Category: culture

0 In case you were getting too comfortable

September 21, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · culture · First Nations · history · news · racism

I don’t have a ‘goal’ for this blog per se. Based on feedback I occasionally get from readers I am introducing anti-racist concepts and vernacular to an audience that hadn’t encountered them much before – that’s a bonus for me. I am reasonably sure I haven’t deconverted anyone to atheism… yet. While I am unashamedly putting my ideas out there for public consumption, I don’t hold any pretense of trying to change the world or start a revolution. I’m just a guy with ideas, and some people seem to find them interesting, which makes me happy.

That being said, I am not above occasionally goosing my fellow Canadians and reminding them that while things are undoubtedly bad in other countries, we have our fair share of problems here too.

Nova Scotia’s black community outraged over Africville hire

Some members of Nova Scotia’s black community say they are outraged that a white person has been hired as executive director of the Africville Heritage Trust and are calling for her resignation. “I find it insulting to all black people,” said Burnley (Rocky) Jones, a local lawyer and well-known human rights activist. “Surely we, within our community, have many people fully qualified to do such a job.” (snip) The trust’s board of directors, which includes six representatives of the Africville community, recently hired Carole Nixon, a white Anglican minister, for the position.

I’ll admit that even someone as outspoken and uncompromising as me had a really tough time coming down on one side of this issue. For those of you who weren’t here in February and aren’t familiar with Africville, I wrote about it during my Black History Month review of Canadian Black History. In brief, Africville was an area of Halifax that was systematically underserved and discriminated against by the citizenry of the city at large because it was inhabited primarily by black people. It was eventually bulldozed, leaving its residents largely homeless.

To head up the museum dedicated to the preservation and exploration of the history of this monument to Canadian exploitation and hatred of the white populace against black citizens, the selection committee chose a white woman. Obviously they made their selection based on her qualifications – Ms. Nixon has a certificate in black history from UofT (although I have no idea what that means). At the same time, she is not a member of the community and has no ties to its history. Beyond the simple poor optics of the choice, Ms. Nixon represents, to many of the community members, the same forces that were responsible for the debacle of Africville.

Montreal students don blackface

A frosh event at a Montreal university has come under scrutiny after students painted themselves in blackface. Students at the University of Montreal’s business school dressed up as Jamaican sprinters, with black paint covering their skin, for the event Wednesday.

Meh, so what? So a couple of frosh dressed up as Jamaican sprinters, and in order to lend their costumes a bit more realism, they ‘blacked up’ (despite the fact that there are lots of white Jamaicans). Where’s the harm, right?

One witness, who is of Jamaican descent, said he felt uncomfortable and was shocked to hear some students chanting, “Smoke more weed.” “They had reduced all of who I am and the history of Jamaica and culture of Jamaica to these negative connotations of weed smoking, black skin, rastas,” said McGill law student Anthony Morgan, who happened to be on the campus at the time and filmed the group.

Oh. Fuck.

This is something that needs to be repeated regularly, it seems – it is never okay to dress in blackface. Not ever. It doesn’t matter if you think you’re being complimentary or paying homage. It doesn’t matter if you’re spoofing a movie or a television show, or a fictional character. It doesn’t matter if you get assigned “dress like an African” as some kind of bizarre theme exercise. It doesn’t matter how funny or clever you think it is, nor does it matter if you don’t mean it “that way”. The history of blackface, coupled with the way black people are portrayed in contemporary media, means that blackface is just one of those things it’s not okay to do.

It’s certainly not okay when your goal is to mock a culture that you clearly know nothing about as part of a frosh week prank, at a school where black students are underrepresented, in a province that has a major race problem. You would think that this kind of thing wouldn’t need to be explained, but of course that’s the great part about white privilege – you don’t ever have to think before you do stuff like this. All you have to do is claim afterward that you didn’t mean anything by it, and maybe everyone should just lighten up.

