The not so Great Racism in Canada Thread

[lio45]

Originally Posted by someone123

There's a lot of jumping to conclusions in this thread. Say the wrong thing and you end up in the evil camp.

Well so far in my view you said enough "right" things that you ended up in "my" camp, whether or not we're the "evil" one

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by lio45

In the post just above yours I challenged anyone to find concrete examples of such changes. I'd be curious to hear yours...

(Thinking about it a tiny bit more, I wouldn't allow examples that would require reopening the Constitution or any other unrealistically high barrier to entry - it's very possible that the entirety of the sample I listed would all want an elected Senate that actually does something, but that's not a fair example.)

Haha, yes, I noticed that after I posted.

To be fair, since we both made claims, I feel like we both have some sort of burden of proof to defend our speculation. Unfortunately, the only way to really do it is to poll the named forumers (who likely have better things to do than satisfy our curiosity). Nonetheless, I feel that all of the listed forumers likely opposed the following (appreciating of course that I may well be wrong about this):

1. The amendment of Canada's national anthem lyrics from “in all thy sons command” to “in all of us command";

2. The renaming of the Langevin Block across from Parliament Hill;

3. The City of Halifax's removal of a statue of Edward Cornwallis or the City of Victoria's removal of a statue of Sir John A MacDonald (or both).

That's a start anyway.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

Actually, it's a decently reliable sample IMO.

If every single one of the SSPers I just listed was on record saying "my honest and informed opinion is that Trudeau now absolutely needs to be booted out, and I guarantee I'll be voting for MacKay/O'Toole next year" I would be willing to bet a lot on Trudeau losing the next election right there on the basis of that sample.

Name any "change" that ended up happening/prevailing in this country (legalizing weed, tightening 🞵🞵🞵 controls, not greenlighting Northern Gateway, getting rid of Harper, etc.), and I guarantee that there's at the very least a bunch of the SSPers I listed that were in favor of it. Not necessarily all, but at least some. Conversely, if they were unanimous against something, I'm sure that something never passed.

It's a pretty representative slice (of the people you need to convince in this country if you want your ideas to be implemented).

This is actually a pretty diverse group. Who do not always agree on other topics.

All of which reinforces your point.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

Haha, yes, I noticed that after I posted.

To be fair, since we both made claims, I feel like we both have some sort of burden of proof to defend our speculation. Unfortunately, the only way to really do it is to poll the named forumers (who likely have better things to do than satisfy our curiosity). Nonetheless, I feel that all of the listed forumers likely opposed the following (appreciating of course that I may well be wrong about this):

1. The amendment of Canada's national anthem lyrics from “in all thy sons command” to “in all of us command";

2. The renaming of the Langevin Block across from Parliament Hill;

3. The City of Halifax's removal of a statue of Edward Cornwallis or the City of Victoria's removal of a statue of Sir John A MacDonald (or both).

That's a start anyway.

Only one of those three is actually "legislation". The other two were decisions made in response to activist pressures and even threats and vandalism, with little to no true public debate.

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by Acajack

With all due respect I think you might be getting caught up in "the moment".

Not sure how you came to this conclusion about me or even why you would, but I tend to have a very high degree of agreement with or at least acceptance for stuff that was decided by our duly elected bodies.

The mob? Not so much.

To be clear, I didn't mean it in a pejorative sense. I disagree with plenty of decisions made by government (even the government I work for).

Originally Posted by someone123

There's a lot of jumping to conclusions in this thread. Say the wrong thing and you end up Othered.

For the record I'm 100% for police and criminal justice reform and basically just cancelling the whole war on drugs. Yet I don't agree with all of the BLM demands here in Vancouver, or in Seattle, or in Toronto (the 3 that I have read so far). I had specific complaints like "maybe this random guy with an AR-15 operating a DIY checkpoint in Capitol Hill, Seattle is not a good thing" and they turned out to be controversial. I am not even sure the pro-BLM people on here agree with all of those points. So to some degree which "camp" you're in seems to come down merely to whether you're a stickler for clarity in your social movements or not, or what you're willing to overlook to go along with the crowd, not even necessarily disagreement about how things ought to be!

