The not so Great Racism in Canada Thread

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Why would that be a more a foundational moment for the USA as a whole than, say, Jamestown?

You'd have to ask the people behind the project. Are they claiming slavery is the foundation of America? For the South I could see a good case being made but for the North? If this is what they're claiming I can see why the project is/was so controversial.

[vid]

Most of the North banned slavery before Canada did. Canadian slaves fled Canada for freedom in the US from 1780 (when it was abolished in Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine, and the Michigan territory) to 1834 (when it was abolished in most of the British empire).

But, overall, slavery in the South was a major driver of the American economy.

[Antigonish]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

Unless you are far more powerful and influential than I am, I sincerely doubt that anyone is personally blaming you for the flaws in our society's largest, oldest, and most important institutions.

Think again. The institutional narrative says otherwise. Look at the Bloc MP who called out Singh - I guess he is a racist Quebecois for questioning the narrative.

The burden is on the accuser. Claiming the RCMP is systemically racist means the RCMP (or OPP for that matter) have a quota with arrests for black Torontonians over their white neighbours, but you, I, or Singh can't prove that, it's merely a hunch so lets just claim it otherwise. If you disagree then lets ruin that person's life.

That's what we are dealing with. That's why my stance is what it is. Because if I don't then I will be criminalized (socially) for not towing the narrative. Keep an eye out on how things have digressed. You may be a progressive person, but the second you stand your ground is the second your life as you know it ends.

This isn't about justice, it is about submission. Don't be a fool about what is happening.

[Wigs]

Originally Posted by vid

Most of the North banned slavery before Canada did. Canadian slaves fled Canada for freedom in the US from 1780 (when it was abolished in Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine, and the Michigan territory) to 1834 (when it was abolished in most of the British empire).

But, overall, slavery in the South was a major driver of the American economy.

Related article

[vid]

Originally Posted by Antigonish

Claiming the RCMP is systemically racist means the RCMP (or OPP for that matter) have a quota with arrests for black Torontonians over their white neighbours

No, it doesn't mean that. It means that there is an implicit bias in policing as a profession that sees them act disproportionately violent toward non-white people. There is no objective quote. Police training over the decades simply bred a culture where non-whites were treated with more suspicion and targeted more often for arrest. Systemic racism in policing also includes the "snitches get stitches" culture that occurs among police, wherein a police officer who calls out another for behaving inappropriately is considered to have acted more wrongly than the officer who was behaving inappropriately. Whistleblowing in policing is discouraged.

Originally Posted by Antigonish

That's why my stance is what it is. Because if I don't then I will be criminalized (socially) for not towing the narrative.

You're arguing against a strawman. The person taking you out of the narrative is you.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Lol, there aren’t statues of Hitler and other Nazi officials all over 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 Germany, yet we still all know they were genocidal maniacs who tried to enslave the planet. I think we’ll be fine once all the statues of a few dozen lazy, slave-owning, indigenous brutalizing douchebags are melted down and remoulded into statues relevant to social progress.

But who is to make the decision and what they deem as what the public should or should not see? Who is to decide what and what is not offensive?

Some Native people may view Canada's entire Parliament as a reflection of their dominance and destruction of Native culture, so do we rip the whole thing down? Should every statue, painting, and public tribute towards any of our past leaders or politicians who did not implement SSM be destroyed under the veil that they were hence homophobic? Should we tear up our CN rail thru BC because it was built on the blood of imported Chinese labour? Does Regina now have to rename itself due to it's reflection of monarchy and the colonialism that someone may find offensive? Hell, should we be bulldozing all our of churches and religious institutions due to their moral foundations being built upon sexism or racism?

Where do we start and, more importantly, when does it end?

[savevp]

Originally Posted by vid

You're arguing against a strawman. The person taking you out of the narrative is you.

Is it a strawman though? Maybe for the average bloke posting in his own social media echo chamber, it's not too bad, but what public figure dares make a reasonable argument against certain tenets of the current dogma? To suggest systemic racism doesn't exist is career suicide and social exile, ditto if you were to refuse to kneel as a Premier Leaguer, or for some to not change their profile pictures on the Blackout Tuesday. Or of course voting against certain parliamentary motions, as is both your right and responsibility. But if it's counter to the current dogma, you're instantly a racist.