Miss Canada outfit bizarre misappropriation of First Nations culture (h/t Jen)

Imagine you were inspired and impressed by Canada’s aboriginal history and culture. Imagine you had a world stage with which to express your admiration, and try in your own small way to heal wounds left by generations of exploitation and oppression. Would you do perhaps just a little bit of research to make sure you’re accurately portraying the people whose culture you are paying homage to? Maybe spend some time understanding the history behind the culture, and how it affects aboriginal people today? Would you maybe try to participate in or discuss the cultural practices of the particular band/bands you were emulating?

Or would you just reach for the first handful of cheap stereotypes from a spaghetti western movie that popped into your head?

Ms. Canada in her costume — Yeah... this actually happened

This may not come as a huge shock to you, but if you chose the first option(s) then you can congratulate yourself on being smarter and more insightful than Miss Universe Canada. Well, at least this year’s entrant. Seriously, considering the fact that the way we treat our First Nations people is the great shame of our nation, why on Earth would you think it a good idea to showcase our collective national insensitivity is beyond my limited capacity to understand.

Canada likes to pride itself on being a tolerant country that is open to people of many different ethnicities and walks of life. For the most part, I think we do a good job of that. However, we should never allow ourselves to grow complacent in our quest to model such tolerance. It is far too easy to slip into the easy errors of racism than it is to maintain a constant vigilance; failing to maintain that vigilance will ultimately be our downfall.

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4 Race, remixed

August 17, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · culture · race

I’ve explained before that it would be technically accurate to refer to me as being “mixed” – I am the product of an interracial marriage. While I self-identify most often simply as black, there are times when I make mention of my status as a ‘multi’. Against the social backdrop I find myself in most often, ‘black’ conveys sufficient information for my purposes, and I let it go there. However, there are many people who, for their own personal reasons, prefer to refer to themselves as ‘mixed’.

What makes this phenomenon more interesting is the fact that “mixed” has quite a variety of meanings:

Today we see both increased immigration and rising rates of intermarriage. In 1960, less than 1% of U.S. marriages were interracial, but by 2008, this figure rose to 7.6%, meaning that 1 out of every 13 U.S. marriages was interracial. If we look at only new marriages that took place in 2008, the figure rises to 14.6%, translating to 1 out of every 7 American marriages. The rising trend in intermarriage has resulted in a growing multiracial population. In 2010, 2.9% of Americans identified as multiracial. Demographers project that the multiracial population will continue to grow so that by 2050, 1 in 5 Americans could claim a multiracial background, and by 2100, the ratio could soar to 1 in three.

Very long ago, I made specific reference to this phenomenon, noting that this may be a product more of familiarity and the re-drawing of in- and out-group definitions than it is the result of people becoming more enlightened about topics racial. Whatever the explanation, it seems as though the lines drawn around race groups is not quite as tight as it might have been once upon a time. We may be seeing the beginning of a collapse of the definitions of race – themselves largely the products of blind tradition and xenophobia rather than anything to do with human biology.

Then again, perhaps a closer inspection is warranted:

For instance, Asians and Latinos intermarry at much higher rates than blacks. About 30% of Asian and Latino marriages are interracial, but the corresponding figure for blacks is only 17%. However, if we include only U.S.-born Asians and Latinos, we find that intermarriage rates are much higher. Nearly, three-quarters (72%) of married, U.S.-born Asians, and over half (52%) of U.S.-born Latinos are interracially married, and most often, the intermarriage is with a white partner. While the intermarriage rate for blacks has risen steadily in the past five decades, it is still far below that of Asians and Latinos, especially those born in the United States.

It is fascinating to me to see how prejudice is not shared equally among all people of colour (PoCs). I may be fairly and accurately accused of focussing on issues of white and black people predominantly. As I’ve said before, this is mostly because this particular divide is one that I am familiar with on a variety of levels. That being said, it also seems as though the deck remains stacked against black people, even among other minority groups. There seems to be a hierarchy of which groups are ‘acceptable’ and which ones aren’t, although I might be reading too much into that one finding. It would also be interesting to see these statistics for Arab and Persian Americans, especially in light of the pervasive anti-Muslim attitude currently in vogue in America.

