The not so Great Racism in Canada Thread

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by savevp

Trying to highlight anti-Francophone racism in the current climate is a sisyphean task. No matter how much you employ logic or reason, your views will never hold water in woke circles for the simple reason that French Canada has a white, European background. It therefore occupies an immutable spot on the 'wrong' side. It's the same reason Jews are frequently targeted by progressive politicians. The white group will always be considered the racist oppressors

Modern progressive identity politics file groups into either the victim or oppressor category solely based on skin colour. There is no changing sides and no room for nuance. White people, according to progressive logic, are invariably racist and cannot leave that category. At best they can be woke allies but must always wear the shameful dogtag of being irredeemable racists.

Perhaps once the true aim of many (not all) of woke progressives is reached, namely anarcho-marxism, white people will stop being treated as universally racist by groups like BLM.

Wonderful post!!!

You have summed up the anarcho-Marxist ideology underlying the woke left perfectly. These are the people subverting (and waylaying) the legitimate frustration and anger of the BLM movement.

These activists have no interest in seeking an accord with the authorities, and preventing black oppression and discrimination. Their goal is nothing less than the destruction of western society as we know it.

I disagree though that once the woke objectives of the progressive elites are reached that they will stop viewing white people as universally racist. As far as many of these radicals are concerned, the old stock anglophone and francophone Canadian population has to atone for the sins of the last 400 years, and we will therefore be made to pay for at least the next 400 years (or longer). Old stock Canadians after all are irredeemable..........

[someone123]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Their goal is nothing less than the destruction of western society as we know it.

I don't think Western society is going to be destroyed but I think we're in a somewhat unhinged social period, similar to the Red Scare period of the 1940's and 50's. Many lives and careers are being damaged or destroyed for no good reason, and a lot of social harm is being caused unintentionally as dogma and suspicion create rifts between groups.

The worst social rift is perhaps that heterosexual men are leaving the dating pool and are becoming less attractive partners as their economic prospects diminish. Even though many women are enthusiastic #metoo supporters, and 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 harassment and assault are real and damaging phenomena, it is still important for most women to be able to find good male partners.

I think social media had a huge sudden impact that society has not properly adapted to. We have not adjusted our norms to account for the fact that we have a greater view into people's lives than ever before and so much of it is part of the permanent record. Outrage archaeology and permanent recording of impulsive outbursts are not good for society yet we have not found a social antidote to it; the only answer on the internet is to demand perfection and cancel anybody you disagree with. "Virality" also causes problems; the visibility into one-off events occurring around the world is new and we need to think about them differently to put them into their proper context as rare exceptions rather than norms.

The pandemic has made all of this worse.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by Acajack

But the thing is that there *are* francophones who are offended by these things.

Just because Lio doesn't care doesn't mean they don't. Or that their feelings are less valid than his.

Applying your own logic (yet again), this isn't about Lio not caring or Jos-Louis Latrémouille caring a whole lot. It's about people saying inappropriate and insensitive things to Québécois people in their midst - when they shouldn't. People's reactions aren't the determining factor on whether something is acceptable or not. (Especially not when some people may have internalized an inferiority complex due to multi-generational mistreatment. Again, this is taken almost chapter and verse from the playbook of people who think like you do.)

Think of Lio as a Québécois Candace Owens and it all becomes perfectly clear.

Cool.

Lio is not offended and gave no specific examples, so this means what?

If someone has genuine concerns about anti-Québecois sentiment here, I support them. I haven't experienced that in the Lower Mainland but that does mean I believe it can't or doesn't exist. I specifically referred to my own bubble.

I am not here for your twisted hypotheticals. But yes, by Lio's logic he shouldn't care because he doesn't care about other groups in those situations, so at least his lack of empathy has some consistency.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Their goal is nothing less than the destruction of western society as we know it.

I would hate to be stuck in a real crisis or difficult situation with you. Your melodrama would drive me crazy.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by savevp

Trying to highlight anti-Francophone racism in the current climate is a sisyphean task. No matter how much you employ logic or reason, your views will never hold water in woke circles for the simple reason that French Canada has a white, European background. It therefore occupies an immutable spot on the 'wrong' side. It's the same reason Jews are frequently targeted by progressive politicians. The white group will always be considered the racist oppressors

Modern progressive identity politics file groups into either the victim or oppressor category solely based on skin colour. There is no changing sides and no room for nuance. White people, according to progressive logic, are invariably racist and cannot leave that category. At best they can be woke allies but must always wear the shameful dogtag of being irredeemable racists.

Perhaps once the true aim of many (not all) of woke progressives is reached, namely anarcho-marxism, white people will stop being treated as universally racist by groups like BLM.