Even liking tweets opposed to BLM will end your career now. These actions or statements aren't inherently racist, even if they are counter to the general 'cause.' But these days, as a public figure, to even suggest your objection to dogma is to instantly become the worst kind of racist. Can you imagine what would happen if John Tavares, for example, claimed Toronto was a city that didn't systemically discriminate against Black people? That statement would cost him his Leafs captaincy and maybe his career. Even if wrong, it's a reasonable statement that at least warrants refutation, rather than immediate social expulsion.

[savevp]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Does St. Catherines now have to change it's name due to it's religious conatations

No, but St. Catharines* does because no one can spell it properly

That aside, you've hit the nail on the head as to why many people fear and resent the current climate of iconoclasm.

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by Acajack

If I understand the rationale behind 1619 and wanting it to replace 1776, should it not be 1607?

I think that's the year (1619) slaves were brought to the US.

The core of project is to revise the conventional narratives about the causes of the American Revolution and the raison d'etat of the US by arguing that it was all due to slavery. That is, the American Revolution happened because they thought that the UK was going to abolish slavery, and that therefore the whole purpose of establishing the Union was to preserve slavery. Basically, USA = CSA.

It is highly contested by many scholars, including Black scholars.

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by vid

I've explained before my philosophy on what it is to be an ally: to take the rage and anger and desperation of the oppressed, and understand what their needs are, and then translate that into something white people can listen to without getting scared. White people feel that if they were oppressed, they'd want revenge. Minorities don't want revenge, they just want the same opportunities and treatment that white people are already giving to each other.

I don't accept this as the right framework to use when thinking about how we can be good humans who help the less fortunate.

We are individual human beings first and foremost. Many minorities live happy, fulfilling, prosperous lives; in other words, privileged lives. Many white people lead lives of desperation and despair; so many of the homeless people I encounter are white. These people have no privilege.

It's not minorities vs. Whites = oppressed vs. Oppressors. This is a toxic paradigm to view our society with. It is extremely divisive and we're seeing the effects of just that. People hate right wing populism and its associated White nationalism, but promoting this kind of toxic framework is the fuel for the formation of that kind of White nationalism. It's an understandable response, and one that we're seeing in many countries (including non-White countries).

It is better to view it as a collective endeavor to help the less fortunate. Immutable characteristics can in some cases exacerbate things, but the goal should be to help the worse off in our society regardless of their race or religion or whatever. This may disproportionately mean helping minorities, and if that's the case, then great maybe it's win-win.

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

I think that's the year (1619) slaves were brought to the US.

The core of project is to revise the conventional narratives about the causes of the American Revolution and the raison d'etat of the US by arguing that it was all due to slavery. That is, the American Revolution happened because they thought that the UK was going to abolish slavery, and that therefore the whole purpose of establishing the Union was to preserve slavery. Basically, USA = CSA.

It is highly contested by many scholars, including Black scholars.

I mean, the British attempt to restrict the ability of American colonists to steal native land (with the 1763 Royal Proclamation and the 1774 Quebec Act) was one of the things the Americans revolted over..

That said, the slavery thing is a stretch.

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by rousseau

If you look closely at those stats you'll see that some of them are unbalanced in favour of African Americans.

Is BLM the answer for making more progress? I think the evidence weighs more heavily in it being detrimental.

You are only making this worse for yourself.

At tomorrow's struggle session at Trinity Bellwoods, we will make you atone by washing Black people's feet.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

But to be fair, you spend vastly more time and energy posting about your disagreement re the extreme fringe "SJW" rhetoric than you do posting about your agreement with the non-extreme criticisms of the status quo shared by the vast majority of people (like me) who generally support concerns about discrimination and inequality in our society. So I don't think it is that surprising that some posters "jump to conclusions".

(And for the record, as I think you know, I value you as a poster - for what little that is worth to you!)

