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bossymarmalade) wrote2009-08-02 05:13 pm
bossymarmalade) wrote2009-08-02 05:13 pm
Entry tags:
int'l blog against racism week | the great (forever) white north
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.
Think of all the Canadians you know of in film or tv or books, Dudley Do-Right and Benton Fraser and Rodney McKay and Wolverine. Think of the Canadian notables you know offhand, Wayne Gretzky and Anne Murray and Pierre Trudeau and Mike Myers. Canadianness is synonymous with whiteness to much of the world (the right kind of whiteness, of course, and you're SOL if you're from Eastern Europe), and we ACTIVELY cultivate that perception through a tacit social contract to ballyhoo our "multiculturalism" while assuming white as the default.
Of course Canada isn't racist! Most of the white people here -- and some folks with internalized racism issues -- would tell you so. And it's easy to believe, because Canadians are so polite, so mild-mannered, and all the ones you know would never ever use racist slurs or anything like that. They're all like my Nice White Lady co-workers, who consciously welcome diversity and anti-racism but subconsciously are driven to point and snigger at the "blanket" a Hindu man is wearing in the park, or rave about how heroic Adrien Brody's character in Cadillac Records is because he gave all those black musicians a chance, or make a poster of all the things they'll see on vacation in Australia -- koalas, kangaroos, Aborigines.
If I want to prove my Canadianness to somebody, I talk about toques and butter tarts and Tim Horton's and Bay blankets, and I should be like Jimmy or Sally or Suzy (all of whom *must* be nice white Canadians because of their easy-to-pronounce names), and I sure as fuck shouldn't talk about eating blubber or anything weirder than poutine or ketchup chips. I should try my level best to be like that man right there, Canadian Joe, because that's what good Asian peoples do when we make an effort to excel.
There's something of a wry national in-joke that we share: no, we don't live in igloos! Not us REAL Canadians. And hey, I mean, we chose that inukshuk to be all over Vancouver as the mascot for the Olympics, that's how un-racist we are! We were kind enough to pay respect by using the wacky symbol of a people who don't even exist anymore, right? WE don't live in igloos or eat blubber!
I used to say it too. What was wrong with me, seriously? Well, it was my frantic desire to also be considered a REAL Canadian, a citizenship that has been constantly questioned by white people who weren't even fucking BORN here -- which I *was*. Mississauga General, baby. Oh, not that they wanted to insult me for being an immigrant! They just wanted to compliment me on my good English, and ask me to explain what the Indian foods on the menu are, and inform me that their niece married an Indian guy and they treat him just like everyone else because that's what makes Canada great.
Well, no. What makes Canada great to these people is that to them, Canada is white. People of colour will always, ALWAYS be assumed to be outsiders somehow, interlopers, refugees from worse countries who want to partake of Canada's wonderland of multiculturalism and gay marriage and socialized medicine. Of course Canada isn't racist, because the only people who live here -- the only full, whole, decent people who belong and are assumed Canadian with one glance -- are white people.
This post ... has been sitting as a draft for a week, because it's pretty goddamn draining to talk about this. I fucking LOVE being a Canadian, and that's why it hurts me so much to be reminded, every day in a million little ways, that my country doesn't think I'm a proper Canadian and it does its best to make sure the rest of the world doesn't either. We are basically the nation version of upper-class white liberals who talk endlessly about the starving fly-covered African children we sponsor and how we have Chinese friends (everybody said we were so open-minded for trying all the weird food at their wedding!) and how we took a class on Aboriginal Studies so we understand why Mi'kmaq men are rapists and how once we had this Guatemalan woman as a boss and she was totally racist against white people, everybody said so.
I guess you could use the comments to argue with me, if you're a Canadian and you disagree. I don't really see how you can disagree with my own personal account of how my own beloved country has made me feel, but hey, whatever. Just don't be surprised if I ignore you, because this.
Also, because I am not in the mood to educate but still feel the need to encourage further learning:
http://www.itk.ca/inuktitut-magazine
http://www.japanesecanadianhistory.net/
http://fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/~gpieters/blklinks.html
http://www.ccnc.ca/toronto/history/
Addendum: I was going to link to something about the Komagata Maru, but then I remembered my post about Kali and how people just laughed because they were all like, "Indiana Jones!" and I KNOW the same reaction of "Kobayashi Maru!" would happen in this case. Tee hee, we grabbed your culture/history and warped it for our own entertainment, so now it's hilarious that you brown people think you can try to talk about these things seriously, TEE HEE FUCKING HEE. So yeah, feel free to skip making that particular clever comment to me.
