I am sitting here at school trying to type out a one-page proposal (that isn’t even going to be marked) and I am having the hardest time. Most of the time, I can write an 10 page essay the same day it is due (including right before class) and still receive a kick ass mark.

But today I am angry.

Yesterday, and all in the same day, the media had reported that Loretta’s disappearance (an Inuk who was described as being a student, a mother, a daughter, and a sister) would be now considered a homocide. Then shortly aftewards, the media confirmed that her body was found on the median of the highway out east. I don’t want to say this but I knew it before they even reported it.

She was an MA student doing research on missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. The irony? She was reported missing on the annual memorial march for missing and murdered Indigenous women.

All of this made me angry.

It made me angry because after the reporting of her disappearance, there was an interview in the LFpress with the police commission for the OPP. He was quoted as saying that some of the work that police do is never actually recorded by crime statistics. For instance, he said that police sometimes dedicate a huge amount of resources to finding children who go missing in rural regions. You know one statistic that is recorded? Missing and murdered Indigenous women. You know one instance where resources aren’t distributed? Missing and murdered Indigenous women.

It made me angry because there are hundreds of missing Indigenous women and hundreds of murdered Indigenous women whose cases go and remain unsolved. But nobody cares about them.

It made me angry because I am sitting here at school and all I am thinking about is that could have been me or any one of my Indigenous peers sitting in Indigenous services.

Why doesn’t anybody care?

It makes me angry because people don’t care and people don’t get angry.

Why is nobody else angry?

Everyone is hurt for the family.

But nobody is angry.

White people always want to say they care for us. Bullshit. You only care because you want to fix your guilt for not caring before.

Why aren’t you angry?

Why aren’t you angry that nobody else is caring?

White people only care because it could have been their daughter–it’s too close to home for them. Well, for Indigenous peoples, this is our home.

Why does nobody care?  

Loretta was a student. She wasn’t a homeless or drug addict or alcoholic, Like any of that should matter if someone goes missing. It wasn’t Loretta’s fault. As if to say for every other missing and murdered Indigenous women, it was their own fault.

But nobody is angry about the others who have gone missing or murdered.

I am sick and tired of being angry.