With this weeks articles and the knowledge I have learnt in my other classes I have to come realize how so many social institutions, ideas, and policies were created to enforce the beliefs of dominant middle-class White group. The topic of eugenics was thoroughly covered in my history 2700 class with Tina, and the implications of this belief is well demonstrated in this weeks readings. Before this reading and my women’s history class, I had no idea that eugenics existed in Canada. It seems like every other country has their flaws on display, and for one reason Canada gets to lock away their faults into a well secured box.
With eugenics, those in the position of power may have believed that they were helping society by putting those who were feeble minded into separate schools. In reality, what they were doing was exercising social control over those who were different. I do not understand why it is so hard for humans to accept those who are different. I wonder if it is in the human condition, some way in which we are wired in our brain, that we can only find comfort in those that are similar to us. The history of eugenics in Canada is quite disturbing, and violated and ruined many lives of Canadians. Just like residential schools, the Canadian government needs to do more to bring the history of eugenics in Canada to the forefront.
Social control is demonstrated in the other article from this week as school health policies were used to express the belief that other races were dirty or carried diseases. I find this quite ironic, because in early colonial history, Europeans brought plenty of diseases to Canada (of course it was not called Canada at the time) and infected and killed thousands of the Indigenous population.