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.
Think of all the Canadians you know of in film or tv or books, Dudley Do-Right and Benton Fraser and Rodney McKay and Wolverine. Think of the Canadian notables you know offhand, Wayne Gretzky and Anne Murray and Pierre Trudeau and Mike Myers. Canadianness is synonymous with whiteness to much of the world (the right kind of whiteness, of course, and you're SOL if you're from Eastern Europe), and we ACTIVELY cultivate that perception through a tacit social contract to ballyhoo our "multiculturalism" while assuming white as the default.
Of course Canada isn't racist! Most of the white people here -- and some folks with internalized racism issues -- would tell you so. And it's easy to believe, because Canadians are so polite, so mild-mannered, and all the ones you know would never ever use racist slurs or anything like that. They're all like my Nice White Lady co-workers, who consciously welcome diversity and anti-racism but subconsciously are driven to point and snigger at the "blanket" a Hindu man is wearing in the park, or rave about how heroic Adrien Brody's character in Cadillac Records is because he gave all those black musicians a chance, or make a poster of all the things they'll see on vacation in Australia -- koalas, kangaroos, Aborigines.
If I want to prove my Canadianness to somebody, I talk about toques and butter tarts and Tim Horton's and Bay blankets, and I should be like Jimmy or Sally or Suzy (all of whom *must* be nice white Canadians because of their easy-to-pronounce names), and I sure as fuck shouldn't talk about eating blubber or anything weirder than poutine or ketchup chips. I should try my level best to be like that man right there, Canadian Joe, because that's what good Asian peoples do when we make an effort to excel.
There's something of a wry national in-joke that we share: no, we don't live in igloos! Not us REAL Canadians. And hey, I mean, we chose that inukshuk to be all over Vancouver as the mascot for the Olympics, that's how un-racist we are! We were kind enough to pay respect by using the wacky symbol of a people who don't even exist anymore, right? WE don't live in igloos or eat blubber!
I used to say it too. What was wrong with me, seriously? Well, it was my frantic desire to also be considered a REAL Canadian, a citizenship that has been constantly questioned by white people who weren't even fucking BORN here -- which I *was*. Mississauga General, baby. Oh, not that they wanted to insult me for being an immigrant! They just wanted to compliment me on my good English, and ask me to explain what the Indian foods on the menu are, and inform me that their niece married an Indian guy and they treat him just like everyone else because that's what makes Canada great.
Well, no. What makes Canada great to these people is that to them, Canada is white. People of colour will always, ALWAYS be assumed to be outsiders somehow, interlopers, refugees from worse countries who want to partake of Canada's wonderland of multiculturalism and gay marriage and socialized medicine. Of course Canada isn't racist, because the only people who live here -- the only full, whole, decent people who belong and are assumed Canadian with one glance -- are white people.
This post ... has been sitting as a draft for a week, because it's pretty goddamn draining to talk about this. I fucking LOVE being a Canadian, and that's why it hurts me so much to be reminded, every day in a million little ways, that my country doesn't think I'm a proper Canadian and it does its best to make sure the rest of the world doesn't either. We are basically the nation version of upper-class white liberals who talk endlessly about the starving fly-covered African children we sponsor and how we have Chinese friends (everybody said we were so open-minded for trying all the weird food at their wedding!) and how we took a class on Aboriginal Studies so we understand why Mi'kmaq men are rapists and how once we had this Guatemalan woman as a boss and she was totally racist against white people, everybody said so.
I guess you could use the comments to argue with me, if you're a Canadian and you disagree. I don't really see how you can disagree with my own personal account of how my own beloved country has made me feel, but hey, whatever. Just don't be surprised if I ignore you, because this.
Also, because I am not in the mood to educate but still feel the need to encourage further learning:
http://www.itk.ca/inuktitut-magazine
http://www.japanesecanadianhistory.net/
http://fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/~gpieters/blklinks.html
http://www.ccnc.ca/toronto/history/
Addendum: I was going to link to something about the Komagata Maru, but then I remembered my post about Kali and how people just laughed because they were all like, "Indiana Jones!" and I KNOW the same reaction of "Kobayashi Maru!" would happen in this case. Tee hee, we grabbed your culture/history and warped it for our own entertainment, so now it's hilarious that you brown people think you can try to talk about these things seriously, TEE HEE FUCKING HEE. So yeah, feel free to skip making that particular clever comment to me.