Except this is all your own fantasy. Who here has denied that anti-francophone sentiment exists? No one I can recall.

I just said I haven't experienced it in the Lower Mainland within my own bubble.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by someone123

The worst social rift is perhaps that heterosexual men are leaving the dating pool and are becoming less attractive partners as their economic prospects diminish. Even though many women are enthusiastic #metoo supporters, and 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 harassment and assault are real and damaging phenomena, it is still important for most women to be able to find good male partners.

This is hilarious.

You sound like one of those incel trolls we hear about.

The straight "woke" women I know aren't generally single. They have met men who are evolved and most of all just good people.

[dleung]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

Except this is all your own fantasy. Who here has denied that anti-francophone sentiment exists? No one I can recall.
I just said I haven't experienced it in the Lower Mainland within my own bubble.

Don't take the bait. Nothing good comes from the rabbit hole of "all anecdotes are valid" - it's just another of many ways they try to diminish the statistical fact of minorities facing discrimination. In a 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 orientation context, it's like a straight guy denying the issue of homophobia by saying that some gays call him a "breeder". Straight pride!

Anti-Quebec sentiment is well known, and that's almost entirely rooted in the threat of separation and the country's affirmative action for QC's self-imposed economic disadvantages. Discrimination against individual francophones, I've never heard of. Just about anywhere in this country being bilingual in both official languages is a win.

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by dleung

Anti-Quebec sentiment is well known, and that's almost entirely rooted in the threat of separation and the country's affirmative action for QC's self-imposed economic disadvantages. Discrimination against individual francophones, I've never heard of. Just about anywhere in this country being bilingual in both official languages is a win

Acajack has specifically referenced his own stories of being treated that way though. Obviously it's something that is going to be more prevalent where there is a nexus of anglophone and francophone populations, which one does not find across the country.

[CivicBlues]

Hilarious the usual francophone cabal is trying to equate their experiences with POC. Absolutely abysmal it's taking up the vast majority of discussion in this thread as of late.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by dleung

Discrimination against individual francophones, I've never heard of. Just about anywhere in this country being bilingual in both official languages is a win.

Francophone doesn't mean bilingual. There are lots of unilingual Francophones, just as there are unilingual Anglophones. If you only speak English in Canada, you have much better economic prospects than if you only speak French.

Of course this doesn't mean that Francophones represent a hard done by victim group in modern Canada. But I am not sure anybody has asserted that. I do think that Francophones in Canada may sometimes have personal insight into what it's like to be a minority.

[CivicBlues]

Unilingual Francophones discriminated against with respect to job prospects? Oh no what ever can they do to alleviate this gross injustice besides oh, I don't know, learning English?

Much easier than say, a POC changing their skin colour, donchathink?

[someone123]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

You sound like one of those incel trolls we hear about.

I'm not an incel and I have no skin in the straight dating game. You like to engage in ad hominem attacks but you don't have a good track record in identifying what the people you think you have no common ground with opinion-wise are like. You debate more like a prosecutor in a court room than somebody who's open to having a conversation.

My point is that divisiveness or 🞵🞵🞵/gender wars are not necessarily even that helpful for most women since they would like to have good male partners. Excesses in the #metoo movement can easily backfire.

The dynamic with anti-racism isn't all that dissimilar. We all need to get along, and in our day to day lives we mostly interact as individuals one on one in mundane situations. The George Floyd scenario, while tragic, is not a norm of interaction. I think there is something to be said for bringing the temperature of interaction down. It is not even clear that making people obsess about racial or other prejudice helps them in interacting with members of other groups. I believe that engagement with others as individuals is better for fairness than identity group based thinking. This has been demonstrated in some of the studies on implicit biases and anti-prejudice messaging.

[savevp]

Originally Posted by CivicBlues

Hilarious the usual francophone cabal is trying to equate their experiences with POC. Absolutely abysmal it's taking up the vast majority of discussion in this thread as of late.

And here is a fine example of what I referenced. Somehow if Francophones decry racism it's hilarious and easily dismissed as the whingeing of a 'cabal.'

Why is it that some groups experiencing racism are a deceptive cabal but other racism is valid? Skin colour is not a satisfactory answer.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by CivicBlues

Unilingual Francophones discriminated against with respect to job prospects? Oh no what ever can they do to alleviate this gross injustice besides oh, I don't know, learning English?

Much easier than say, a POC changing their skin colour, donchathink?

I think the Francophone stuff gets a lot of airtime on SSP Canada and we don't need to obsess about it (although it's a big part of what Canada is). What you've suggested here though is a bit of a fiction.