The article notes that only 7% of black people in the study identify as multiracial, which stands in stark contrast to the 75-90% estimated prevalence of mixed heritage among the black community in the USA. The authors express some mock bafflement at why this would be the case. I can give at least my own perspective on why I don’t really connect with the white side of my identity. Part of the problem is that ‘white’ doesn’t really have much presence as an identifying feature. One of the drawbacks of being the majority group is that identification as such doesn’t give people much information about you. It is far easier for me to identify those aspects of my background that are different from those around me than to focus on those things that are true for everyone.

Next, there aren’t too many people out there who see me as ‘half-white’. To the casual observer on the street, I am a brown-skinned guy with a bit of an afro. Sometimes people think I’m Indian when my hair is cut short or I am wearing a hat. Nobody says “he’s got white background for sure… but what’s the other part?” This isn’t a knock on them, or even all that unusual. It just serves to illustrate that calling myself ‘mixed’, while accurate, is not a term that resonates particularly well with my personal experience of my race. This appears to be a common experience:

By contrast, none of the black-white couples identified their children as just white or American, nor did they claim that their children identify as such. While these couples recognize and celebrate the racial mixture of their children’s backgrounds, they unequivocally identify their children as black. When we asked why, they pointed out that nobody would take them seriously if they tried to identify their children as white, reflecting the constraints that black interracial couples feel when identifying their children. Moreover, black interracial couples do not identify their children as simply “American” because as native-born Americans, they feel that American is an implicit part of their identity.

White skin, light skin and black skin also have a long and storied history with attached stigma and associations in the black community. These cultural memes manage to transcend generational lines and persist within the community for decades. While change has been happening over time, it may take many more generations before we see marriage offering widespread cultural remedy to our race problems. Until then, we can continue our work pushing the boundaries, making sure that the intellectual ground is laid for the next generations of multi-racial kids to help us grapple with the consequences of our historical segregation.

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4 Race transforming: more than meets the eye

August 9, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · critical thinking · crommunism · culture · First Nations · privilege · race · racism

This post was intended to go up on Monday. My apologies for the past month of shakiness. I am hoping to see things settle down in the next couple of weeks.

I left a somewhat cryptic message for you on Monday:

I want to remind people that it’s not okay to dress up as a First Nations person. While it might be a totally cute costume, it’s incredibly disrespectful to wear a feathered headdress and “war paint” to a bar, particularly if you’re going to forgo a shirt for simply a bra, get up on stage and sing a song about fucking guys in exchange for alcohol.

Some of you inquired as to what exactly I was talking about. It seemed like an oddly-specific caution to give – who would actually do something like this? Well, I can report with more than a little sighing and eye-rolling that this is something that I witnessed on Sunday night. A duo of women who called what they were doing “parody” got up on stage at the open mic I host with my band and did some rapping that was offensive not only because of how bad it was, but because of how they were dressed while performing. I mentioned to their friends that they might want to let these ladies know that what they’re doing is incredibly racist – the response was “well she was given that headdress as a gift from a First Nations person.”

A reader contacted me by e-mail to ask a follow-up question about my ‘positive stereotypes’ post last week:

…do you think the desirability of full lips and ample bottoms should be discouraged in the white community? (Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johansson, etc.) I understand how it could be problematic- that these women made a feature that typically “belongs” to a minority group suddenly desirous when the minority group has had it for many years without it being remarked or noticed. Yet, are physical features different than culture theft?

I sent a reply along the lines that features on their own aren’t necessarily the problem – it’s when those features are racialized (like having “a black girl ass”) that I start to get uncomfortable. Reducing members of minority groups to sexual characteristics is incredibly dehumanizing. While that’s enough of a reason to be suspicious of that kind of fetishization, there was a larger issue that I felt deserved some discussion.

Another reader sent me an e-mail asking for my response to a blog post he had written:

On August 3rd, I came across a news report on MSNBC about Quera Pruitt, a Black student suing her old high school over a homecoming celebration known as “Wigger Wednesday” by students while she attended.

The story in question concerns a school in Minnesota where the student body held a day when the student body was supposed to dress up as “wiggers” – a contraction of the words “white” and “nigger”. I pointed out that above and beyond my objections to using the inherently-racist word “wigger”, it was an event that by definition excludes any student that isn’t white, since there is already a word for a black person that “dresses like a nigger”. Even beyond that, though, there’s another problem that his discussion missed that I think is salient.

