“Saskatchewan school officials are backtracking on a decision to ban a First Nations student from wearing an Aboriginal land rights hoodie to school.
Tenelle Starr, 13, told CBC News that teachers asked her not to wear the sweatshirt to school because other students were uncomfortable with its message. The hoodie read “Got land?” on the front and “Thank an Indian” on the back.
“They told me to remove my sweater because it was offending other people,” the eighth grader at Balcarres Community School, which is about 90 km outside of Regina, told CBC.
“[The school board] communicated further with local First Nations representatives and felt that the slogan on the shirt clearly was meant to provide the community with a message,” Ben Grebinski, director of education for the Prairie Valley School Division said after the decision was repealed. “It was not intended to be offensive.”
One teacher reportedly told Starr that people saw the message as “racist” and she was asked to wear the hoodie inside out instead.”
– Warrior Publications, Saskatchewan school officials backtrack after banning ‘Got Land? Thank an Indian’ hoodie.
“A local high school student says she was unfairly kicked off a Winnipeg transit bus. And the girl and her brother say the city of Winnipeg isn’t taking their complaint seriously.”
– APTN National News, Winnipeg student says she was kicked off bus over sweatshirt saying: Got Land? Thank an Indian.
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Download the 18″x24″ poster (.pdf), Indian Country 52 #3 – Got Land?.
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Indian Country 52
Indian Country 52 is a weekly project by David Bernie that uses the medium of posters that promote issues and stories in Indian Country.
Creative Commons License
This work by David Bernie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may download, share, and post the images under the condition that the works are attributed to the artist.
