where they lost their teeth. Let's hope this action doesn't repeat. We were kind. We helped them survive. But you didn't keep your word. We lied. They ripped out women after they screamed and cried. They took their pride. This is a genocide. It's hard to believe both sides. It's hard to fight. This wasn't right. I'm sorry to speak up. I'm sorry to scream and shout. But it's time someone shows his devil. This is the end. I'm sorry, people. I don't blame. These are our experience in school poems. How is it when you try to learn the history of your people when history is white? Admittedly, I only started to care in grade 10 sitting in history class realizing Canadian history does not mean the history of this country's people. Canadian history starts with Johnny McDonald and continues with every other white prime minister, not including at all the aboriginals who cannot be part of their land's history because they were given no rights. Canadian history followed the lives of English and Frenchmen. So pardon my language when I say go win the kidsy. Je n'ai pas de voix. I have no voice. I've tried, mind you, to speak out against my teacher who refused what I wanted to be taught. Both out of second thought, I remain caught into struggle with what the textbook said. I am drowning in a sea of useless knowledge like food that makes you hungrier. I was growing impatient, so don't act surprised when I say I exploded and my grade 11 Aboriginal class taught by my Italian drama teacher. I was told things I was told when I was 10. The basics which don't mean a thing to me anymore because I know more than my teacher. Like not every native follows the medicine wheel. Not every native burns all four sacred medicines and not every tribe has the same creation story. So excuse my rage when I'm forced to Google what I want to know and still don't get one straight answer. It pains me to know I know nothing. Even when I know more than some, I still know nothing. All I want to know is who I am and what my culture is. So forgive my ignorance as being native and not even knowing how. The following is a letter. A lament of all my experiences in school systems. Despite the fact that the history of the people and peoples of African descent is trivialized and marginalized while those of Europeans abstracted and reified as the ideal, I am learning to love myself and I am the black. To your white people, there will come a day when lines will speak. When the society that is so proud you have fought your self having built will be revealed in entirety. There will be no lies that shield you from the brutality of the pain inflicted on the African indigenous race. And your story is a great democracy you inherit from ancient Greek civilizations will be revealed as a myth. Dear white people, I am not where will I ever be white. So stop attaining to aim besides me via your school curriculum of half troops and who's who in great whiteness. This Western capitalist democracy is so far removed from this laboratory as you white as college. When so-called primitive peoples roam about words, exotic things that you speak of with such repulsion then have the nerve to ask me to come and exhibit my culture in front of the class even marvel at its mysteriousness. But if I spoke the words it's at least a moment when it won't be. I told you how this murder in its body incinerated in NASA by Western powers. But ever after these stabilize in the Congo these countries act as security independence. How the Congo, my Congo, the richest country in the world is being looted, blind, and even died by thousands per day. Dear white people, the Portuguese for centuries prior to Belgian organizations stole human beings from my country. At once the first of the Congo Empire in 1526 rolled to the Portuguese king. Each day the traitors are kidnapping our people, children of this country, sons of our nobles and vassals, even people of our own family, described in the privilege of our land as entirely depopulated. So stop trying to shock me on the greatness of your society. I know all about your democracy I see in the eyes of soul-caused civilized seeping in the blood of my people. Dear white people, don't tokenize me. I will never assimilate. And don't speak to me of play or I could kill us about its republic. I stand on the shoulders of giants. I'm Kamali's, one of the heart of darkness for Portuguese religion enslaved. The Belgian colonizers enslaved us. Exchanged our hands as currencies. Mutilated us and hung out decapitated genitals and heads on which policy is in a formal process. I will not fear you from this truth this is our history. Even if your attempts to forget it I will never. I'm here because you were there. I'm the liest by the fact that slave traders and colonialists estimated the Congolese population by the millions. My family survived enslavement, colonization, genocide, and war. And still we rise in concrete jungles of your inner cities aware yet oblivious to your history books or Africa in the monolithic African as a problem to be solved as you exhaust yourself because of the developmental aid you render as my country remains indebted to those who colonized us before in the words of Thomas and Carter debt is near colonialism in which colonizers transform themselves as a technical assistance as a total assassins. We cannot be paid because we don't have any means to do so. We cannot be paid because we are not responsible for this debt. We cannot be paid but the others owe us. What the greatest wealth can never be paid. That is blood debt. Our blood has slowed. As you gender and African countries have completely barren about your governance. Never mentioning your complicity and our underdevelopment. The human rights you once devolved into were yamas, animals, Negroes, so I will never praise you when your laws are not affirmed by humanity and whether you admit it to or refuse to your complicity not conditionally exist and if ever we are to exist together animosity a true account of history needs to be taught. The white people listen. Negro is not an anthropological term. It's a slave one. The white people colonization not be celebrated but celebrate away because there are a common day in line to seek. When the society that is so proud we put forth our self having built will be revealed in its entirety. There will be no more assasinations from the brutality of the pain you have inflicted on the African-Indigenous race and you also always the great democracy you inherited the main two Greek civilizations will be revealed as a myth. On the problems or the issues I have with with following my native roots but looking white. Am I not native? By the government standard I am not. But what relevancy does this have compared to how I feel but is it enough to feel native? They say don't judge a book by its cover and I guess my cover reads like a simple white boy but if you bother to read my story you would find an intertwined pattern of visions teachings and ceremony experiences that make me feel native. I try to learn all I can to be accepted so imagine my devastation when someone who knows nothing about their culture and abuses drugs and is filled to the brim with disrespect is accepted more than I because they look native. These same people who would sell their purebred roots if possible criticize me for having only one eighth native blood. Though they do not know it is that eighth of my blood that boils, whenever I am enraged, overjoyed, depressed or lost my native side is where I turn because I do not know