All three of these examples speak to an issue that I have alluded to before but never made explicit: race transforming. That is, dressing up or in another way appropriating the hallmarks of another ethnocultural group. I want to first be clear about what I’m not talking about. I am not talking about making an effort to participate in the practices of another group, or trying to incorporate the traditions of another group into your daily life. I think it’s great when people break out of their cultural silos, particularly when it comes to innovating new types of music or food (yum!). Provided that your participation is respectful and you engage in due diligence about the context of whatever tradition you’re involved in, then go nuts.

When I talk about ‘race transforming’, I am talking about taking an image or feature that is specifically associated with one group, and divorcing it of its context. There are a variety of reasons why people do this. In the case of the ladies at the open mic, I guess they thought it was sexy – completely ignoring the fact that those headdresses aren’t just a fashion accessory and have deep cultural significance (to say nothing of the sexualization of the “squaw” image that flies insultingly in the face of the disproportionately high rates of sexual abuse faced by First Nations women). In the case of “black girl asses” or “Puerto Rican eyes” it’s usually intended as some kind of compliment, but is inappropriate for reasons I discussed in my post last week. In the case of “wigger Wednesday” it’s intentional mockery of an already-marginalized group – playing up their poverty for laughs.

The other side of this issue is the fact that while the rappers can slip back into their Lululemon and American Apparel, Scarlett Johansson is a blonde bombshell, and the Minnesota students will go back to being just regular students once they doff their basketball jerseys and chains, the groups they are lampooning have no such recourse. First Nations women have to deal with the double whammy of being sexualized as women and as First Nations people, regardless of what they say, do or wear. Black women might have great asses, but those ‘positive’ features also come alongside a whole host of decidedly-negative stereotypes about black women that are intrinsically-tied to skin colour. “Wiggers” might be comical, but when dressing that way in earnest makes you a target for police profiling and not dressing like that makes you a social outcast, you’re stuck in a bit of a Catch-22.

Of course, this entire line of reasoning assumes that people actually bother to take the time to sit, reflect, and listen to the points of view of other groups. By and large, anyone who thinks that these behaviours/attitudes are acceptable aren’t the kind to really give it a whole lot of thought. They have the ability to ignore the racial marginalization of other groups (gosh, if only there was a word for that), and when confronted about their behaviour they usually pivot to blaming their critics of being “too sensitive”. Perhaps the problem is not an excess of sensitivity, but exactly the opposite.

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3 Getting Over It

August 4, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · First Nations · news · politics · racism

‘Sfunny, no sooner do I say that I’m reluctant to spend too much time commenting on sensitive issues outside my community than I find myself diving headfirst into those issues with gusto. I don’t know if I have any First Nations or Indian readers, but if I do and you feel I am misrepresenting this stuff I hope you will let me know. While you’re doing that, could you help me with something else? While I was hanging out in Tofino, a man (who I assume is a member of the Nuu-chah-nulth Nation) approached me with his palm raised and said “How”. I’m pretty sure he was goofing with me – people don’t actually say that, right?

However, sometimes events conspire to, in a sense, force my hand. There has been a lot of news relevant to First Nations communities that has popped up on my radar, and I feel that I’d be remiss if I didn’t comment on it. After all, for a guy who says we need to be talking more about racial issues, it would be somewhat hypocritical of me to fail to speak up out of fear.

One of my least favourite statements when talking about disparities of any kind is that the disadvantaged group should just “get over it”. This kind of statement reveals two separate kinds of ignorance. First, it makes the insulting presumption that the reason oppressed people are struggling is because they’ve got a bad attitude – that once they stop playing victim and get off their lazy asses, they will start being as successful as the majority group. The second type of ignorance, related to the first, is that all oppression is historical – that we have solved all the major issues of racism/prejudice, and can now begin holding hands under the rainbow.

Wow is that ever not the case.