I don't think we can draw much valid conclusions by weighing a SSPer's various fields of activity against each other. The different sizes of each of those will be mostly a result of happenstance (if a conversation happens to start on X then there will be a bunch of posting about X) over anything else, and will have little correlation with the real weighing of priorities.

Looking (for example) at MolsonEx's recent posting history, one could "jump to the conclusion" that he finds unidriveways or the looks of Laval's Résidence Soleil to be issues of much greater import than, say, pipelines/the Alberta Tarsands, or Trump as the Leader of the Free World.

If you stop and think about it though, clearly that can't be the case. It just looks that way at first sight because he happens to mostly post about these things, for whatever reason. (This forum is a hobby for most of us; we don't have to justify anything.)

So, to sum it up - anything I say here is what I really think, but there's no real way for you guys to know how truly devoted I am to whatever it is I'm saying. (Unless you ask That's the way to know.)

For a real-life example, recall when the city of Brantford, Ontario decided to raze one side of its main street? It got discussed on SSP before anything really happened. I was extremely vocal against it (still think it was a horrifically stupid thing to do) but in the end part of me figured "well, it's their city, if they want to destroy it, why should I let this affect me?" and I did not lift a finger to try to do anything against it - I contented myself with (a decent amount of) ranting online about how dumb it was. Meanwhile in real life I was doing various things to advance whatever my priorities of the time were.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

You are only making this worse for yourself.

At tomorrow's struggle session at Trinity Bellwoods, we will make you atone by washing Black people's feet.

The irony is, some of the people getting their feet washed should be the ones doing the feet washing of GTAians of southernmost India ancestry as the latter have darker skin than them.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by vid

Why did the terrorist attack happen? What was the ideological root of the terrorist's motive?

The Flying Spaghetti Monster demanded that all infidels be killed.

I bet it was similar to all the others. That's where the solution lies.

What's the solution? (A total Muslim Travel Ban? ... what else?)

If all we discuss is how the family should react to the terrorist attack, then we leave the door open for more terrorist attacks. They could forgive the attacker and become best friends with his whole family, and terrorist attacks will still happen until the root cause of the attack is identified and solved.

The root cause is identified, but it's not that easy to solve (while still remaining the Good Guys, that is).

[Xelebes]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

You are only making this worse for yourself.

At tomorrow's struggle session at Trinity Bellwoods, we will make you atone by washing Black people's feet.

I'm just letting you know this is a religious ceremony and not a political protest.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by vid

You need to give some more specific examples of where and how my ideas are ideological intolerance that will result in a more racist, segregated, and divided society than the one we currently live in.

It's likely that no two people who've participated in this thread so far have the exact same opinion on every facet of these movements and events that we're currently seeing, so to be fair to you, I can't be sure that you specifically advocate for some of the more idiotic BLM ideas of June 2020 that would result in a more racist, less colorblind, and definitely more segregated society if implemented.

I totally support the idea of intervening to help disfavored youth (regardless of the color of their skin and their ethnicity/status) because I think we can all agree that one dollar spent there will likely save us ten down the road. You're doing the right thing there and every city should be doing this. (Though it can't replace policing, obviously.)

(Same phenomenon with health care - many times, if we save one buck by not nipping something in the bud, it will cost us ten in more serious health issues later. It's also typical in business/industry - cut costs in the wrong place and you'll pay for it 10x later.)

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by Xelebes

I'm just letting you know this is a religious ceremony and not a political protest.

Read the context for yourself.

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa...09-yl4gmoau4nclvgndlldgeqlj3y-story.html

It seems like whites washing black feet for atonement to me.

Great ritual for the struggle sessions.

[saffronleaf]

Originally Posted by lio45

The irony is, some of the people getting their feet washed should be the ones doing the feet washing of GTAians of southernmost India ancestry as the latter have darker skin than them.

Good idea. I'll let Rousseau know for his struggle session tomorrow.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by saffronleaf

Good idea. I'll let Rousseau know for his struggle session tomorrow.

I've been reading on Indian history lately (fascinating subject BTW - my interest was piqued by having so many employees who are fresh from India, mostly students) and I think that YOU will need to atone for your ancestors' sins by washing some Malaysian and Indonesian feet