Yes, and yes. There are others here who can speak to this with more authority, but generally the claim (backed up by pretty comprehensive evidence from psychologists, sociologists, etc) is that the First Nations genocides began as large-scale physical annihilations (Indian Wars, smallpox in blankets) and then became the deliberate destruction of language, culture and family and social relationship structures (again, this is very well documented and formed the cornerstone of other 20th-century genocidal programs as well, from the Nazis to the Balkans to Rwanda and now Syria).
Suddenly, peoples and societies that had been self-sufficient, highly sophisticated in terms of language, culture, land management and trade, became isolated and dependent, rudderless and powerless, and lacked the old cultural frameworks from which to heal and move forward (again, all sorts of specific examples, the residential schools and forced adoptions in Canada are some). Addiction, violence, suicide and other social ills skyrocketed -- on some of the rezs in Manitoba and Ontario today, addiction rates to opiates can top 80% -- and relative isolation and lack of access to social services meant that these problems tended to be harder to fix, because they became normalized through their wide incidence and filtered through VERY complicated relationships between families, clans, band councils and so on.
So that's part of what he's saying. It may well be the case that now this tribe (as many locals have said) is economically healthy and forward-looking and well-managed, with decent resources for coping with things like DV -- but it, like native peoples in NA generally, must cope with a long history in which addiction and violence became entrenched and normalized -- meaning that responses to it are not necessarily the same as in places/among groups where these problems are relatively scarce and can be dealt with decisively.
He's pretty clear that he isn't defending JC -- but there is an important and longstanding context for her behaviour (as described by her) that has real bearing on the case, both as a barometer for the health of a people and as partial explanation as to WHY what happened might have happened. I think it's fine and reasonable to note that a great wrong has been done, but also be interested in understanding (in this case) what the particular context was for that wrong.
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