Ottawa Not Keeping Pace with First Nations Housing

An evaluation of the federal government’s involvement in housing on First Nations reserves over 13 years confirms what critics have long contended: Ottawa is not keeping up with housing support, and conditions are actually getting worse. The federal government is meeting its own targets for constructing social housing on reserves, but the aboriginal population is growing more quickly than the government plan, says the audit of on-reserve housing support. “Despite ongoing construction of new housing on-reserve, the shortfall still exists and appears to be growing rather than diminishing,” says the evaluation commissioned by the federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs. At the same time, housing is often sub-standard and quickly falls apart. The audit says there is not enough funding to pay for maintenance and upkeep.

This is my major problem with the successive federal governments of Canada (and I will point out again that I do not lay the blame for this all at the feet of Stephen Harper – it has been an ongoing shame on both sides of the aisle) and how they approach addressing crises affecting First Nations people. It is clear from their various responses that they are interested in throwing tax dollars at a problem without bothering to invest themselves into making sure the problems get real, lasting solutions. The government repeatedly demonstrates that it doesn’t actually care to see improvements in the quality of life of First Nations people – only to appease the bleeding hearts enough to get them to stop complaining.

It’s also worthwhile noting that the report specifically points out a lack of capacity to do repairs on your own house as a major source of conflict. As I’ve tried to say all along – part of the funding must be to promote self-sufficiency. Those that complain about tax dollars being “wasted” on First Nations issues should be aware that constant band-aids are far more expensive than a long-term solution. Then again, we have to ask ourselves whether those who think spending money supporting Canadians is a “waste” actually care about seeing solutions.

First Nations Children Still Taken From Parents

After decades of wrestling with the impact of the residential school system – and then with the “Sixties Scoop” that placed so many aboriginal children in non-aboriginal homes – First Nations are now facing another tragedy of lost children in the new millennium. There are more First Nations children in care right now than at the height of the residential school system. That system was a national disgrace that prompted Prime Minister Stephen Harper to apologize for its catastrophic impact on natives. Instead of being at home with their parents, brothers and sisters, tens of thousands of First Nations children are in foster homes, staying with distant relatives or living in institutions.

Conservatives often talk about the importance of “family”, and in one sense I tend to agree with them. It is definitely preferable for a child to be raised in a supportive environment, and oftentimes families provide just such an opportunity. Not all families are supportive, not all people are good parents, and the kind of blanket “every child must have a mother and a father” statements that ‘family values’ types like to try and apply to everyone suffer from a fundamental lack of nuance. All that being said, when a group suffers from a systemic lack of any family structure, it has long-term consequences. This is particularly true when there are issues of cultural preservation at stake.

It should be noted that this is not merely due to a lack of government intervention, but is wrapped up in the systemic problems (including poverty, which I have been meaning to talk about for a while now) that plague the First Nations. It’s a thorny problem to unravel, assuredly, but until we take it on seriously, these kinds of gaps will continue to get worse.

There is a special place in rhetorical hell for the “get over it” argument, and stories like this only serve to strengthen my resolve that this is the case. Discrimination and oppression are not things that used to take place and are better now – they are ongoing and require remediation. Failure to understand that this is so will lead us only to resent victims for their victimhood, rather than recognizing the problem and proposing real solutions. We, as a society, have this idea that systemic racism doesn’t exist, or doesn’t have any power. Maybe we should get over it.

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0 Cynicism giving way to optimism

July 26, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · First Nations · good news · law · politics

In my earlier post today I mentioned in passing that I was cynically optimistic about some of the changes I’ve seen in how governments in Canada think of and behave toward First Nations communities. I think when I wrote that I fully intended to explain what I meant, but for whatever reason (read: laziness) I didn’t. I’ll take this opportunity to do just that.

I am all for governments, corporations and other large, powerful entities doing the right thing. I think it’s fantastic when an oil company pledges to clean up a spill, or when a politician crosses the partisan divide to vote for something that is ethically right, even if it isn’t expedient with her base. I’ve tried to be mostly fair with the Catholic Church when it does things that are in line with secular morality. However, in each and every one of those cases, I am immediately suspicious of the motive behind the action. Is the oil company trying to cover up the fact that it caused the spill? Is the politician trying to brand herself as ‘centrist’ or curry favour with a power interest group? Is the Catholic Church not raping children anymore, or just trying to get people to stop equating “Catholic priest” with “child rapist”?

