Today's News: "Home On Native Land"

Yes, "home on Native land" is exactly right. Some Canadians may be freaking out about this national anthem version at the NBA All-Star game, but I think it's perfectly justified:

“Our home ON native land” -@JullyBlack 🙌🏽 pic.twitter.com/SMoxKHkMPE

— Andrew Baback Boozary MD (@drandrewb) February 20, 2023

The Toronto Star reports on the background:

 ...In an interview with TSN reporter Kayla Grey, Black said she had reached out to Indigenous friends for feedback, and landed on this version of the song. 

Eva Jewell, the research director at Indigenous-led research centre Yellowhead Institute, said she was “heartened” to see her rendition. 

“Indigenous Peoples have been saying that line for decades actually — this is something that is known within our communities,” Jewell said. “So, to see Jully uplift that into the national anthem … it showed me that she has seen us, she understands us; she gets it.”

 ... Hearing it performed this way, though, is powerful, she said. 

 “I think that changing that word and being very explicit about settler colonialism is a pause for reflection amongst the Canadian public,” she said. “Too often, the Canadian state is normalized as just being a fact, and that small word change would call that into question and be really explicit about that pre-existing world of the Indigenous countries that were here before Canada violently stole our lands.”

Jully Back did Canada a solid with an apparently insignificant change to our National Anthem. Our collective journey has many more lessons to learn. "Our home and native land" shall forever be "our home ON Native land". Make it official, @JustinTrudeau https://t.co/JNDul6RPU5

— Nancy Crouse (@Nancy_Crouse) February 20, 2023