I think this whole debate is pretty off-topic, and sorting out the degree to which people here think it is fine or not fine for the family or others in the media to use this case to raise awareness about missing and murdered aboriginal women won't actually do much to sort out the case. The fact is that Loretta identified herself as aboriginal, she prioritised the work enough to write a paper on it and her family (the people who have the most at stake in how her name is used) supports using this case for that cause and their doing so doesn't impede LE's ability to solve and prosecute her case, so there really isn't anything to debate.
But I also want to respond to this accusation of dividing and fragmenting women because, as a white woman whose vulnerability would appear to get less attention if we promote the cause of missing and murdered aboriginal women, I 100% disagree. There is a ladder of targets - I'm lower on it than you, and therefore more likely to be victimised. Aboriginal women are lower on it than I am and even more likely to be victimised. The statistics bear it out (
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-002-x/2011001/article/11439-eng.htm) and your bringing up individual cases of non-aboriginal women who were targeted doesn't change that this is the reality that aboriginal women are living with.
I don't feel that efforts to end violence against women as a whole is in any way undermined by looking at
facts about violence and seeking to understand why the facts might disproportionately target me but even more disproportionately target other women, nor do I feel I lose anything in supporting those women's voices when they want the media to hear and understand how large the threat of violence they live with is.
But seriously, I would really rather leave this debate to the family and politicians. This is how they're choosing to find meaning in their loss. I can't judge or begrudge them that.