In light of my cynicism (which I think is reasonable and justifiable), it can be hard to get too optimistic about things. To be sure, I am generally optimistic that life will get better over time – that has been the story of humankind throughout history. However, whether a specific story represents a genuine step forward for society or a clever act of obfuscation is a judgment call I often have a difficult time making.

For example, this:

After years of conflict, including a Supreme Court of Canada battle, the Taku River Tlingit First Nation of northwest British Columbia signed a land and resource management and shared decision-making agreement today with the provincial government — the first of its kind in B.C. Premier Christy Clark said the agreement creates 13 new protected areas and provides resource development opportunities and investment certainty in more than three million hectares in the Atlin Taku region. She added that is the size of all of Vancouver Island.

<snip>

“We are emerging from a dark period in our history with hope and promise,” said Taku River Tlingit First Nation spokesman John Ward. “It’s so great to come out of the darkness and silence we’ve experienced for so many years and be acknowledged.” Ward said the land use agreement gives aboriginals a say on how industry “can access and conduct themselves in our traditional territory.”

It is my cynicism that is preventing me from jumping up and down and doing cartwheels all around my apartment right now (well, that and the fact that I have never been able to do a cartwheel). This kind of thing is exactly how not only the political system is supposed to work, but the legal system. The courts are supposed to overrule the government when it acts in its own best interests rather than those of its people. First Nations people should control their own lands and not only have a stake in how they are managed, but to reap the benefits of resource exploitation. This deal is likely to mean infrastructure and industry jobs for people living in the region – if these positions are structured properly it could mean real long-term development and sustained economic strength in the region.

That’s the optimist in me talking. Considering the number of First Nations bands that have complained about corruption in their leadership, and considering the ease with which groups that have abundant resources but little education on how to manage them get exploited by multinational interests, my inner optimist is losing the arm-wrestling match to my inner cynic. Until we see a sea change in the way we think of First Nations issues, and how First Nations communities are supported/encouraged to grow, I don’t see this as resulting in anything more than more money in the hands of a few people while the general quality of life remains unchanged.

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0 First Nations push for political action

July 26, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · First Nations · health · politics

Once again my apologies for not posting on time this morning. I am still working through a backlog of stuff at home and at work that has piled up as I’ve been on the road. I will endeavour to have these posts up on time for the rest of the week, but my ‘free time’ is not yet my own. I really do appreciate your patience.

Despite lack of evidence to the contrary, I am acutely aware of the fact that this blog only really ever discusses racial issues along black and white lines. I don’t mean that I look at these issues as clear right and wrong, but that I tend to focus on issues that are centred on black and white people. This isn’t an accident – this particular divide is the one I am the most familiar. Growing up the way I did, the black/white dichotomy is the one that has been the most apparent to me my whole life. My bias towards this issue is not simply borne of familiarity, but from recognition of the fact that I can comment on these communities as an insider. It is not so for other racial/ethnic communities in Canada, and in the interest of letting people tell their own stories I often watch pitches go by when I think I could do more harm than good if I swung at them (N.B. – the last time I played baseball I was in high school).

I have, for a few years now, theorized that there is much that unites the black and First Nations communities in North America. Despite our disparate histories, First Nations face many of the obstacles that black people faced in the mid-20th century. Public perception of First Nations people is often negative, and their problems are blamed on their own lack of “personal responsibility” rather than a product of the evident systemic abuses that stretch back through history. To be sure, the problems facing First Nations communities are unique, and so are their solutions, but there is enough commonality in my eyes to justify feeling a sense of kinship.

None of this is to say that I feel qualified to express an opinion on issues facing First Nations communities, only to say that I react viscerally when I read things like this:

Nearly three-quarters of first nations in Canada rely on water systems that are classified at a medium or high risk of not meeting safety standards, a national study finds. The independent report examined the drinking water and wastewater systems on nearly 600 first nations. Just over one-third were classified in the high risk category.

