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Fair warning: Astonishingly -- even though for some white people that's the big problem with ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ibarw -- I don't care if you are offended by my 'tone'.
After a thwarted attempt to visit the Othello Tunnels (not my photos, those were taken by an incredibly talented RL friend) for my mum's birthday, the fam finally managed to get there on Monday. As you can tell by the photos, the place is stunning; what was less admirable was the way that none of the informational signage along the path mentioned anything about the thousands of Chinese labourers who actually did all the hard work. One would think from reading the signs that Andrew McCulloch had done all the tunnelling himself. One would think that it was obviously heroic white men who dangled from a rope ladder over the side of the cliff, stuffing dynamite into a hole and scrambling back before the explosion went off, instead of disposable "coolie" workers.
This is the kind of absence that means that people feel secure in making this kind of statement:
"Yes, the Irish assimilated, but that's because they made an effort to excel, despite the odds against them. Many East Asian peoples are doing the same even now through equivalent or greater efforts ... as are various other peoples, including some immigrants with way more melanin than anyone who was born here, who have noticeable accents."
Clearly this is a profoundly ignorant thing to say, but what supports and encourages this thinking is the absolute lack of support by governmental infrastructure in North America when it comes to acknowledging the contributions of chromatic peoples. Canada is particularly insidious when it comes to this, because like all good peaceful neutral nations, we claim that there's no racism here. Do you know why we get away with such a blatant lie?
( Because Canada is white. )
ibarw -- I don't care if you are offended by my 'tone'.After a thwarted attempt to visit the Othello Tunnels (not my photos, those were taken by an incredibly talented RL friend) for my mum's birthday, the fam finally managed to get there on Monday. As you can tell by the photos, the place is stunning; what was less admirable was the way that none of the informational signage along the path mentioned anything about the thousands of Chinese labourers who actually did all the hard work. One would think from reading the signs that Andrew McCulloch had done all the tunnelling himself. One would think that it was obviously heroic white men who dangled from a rope ladder over the side of the cliff, stuffing dynamite into a hole and scrambling back before the explosion went off, instead of disposable "coolie" workers.
This is the kind of absence that means that people feel secure in making this kind of statement:
"Yes, the Irish assimilated, but that's because they made an effort to excel, despite the odds against them. Many East Asian peoples are doing the same even now through equivalent or greater efforts ... as are various other peoples, including some immigrants with way more melanin than anyone who was born here, who have noticeable accents."
Clearly this is a profoundly ignorant thing to say, but what supports and encourages this thinking is the absolute lack of support by governmental infrastructure in North America when it comes to acknowledging the contributions of chromatic peoples. Canada is particularly insidious when it comes to this, because like all good peaceful neutral nations, we claim that there's no racism here. Do you know why we get away with such a blatant lie?
( Because Canada is white. )
