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8 Movie Friday: Jay Smooth

December 2, 2011
by Crommunist
· anti-racism · blog · movie · race · racism

It’s always a happy coincidence when I find out there’s someone else out there who I hadn’t heard of, but who’s saying the same stuff I am. It brings me great joy.

Jay Smooth is doing exactly what I think everyone should be doing – talking about race – and perhaps more importantly, talking about how to talk about race. My experience running this blog for the past 20 months and the impetus for starting it in the first place is that I think people want to talk about this stuff, they just feel uncomfortable. Learning the language is part of starting the discussion.

Anyway, this video pretty much states exactly what I was trying to get across with my “You’re not ‘a racist’, you’re just racist” post, but with far more class. Enjoy the clip!

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48 “Colour blindness” is a disability

December 1, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · psychology · race · racism

*I am being asked to check my ableist privilege in the comments because of my use of the term ‘disability’ in the title. While I disagree that my intended use of the term is ableist, I am also aware that intent is unimportant. The context in which I am attempting to use the word is to contrast it with the idea that colour blindness is better than colour awareness, and that adopting a posture of being less able to see it is negative because it robs one of the ability to see if when appropriate. My apologies if this use is pejorative. I will avoid using the term without context in the future.

I am reasonably fluent in English, which is lucky since it is the language of the internet. Sometimes, however, I wish I was more fluent in other languages as well. Not simply because I enjoy the phonics of exotic locales, although I definitely do. Not simply because there are some phrases (or bon mots, if you will) that can only be expressed in their native tongue, although that is certainly true. Not simply to appear more classy and well-traveled than I am, although that would be nice. No, the principal reason I wish I spoke more languages was so that I would have enough words to heap my contempt upon the idea of “colour blindness”.

Colour blindness is an arch-liberal invention that seems to be largely built from ignorance and guilt. The supposed ideal behaviour is to behave as though you do not see racial differences between people, so that you will treat everyone equally regardless of their ethnicity. Sounds pretty harmless, right? For those of you unfamiliar with my stance on this particular attitude, the reason colour blindness fails as a useful method of achieving racial harmony is that it tends to blind people (white people principally) to instances of both covert and overt racism. Race has a real impact, and failing to recognize the role it plays in our interactions only serves to mask it behind good intentions rather than exposing it to the scrutiny it requires.

As I discussed this morning, there are types of racism that cannot be solved by simply wishing them away or attributing them to malice from “racists”. Racism should not be treated as merely a personal character flaw of a handful of backward people, but as a topic of conversation for all people to engage in and explore. It’s already happening in some (perhaps) unlikely places: … Continue Reading

8 Lowering tide sinks some boats more than others

December 1, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · First Nations · race · racism

“A rising tide raises all boats” is a common bromide found in political lexicon. If you ask a liberal, the phrase is meant to illustrate the fact that improving public services benefits the rich as well as the poor. If you ask a conservative, the phrase is meant to illustrate the fact that programs designed to benefit the creation of wealth through private sector innovation will have ripple effects that increases wealth in the population at large. Whichever interpretation you favour (be it the liberal one or the incorrect one), I suppose the point of convergence is that making economic improvements has broad-reaching benefits for many levels of society.

The problem with this aphorism is that it simplifies the ‘rise’ far too much. It gallingly neglects the fact that not all of those boats are raised the same amount. Ideally, programs that are designed to raise boats will do so in a roughly equal way (or, better, in an equitable way based on merit). The reality is that, depending on the nature of the program, some boats get catapulted into the stratosphere while others just bob in place. The increasing disparity in incomes that is currently part of the focus of the Occupy movement is evidence that it is possible to raise some boats while letting others get capsized.

The other side of this problem is that the discrepancies in rise is mirrored when tides drop: … Continue Reading

10 Vox populi, pox dei

November 30, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · Catholic church · law · news · politics · religion

Which, in my pidgin Latin, translates into “the voice of the people is the pox of god”.

One of the weird, seemingly counterintuitive things about Canada is that despite having no official segregation of church and state in our Charter, religion is more or less absent from the larger issues our government deals with. We don’t have national fights about crosses at memorials or references to God in our national anthem. References to a deity are more or less absent from our various Throne Speeches (commonwealth readers will understand this phrase – Yankees should think of the State of the Union), and doesn’t play a major role in our elections except in the most bizarre ways.

Which is why when a high-ranking federal minister appears in an article about the Vatican, it’s always an interesting story: … Continue Reading

2 This is kind of cool

November 29, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · good news · politics

It has become a nearly incessant complaint to bemoan the disillusionment and lack of participation of young people in politics. It is certainly a statistical reality that voter turnout is at an all-time low. Aside from a small number of people who are involved in the skeptic movement, most of my friends are relatively apathetic when it comes to politics (although I no longer really qualify as ‘youth’). Most disturbing is the fact that uninvolved youth grow up and turn into uninvolved adults. Apathy is a poison pill for democracy, since only zealots remain to show up on election day.

Many hypotheses are thrown around – from cynicism borne by the state of the media, lack of knowledge about how the political system works, distrust in government altogether. It’s certainly a disturbing thought. Which is why I am happy when I read stuff like this: … Continue Reading

23 To deceive and project

November 29, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · crime · law · news · police

I spotted a pretty clever tweet a few weeks ago that went something like: “Police are beating you for slight or nonexistent legal transgressions? Wow… shocking!” – Black people. The joke being, of course, that the kind of ham-fisted tactics that police are turning against peaceful protesters have been leveled against black people, particularly young men, for decades with scarcely any comment from the majority.