Sorry if I came across as jumping to conclusions or "othering". Wasn't my intention. Just trying to argue with lio (mostly, I sheepishly admit, for the sake of arguing).

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Only one of those three is actually "legislation". The other two were decisions made in response to activist pressures and even threats and vandalism, with little to no true public debate.

Well, I referred to legislative and cultural changes. And all of those decisions were made by governments, and in the cases of the statue removals, directly by democratically elected officials.

Anyway, not sure how important any of those distinctions are to the issue we are arguing?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

Well, I referred to legislative and cultural changes. And all of those decisions were made by governments, and in the cases of the statue removals, directly by democratically elected officials.

Anyway, not sure how important any of those distinctions are to the issue we are arguing?

It matters to me inasmuch as I have said I am way more likely to be brought onside by a good honest debate by elected officials as opposed to hectoring, harassment and shaming.

[Chadillaccc]

Now that they’re executing children of colour for being... in existence... there’s no way this doesn’t end in an urban civil war of some kind. Andres Guardado was on his knees with his hands behind his head, police shot him in the back 6 times. He was 18. They then stormed a nearby shop, destroyed the exterior cameras and stole the video storage device. 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 evil pieces of 🞵🞵🞵🞵. They deserve everything bad coming to them. I don’t even 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 care if the kid did something, he’s a child, unarmed, and they executed him with his arms behind his 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 head. I’ve never expressed this sentiment outright before, but 🞵🞵🞵🞵 the police.

According to the shop owner, the kid was minding his own business before the police began chasing and opening fire.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

Well, I referred to legislative and cultural changes. And all of those decisions were made by governments, and in the cases of the statue removals, directly by democratically elected officials.

Municipal governments, though.

You could just as well have brought up the elected council of the Town of Hérouxville successfully voting to pass XYZ as your counter-example.......

Plus, as Acajack pointed out, it looked like knee-jerk pre-/no-discussion reactions in order to appease a mob - and I never said governments are above ever doing that; my point is that if you want lasting change, it does not augur well if your views are met with unanimous opposition from the somewhat diverse sample of highly-educated Canadians I was referring to.

A mob might be able to bully the City of Victoria into eliminating one Sir John A Macdonald statue under the right circumstances if the stars align for them, but you won't see Sir John A durably and permanently eliminated country-wide if the sample I'm talking about is unanimously on the side of NOT eliminating Sir John A from the scenery. That's my point.

You truly want Sir John A gone? Instead of looting and burning and throwing a tantrum, convince us.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

Wasn't my intention. Just trying to argue with lio (mostly, I sheepishly admit, for the sake of arguing).

I won't be throwing the first stone towards you for that

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

Anyway, not sure how important any of those distinctions are to the issue we are arguing?

Actually, those geographical distinctions are quite important. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if the Anglo contingent of my "sample" was unanimously against Quebec Bill 21, yet it's happening, because for it to happen, you only need (most of) Quebec on board, you don't need the rest of the country.

If on a given issue the people of Kingston thought one way and the rest of the country thought the other way, one could easily imagine it would get implemented in the City of Kingston but would never work if you tried to implement it country-wide.

In this case, my sample, containing no Kingstonians, could be unanimous against it, and it wouldn't matter from the point of view of it getting implemented there.

But what we're discussing are Canada-wide issues, IMO.

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by lio45

Actually, those geographical distinctions are quite important. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if the Anglo contingent of my "sample" was unanimously against Quebec Bill 21, yet it's happening, because for it to happen, you only need (most of) Quebec on board, you don't need the rest of the country.

If on a given issue the people of Kingston thought one way and the rest of the country thought the other way, one could easily imagine it would get implemented in the City of Kingston but would never work if you tried to implement it country-wide.

In this case, my sample, containing no Kingstonians, could be unanimous against it, and it wouldn't matter from the point of view of it getting implemented there.

But what we're discussing are Canada-wide issues, IMO.

Fair point.

Anyway, I think we've gone down a bit of a tangent here on the whole "SSP focus group of reasonable posters" issue. I'm content to drop the issue and withdraw my argument for the sake of letting this thread focus on the more substantive (and important) issues.