If you grow up in a Francophone area with a French sounding last name to boot it's unlikely you'll ever "pass" as an Anglophone accent-wise. And learning professional quality English is very difficult, even with an accent, just as it's hard for Anglophones to learn French for a professional setting. Almost nobody does it. At best you tend to find semi-bilingual folks who are hired because of their mother tongue and ability to translate.

The people raised in a bilingual environment who can pass in both worlds have an advantage for sure. But this overlapping group is only a small percentage of the population of Canada. Usually if you encounter somebody who speaks both English and French as well as native speakers, they were raised speaking both languages, and they don't represent an attainable goal of bilingual language skill for a unilingual adult.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by savevp

And here is a fine example of what I referenced. Somehow if Francophones decry racism it's hilarious and easily dismissed as the whingeing of a 'cabal.'

Why is it that some groups experiencing racism are a deceptive cabal but other racism is valid? Skin colour is not a satisfactory answer.

Likewise, I have been quite dismissive historically of gripes from anglophones in Quebec (especially when the word "racism" comes out, which TBQH it often has from them).

But "because it's 2020", if you asked me about this today I would probably have a different view.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

I'm not an incel and I have no skin in the straight dating game. .

Knowing what I know about you, I have to admit I had a bit of a chuckle imagining you as an "incel" advocating for the caveman who needs a good woman, and little bo-peep waiting around for prince charming.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by savevp

It's the same reason Jews are frequently targeted by progressive politicians. .

Regarding Jews, there have been a few weird things in the New York Times (of all places) recently.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by someone123

Francophone doesn't mean bilingual. There are lots of unilingual Francophones, just as there are unilingual Anglophones. If you only speak English in Canada, you have much better economic prospects than if you only speak French.

Of course this doesn't mean that Francophones represent a hard done by victim group in modern Canada. But I am not sure anybody has asserted that. I do think that Francophones in Canada may sometimes have personal insight into what it's like to be a minority.

I agree with all of this.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

But "because it's 2020", if you asked me about this today I would probably have a different view.

I don't get the sense that anybody suggested that Francophones are particularly hard done by, but rather that we have different standards for what counts as discrimination or historical injustice against different groups in popular culture.

It's interesting to me because it's an area I am familiar with and I can weigh it against the abstract idea that we should base our sense of the level of discrimination against groups on subjective experience or the subjective impact of history on the modern collective psyche.

Francophones are absolutely a historically aggrieved party in Canada; they were conquered by the British. Yet this needs to be put in the context of objective measures of where Francophones are relative to other Canadians, not just how loudly Francophones complain. And frankly a lot of the loudest Francophone complainers are, in my opinion, out to lunch about what will actually be good for Francophones.

There are people who demand reparations for the Acadian explusion, or want to call it genocide. Queen Elizabeth issued a royal proclamation in 2003 to apologize. This is not a manufactured or fictional issue.

I am also skeptical of the claim that we should think of prejudice and its impacts as solipsistic (or some identity-group-level variant). I think a lot of people can relate to the struggles of others, even if they are not all exactly the same. The hypothetical Perfectly Advantaged individual of 2020, the attractive and well-off straight cisgender white and culturally-native male, makes up but a tiny percentage of the Canadian population. And chances are that even people in that group know what it's like to be on the wrong end of a power dynamic within some context. Nobody's in control all the time.

[CivicBlues]

Originally Posted by savevp

And here is a fine example of what I referenced. Somehow if Francophones decry racism it's hilarious and easily dismissed as the whingeing of a 'cabal.'

Why is it that some groups experiencing racism are a deceptive cabal but other racism is valid? Skin colour is not a satisfactory answer.

Because language discrimination is not racism? Prove me wrong once a Francophone is physically assaulted for merely existing in an Anglophone realm. Or when they're brutalized by the RCMP at higher than normal rates.

But but...they're passed up for jobs because they don't speak English or they're accent is too strong if they do speak it. Oh my now we're bringing in accents. That's totally not something immigrant POCs face at all! Fun useless fact, my last employer in Vancouver had a very high immigrant contingent (many from Europe) and even a lady from Quebec. So much so that frequently I found myself the only born-in-Canada (albeit POC) person at meetings or at lunches. They all had accents and when it came to ordering I frequently noticed servers taken aback at my flawless English after having delt with a whole table of ESL Europeans. BTW, I don't think any of them were held back because of their accent - Quebecois or otherwise.

This line of discussion is so utterly tone deaf I'm surprised that it hasn't been picked up by some left-leaning website and ridiculed. Perhaps mods should change this to "The not so great language discrimination in Canada thread" to nip it in the bud.