That’s one of the galling facets of privilege – it completely skews what your view of ‘normal’ is. Faced with stories about cops brutally beating young black men, many people reacted with incredulity. “I’ve never seen an officer hit someone. Are you saying that all cops are racist? I find that hard to believe.” I had a similar conversation with a friend when we both saw a police officer pull over a young black man driving in a nice car with dealer plates. When I cynically observed that the driver’s first mistake was driving a nice car while being black, my buddy expressed his disbelief, saying that dealer plates come with certain restrictions, and that he didn’t see it being a case of racial profiling.

I can certainly understand the instinct to dismiss these kinds of stories as exceptional or delusional. Five years ago, if you had told me that police were infiltrating political groups to drum up phony charges against them, I’d have called you a lunatic. Then again, five years ago I wasn’t reading stories like this: … Continue Reading

21 History debunks myths about Occupy

November 28, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · civil rights · critical thinking · crommunism · history · Occupy

One of the things that has struck me most about the opposition to the Occupy movement is the ease with which people approach repeating the trite truisms about the occupiers. No matter how many professionals stand up in support of the protest, everyone reaches for the “unemployed bums” canard. Regardless of the number of specific problems highlighted by protests at each site, nobody seems to have any problem expressing their bewilderment at the lack of a cohesive message. Despite the amount of energy and time put into making the occupied sites more than just an urban camping trip, people throw around the term “lazy” like rice at a wedding.

The other aspect that particularly fascinates me is the tin ear for the lessons of history that these criticisms showcase. Every revolutionary protest movement looks like this, even the ones that we would otherwise support. It doesn’t take an encyclopedic knowledge of history to see the parallels between the occupation of public space and the non-violent resistance of Indians to British rule. Nor does one have to have a degree in the humanities to see the attempted demonization of Occupy’s “hippies” echoing the same condemnations from a generation ago in the person of the actual hippies of the Vietnam resistance movement.

But even if one isn’t well-attuned to those particular stories, it’s hard for me to look at the Occupiers and not see links to the civil rights movement of African-Americans in the mid-20th century. Now this is not to say that the problems of centuries of racism and the fight for human decency is on equivalent footing to corruption in financial and political institutions (which have become two sides of the same ill-gained coin); however, it is worth noting that many of the common bromides hurled at the Occupy movement are shown to be quite hollow by even a cursory examination of history. … Continue Reading

34 I won’t “agree to disagree”

November 28, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · critical thinking · crommunism

Last Sunday my friend “Sharon” came over to play some music. She is, in addition to being an excellent singer, a law student who is about to complete her studies. Resultantly, I enjoy her company because she is exceptionally witty, enjoys discussing things in depth, and knows her way around the finer points of a good argument. We hadn’t talked in a while, so before we started playing music we sat down to chat for a bit, and as I was telling her what was going on in my life, I mentioned this blog. She interrupted the conversation to ask what my definition of atheism was.

A few months ago, Sharon and I went out with some of her other friends to a bar, and she and I ended up getting in a very drunken debate over whether or not it was possible to know something to be true or not. My argument was that while absolute, unchanging truth may not be achievable, we could rely pretty well on provisional truth gleaned from examining evidence, and that while scientific truths were by definition mutable, it does not mean that some day all of science will be thrown out. … Continue Reading

0 Movie Friday: Eddie Izzard – Religion, Science and Atheism

November 25, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · funny · movie · religion · science

Comedy is a marvelous thing. It has the unique ability to rob things of their power, particularly when that power is based on fear. By pointing out the bizarre aspects of things that frighten us, they are reduced to the level of mundane and even silly. There is perhaps nobody with a greater talent for finding the absurd in the commonplace than Eddie Izzard:

Sometimes ridicule can be used as a weapon. It can be used to disarm and expose the inconsistencies or irrational elements in an opponent’s argument. Other times, like in the above clip, it can be used simply as a tool to explain, in a way that appears tremendously effective. It’s hard to watch that and come away with any conclusion other than “there’s a lot of really stupid stuff in that religion.” I’d imagine the reaction would be similar even if that religion was yours.

We spend a lot of time learning to speak rationally. Maybe we should work instead on learning to be funny.

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13 Thoughts on the state of the occupation – update

November 24, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · First Nations · Occupy · politics

So I’ll confess I sounded a bit maudlin on Monday when looking at how things were shaping up for the Occupy Vancouver movement. I don’t know that my mood has changed much since then, but I have some new insights.

As some of you know, the city was granted an unjunction to remove all persons and structures present on the lawn of the Vancouver Art Gallery so that the city could ‘clean’. I put this in quotes because I sincerely doubt the city’s intention to remove anything other than protesters they don’t like. Antipathy toward the movement has been turned up as the movement has progressed. Some of the blame for this can probably be laid at the feet of the protesters themselves, who failed to articulate the reasons why the occupation itself was necessary. The majority of fingers, however, can be pointed at the ridiculously one-sided media coverage it has received.

There was no shortage of people capable of articulating the ideology of the occupation at the site. There were passionate, coherent, well-informed people running sound equipment, organizing marches, working at the library and info tents, plus volunteer medical staff always within earshot. What the media has done instead is consistently focussed on the more flamboyant members of the group. I am not so cynical as to consider this an intentional campaign of misinformation by a media that wishes to maintain the corporate status quo. At the same time, however, considering that this criticism is leveled at them regularly – to the point where protesters have stopped talking to the media at all – makes me think that they are either just really stubborn in their stupidity, or that there is indeed an element of intentionality: … Continue Reading

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