An Aboriginal Woman...

...tells it like it is:

Aboriginal women fear their own kind the most

"In the fall of 1988, I was in first-year law school at the University of British Columbia. Our criminal law teacher recommended we all go downtown and watch a trial where alcohol was being considered the murder weapon for the first time. There were over 200 of us in first year criminal law. Only my mom and I attended the trial.

Although Gilbert Paul Jordan, a.k.a. "the Boozing Barber," was linked to the deaths of at least 10 women, he was convicted of manslaughter in relation to the death of only one. Evidence at his trial showed all the women he had targeted, hundreds of women, were aboriginal. Fact is, aboriginal women who were alcoholic or down on their luck ended up dead.

That was 1988. I was 28, and had just finished undergrad work, escaped a violent marriage in my early 20s and had survived a teenage rape. In 2011, some 23 years later, I ran for national chief of the Assembly of First Nations as one of eight candidates, one of four indigenous women.

I'm writing this to share my views on sexism in our community and any linkage I see to violence against women in our community and our conspicuous absence as leaders within our communities. Some 90 per cent or so of the chiefs eligible to vote for national chief are men.

In my opinion, there is a link. Aboriginal men kill aboriginal women and girls, rape aboriginal women and girls, beat aboriginal women and girls, and no one is really talking about the moose in our living room."

As if we didn't know. But thanks for confirming it. Godspeed.