What We Buried: Truth, Denial, and the Settler Reckoning

Content Warning: This episode includes discussion of residential schools, colonial violence, and denialism. Listener discretion is advised.

This episode discusses the legacy of residential schools and critiques efforts to deny or distort that history. It draws on survivor testimony, historical research, and public statements. All efforts have been made to represent the facts responsibly.

In May 2021, the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Nation announced the results of a ground survey near the former Kamloops Indian Residential School: 215 potential graves. The country responded with grief, memorials, and lowered flags—but soon, the backlash began. Survivors were doubted. Experts were questioned. Politicians and pundits called it an overreaction.

This episode pulls back the curtain on that backlash—and goes deeper. We explore not just the reaction to Kamloops, but the much longer history of denial that made it possible. Survivors have been telling these stories for generations. So why haven’t settlers listened?

We’ll talk about the emotional patterns of minimization, distancing, deflection—and the fear that underlies them. And we’ll reflect on what it means to move from silence to responsibility.

Featuring the voices of survivors like Evelyn Camille, this episode is a call to listen harder, to resist denial in all its forms, and to begin the real work of reckoning.