[savevp]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/public-service-all-white-bureaucrats-video-1.5622772

To pick things back up ...

In this evening's inevitable news, a public service cartoon will be pulled because it features dancing cartoon characters that were deemed (by online commenters) to be too old and white. Though I'm given some hope by the exceedingly reasonable and cogent exchange between pavlov, lio, and acajack, I suspect I'll more likely be called 'fragile' for expressing profound disapproval that such an innocent video as this should be the target of censorship. This will undoubtedly be the last time anyone makes the mistake of not drawing gender balanced and racially diverse cartoons to provide a brief moment of levity.

Unfortunately even a single voice expressing outrage often carries more volume than the appeal for reason of a million. Personally I find this online cancel culture more sinister than the statue iconoclasm. Pulling down statues is a simplistic act of rebellion toward a symbol, it's when the mob (whether real or perceived) can exert control over films, books, and other media that we really fall down the wormhole. In my opinion.

[vid]

Pretty glaring considering every time I've been at a minister's press conference here in Thunder Bay, we have to wait until the Muslim family is in position to take the photos that go with the press release. I guess the bureaucracy is less diverse than their photos imply, or the press agency they got to make that doesn't know how to draw non-white people?

[savevp]

Originally Posted by vid

I guess the bureaucracy is less diverse than their photos imply,

The CBC article says the public service (federal) is at 16% persons of colour, so yeah probably not the mosaic they like to show off. Of course that's only one definition of diversity. Still, it should be interesting to see every token diverse person represented in the redone video, if it comes out. I suspect they will need a much larger group of dancing cartoon civil servants to get it right

[someone123]

Originally Posted by savevp

The CBC article says the public service (federal) is at 16% persons of colour

As usual they talk about percentages without giving context.

To be able to say if the hiring is biased or not you need to know how long the workforce has been employed and what the population (or pool of applicants) looked like over time.

We shouldn't expect the demographics of senior federal bureaucrats to reflect the demographics of 2020, we should expect them to match the local demographics of 2000 or earlier.

Often the hiring quotas are unfair because they bias the hiring of one group now against the historical hiring of another group. Imagine the hypothetical scenario:

1. You live in a town with 5,000 purple people. You hire 100 purple people to work in your business. Your hiring is unbiased; hiring perfectly matches town and applicant demographics.
2. 5,000 orange people move to town.
3. WTF, your workforce is 100% purple while your town is 50/50 orange/purple!
4. You aim for a 50/50 workforce. You hire orange people when the old purple workers retire. Your hiring bias is now perfectly anti-purple (purple people have no hope of being hired; there is a moratorium on hiring them until your orange quota is met).

A "fair" system (assuming purple and orange people are both equally qualified) will end up with 50/50 hiring, and the workforce will only match the makeup of the community if the workforce has completely turned over, assuming the community makeup is static. If the community makeup keeps changing the hired workforce may never match it.

[rousseau]

"You don't find much wokery in France." Anglo identitarianism is the legacy of Puritanism.

https://youtu.be/dSLZHnpt-RQ?t=1694

"Have you ever been to Ottawa? Ottawa is totally fascinating." Didn't see that coming.

https://youtu.be/dSLZHnpt-RQ?t=1962

[lio45]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/business/land-o-lakes-butter.html

https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?p=8959274#post8959274

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by rousseau

"You don't find much wokery in France." Anglo identitarianism is the legacy of Puritanism.

https://youtu.be/dSLZHnpt-RQ?t=1694

The left in Catholic countries is, very broadly speaking, more collectivist and redistribution-focused. Protestantism's focus on individual interpretation leads to the creation of conceptual identities, which then contend for space (e.g. denominations). It is easier to observe Toronto's norms in Stockholm or Amsterdam than in Warsaw or Naples. We sometimes forget this history, but it has not forgotten us.

[kool maudit]

Tying that into the general theme of this thread, while movements in support of ethnic minorities exist wherever that circumstance is meaningfully present, the current wave of iconoclasm seems entirely Protestant for obvious reasons.