what it means to be French or what it means to be Italian especially since I have been judged for having these roots as well for the Italian and French helped in the assimilation of the natives so since there is more of these in me I must not be native. One eighth doesn't count especially when you have those treacherous blood in you they say as if it is my fault native teachings are the ones I have been given with an atheist father and a mother and it hurts me to accept what she believes as it pains her to know I believe in spirits that roam the land and I do not believe I should try to live like Jesus because it is already hard enough trying to live like me. When I get profiled as right and describe myself as native it is a constant battle two worlds are warring in me and both sides are losing none of the martyr in me shows my conviction I hang around natives hear their stories of racism and I can't relate I still talk badly of natives and I still can't relate is there really a solution that I can create how do I live with this ongoing debate is there even a way to have a clean slate when I look at the sky I can't believe that this is my fate I'm just going to have to give up at this rate I need now more than ever to break through this gate to be or not to be that is the question that haunts me every day I know not if I am worthy to call myself native not sure if it's really my choice I think when I use my own voice then yes I believe with all my heart I am worthy even if I'm the only one in the world who does it's enough to get to tomorrow when once again I go to battle with myself and again the native blood my native blood will boil with the hunger for victory ok how's the body rich as long well 10 skin high cheekbones all in shake thighs seemingly hiding the answer to whichever secret she was keeping her secret was the same as many scars hidden due to naked eye ones that would never heal yet that she had injured directly mother and grandmother generations beyond had been the ones to suffer at the hands of ignorance despite the treaties the closure of these abominations money handed out nothing would heal the scars left behind things would never be the same she bore the battle wounds her elders bestowed upon her as a memory of her heritage you mustn't forget the children and grandchildren will bear the same markings a simple reminder which cannot be forgotten the battle will never cease as the long as the scars remain good luck this is our final piece it is a poem that was written by two of our performers Angel and Dustin Angel and Dustin my name is Bert Sains even in war zones a battle wrapped I stand armed with my blackness on one hand and my hope in the other the teacher stands with a whiteness all enveloping all around me like air like the poverty that cracked open concrete pavements in outer cities where dreams were swallowed whole you wouldn't know sir you wouldn't know man my pain but it's okay I still hope I still believe in the beauty of blackness even if the teacher stands for arsenals of half truth the rationalization under gaze under a guise of righteousness Lord have mercy it's enveloping all around me like air I sit waiting to exhale waiting to be free but I know why the cage learned Sains I know the founding fathers will lie I know principle Columbus didn't discover the Americas and I know black is beautiful and I know you can never have justice on stolen land so why still do we battle in our pill war not for the hope we carry that one day the cages will be blown apart releasing our spirits giving us the freedom we need to succeed victory comes not with the other side defeated but only when both sides come out for better bearing more knowledge than ever before we fight against history denying the founding fathers their right of way because we know no country was founded it was taken over and some say we can never have justice on stolen land but I believe as long as pride runs through the veins of those who cling to their culture that the other cities can be rebuilt and soon they will tower over the buildings meant to keep us in prison we cannot contain our souls so instead contain your criticism so that all may be equal in the eyes of all someday we'll both put our weapons down your white gun and my blood slingshot and we'll display our human beings studying learning being together but not until you put down your lives not until you tell the truth not until you give back what you took until then this will always be a war zone and I won't put away my slingshot until you take the bullets out of your gun and stop shooting ideologies of white supremacy disguised as truth set me maybe you don't mean to maybe you do but you can't separate intent from effects it doesn't matter much now because even if I'm never experienced and as often as I ought to I still write poems to my black teachers and never wore faces in your schools as they should be my pet place of moomas, my Tom and Starr covers my sadistic shepherds healing you in his inquirming tours I still dance in the heartbeat of my ancestors when seven-year-old revolutionaries in the Congo lay down their last part of liberation I know the Congo cries I cry my mother's cry, my father's cry my wife's cry but never in front of me took always alone in rooms rooms within rooms where caged birds sing even in war zones sometimes an art of my imagination is cringing beneath my feet to do sounds of my ancestors pro-feed eyes dancing and laughing again you do not break them you cannot break me I know why the caged birds sings the caged birds sings sometimes wild when no one watches I remember hearing stories of how my great-grandmother survived residential school and now I hear stories of how the Congo survives and I think to myself with the combined efforts of slingshots and arrows we'll work together to take back the sky and the land so watch out for the birds and the horses because we cannot stop fighting the warrior pride will not allow it but if somehow we can come to an agreement I can see purpose overcoming pride we may lay down our weapons and fire truth and love instead of leaded stone one day my daughters and sons will no longer need to carry around slingshots and you won't shoot them down with your guns will display us human beings studying, learning, being together but not until you put down your lives not until you tell the truth until then this will always be a war zone when the time comes for us to truly be together we'll leave you ready there will always be those hot-headed there will always be those whose hot-headed ideas build walls to separate us what will you do when a quality requires you to turn against your own can we put truth before brotherhood when the time comes our does is what we've built so hard to create tumble like the culture destroyed by the same hands that cling to hell of them if we can all agree to put the needs of those who look different other the ones those who look the same as you that will rise as humankind to levels we never dreamed could be reached it is prophesied that one day the land will lie with the lion and now is the time to decide whether that is the fairy tale or to the ship set sail for the coastline of a new tomorrow in which all cultures live together and we use our weapons for firewood and we dance around the flame of justice raising the universal flag of equality and respect we believe our daughters and sons will have the strength to invent our weakness and set it aside for the furtherment of tomorrow and the betterment of humankind