Red Dresses

“Why are red dresses hanging from the trees?”

My 12-year-old daughter interrupted her steady stream of chatter as we drove along the tree-lined river downtown. The promising springtime sun glistened in her golden hair as she fingered the edge of her red sundress, waiting for my response.

How do I tell my daughter that the red dresses hanging from the trees draw our attention to the young girls and women who go missing in Canada because of the colour of their skin? Do I mention the “Highway of Tears”, a road where numerous indigenous women have disappeared without a trace or explanation? Do I tell her that just this Christmas in our town, a young mother went to the Grocery store never to return? How do I tell her that the woman had foretold her future on Twitter four years earlier in response to missing indigenous women in Canada?

“I am a strong Maliseet woman. I am content. If there ever comes a time when I disappear…where I go for groceries and don’t return…please know: I did not voluntarily leave my family. I am not out partying. I did not go out and commit suicide somewhere. If I ever DO NOT return home… know that someone took me against my will or worse. Do not make excuses as to WHY I might have not returned home, because it is a lie. Look for me. Please. Being an indigenous woman in Canada, there is a target on my back. I feel it- I really do! Too many of our women are disappearing!”- Erin Brooks

When I go to the grocery store, I am not worried about whether I will return home to my family. If I were to go missing, I know that people wouldn’t stop searching until they found me. Susan L Maros identifies this, in her article “I’m just American”, as white privilege: “An invisible packing of unearned assets granted based on the perception of a person’s racial identity.” (Maros p.79)

Coates contrasts the experience of white privilege in his book “Between the World and Me” describing the fear and danger of growing up black in America. Beyond that, Coates describes his sentiments on hearing a congregation pray forgiveness for the officer who committed the unjust murder of a black man. “The need to forgive the officer would not have moved me, because even then, in some incoherent form, I knew that Prince was not killed by a single officer so much as he was murdered by his country and all the fears that have marked it since birth.” (Coates p. 78) Coates recognizes that the death of one black man was not an isolated criminal act but tied to a dark American history of black oppression and slavery.

Similarly, red dresses don’t hang on trees symbolic of one criminal act against indigenous women; red dresses hang on trees because Canadian history is rooted in indigenous annihilation. The roots that reached wide to kill, destroy and overtake indigenous communities sprouted branches of isolation, social inopportunity, lack of education, economics and education. These branches bear the fruit of dehumanization, racism and disappearance.

 The Kingdom of God, however, is rooted in justice, mercy and compassion.

I hear a prophet calling those unseen and marginalized, overlooked and undervalued. He speaks of dreams for a new life, a new Eden: a place of safety and equality, justice and mercy, compassion and love. Zechariah reminds us God’s promises are close, calling out for a people of heartfelt repentance, demanding the mandate from heaven be fulfilled. Will we administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another? Will we end the oppression of the widow, the fatherless, the foreigner and the poor? Will we stop plotting evil against each other? (Zechariah 7:10)

As the sons and daughters, the image-bearers of God, we embrace a Kingdom built on repentance, sacrifice, unity and justice for all, no matter the colour of their skin. We must uproot systems of oppression, injustice and dehumanization.

“Baby girl”, I hear myself say, “those red dresses remind us of women who went missing; because their skin was red, no one asked why.  Those red dresses make the invisible visible, reminding us that we must do better upturning our selfishness and becoming God’s kind of people.” I reach over and put my hand on her knee, smoothing the unseen wrinkle in her red dress.