You wake up in the morning, you brush your teeth, maybe you take a shower. You cook some breakfast, you head to your job or your school. No big deal, happens every day, for millions of Canadians. Except for those Canadians that don’t have access to clean water. It’s chilling to think about how fundamental access to clean water is. For the vast majority of Canadians, we live in circumstances that allow us to take clean water for granted. So much so, in some cases, that we actually think it’s reasonable to look with disdain on the water we do have and pay billions of dollars a year for a bottled version of the same product. Not so if you’re a member of a First Nations band.

Does everyone remember the major crisis over water safety in Walkerton, Ontario a few years back? We were all dumbfounded, myself included, to learn that regulation had slipped to such an extent that in one of the very few countries in the world that can really describe itself as “first world”, people were dying of contaminated water. There can be no safety, no development, no security, and certainly no trust in the government, when there is no access to clean water. It’s fundamental to how we live. And apparently, we’ve been dragging our heels on providing it to a particular group of Canadians. Encouragingly, the problem seems to be one of capacity – lack of training in how to use a water system – than one of contamination. I call this encouraging because it is a clear problem with a clear and simple solution, something that is usually quite rare.

The larger issue, however, is the level of inattention with which we (as non-Aboriginal Canadians) treat our First Nations sisters and brothers. I am cynical, yet hopeful when I see signs that the story might be changing for the better:

Canada’s aboriginal leaders are calling for co-operation between the premiers and the federal government on social and economic issues. Aboriginal communities need help coping with emergencies such as flooding and forest fires, the leaders said at talks in Vancouver, where provincial and territorial premiers are holding their annual Council of the Federation meetings. In prepared remarks to the premiers, Shawn Atleo, national chief for the Assembly of First Nations, called the issue of crisis and emergency management “urgent,” given the flooding and fires in 2011 alone.

I don’t know much about Shawn Atleo as a person, but his and my politics when it comes to these issues are very much in line. He is not afraid to point out failures in the system, but his proposed solutions are not simply “more funding”:

The communities need resources and training in emergency management along with long-term security plans so they can better respond to a crisis, Atleo said. This would include “major work,” like permanent dikes in areas prone to flooding, road upgrades, and evacuation centres. Temporary housing would also be required for those forced out of their homes.

What he is talking about is a level of response that is commensurate with the level of crisis, which sounds completely fair to me. Above that, though, he’s pointing out the need for training and capacity building – help us help ourselves. That has to be the approach with any marginalized community – not because it’s politically expedient but because it is the only long-term solution to the problems that face those communities. Where I step off the conservative talking points is that I think that the government should be more engaged in this process – not less.

To bring it back to my original point, I am uneasy about making pronouncements about what is best for First Nations communities in Canada. God knows they’ve experienced enough cases of outsiders coming in and trying to dictate their best interests. I will, however, never hesitate to stand up and shout my disapproval when my government fails to protect my fellow Canadians, or my approval when someone articulates something that I think is a good idea. Issues facing the minority only start to get fixed when they are seen as problems by members of the majority.

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1 Perhaps a more attractive droid?

June 30, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · civil rights · critical thinking · crommunism · cultural tolerance · culture · free speech · law · religion

There is a particular paradox with my post this morning that I didn’t really go out of my way to point out. That paradox has to do with finding a case that we (as free speech advocates) can sell to the public as an argument for unrestricted free speech rights. Its self-contradictory nature comes from the fact that in a liberal society that respects the rule of law, there aren’t a lot of examples of unpopular speech that the public can really get behind. The most common form of unpopular speech is based in hatred and intolerance, and you can’t really rally too many people behind that message.

But perhaps, with a bit of work, we can convince people of the merit in this:

A Dutch court acquitted right-wing politician Geert Wilders of hate speech and discrimination Thursday, ruling that his anti-Islam statements, while offensive to many Muslims, fell within the bounds of legitimate political debate. Judge Marcel van Oosten said Wilders’s claims that Islam is violent by nature, and his calls to halt Muslim immigration and ban the Muslim holy book, the Qur’an, must be seen in a wider context of debate over immigration policy. The Amsterdam court said his public statement could not be directly linked to increased discrimination against Dutch Muslims.

I will do myself the favour of stating unequivocally that I don’t like Geert Wilders, and will explain briefly why that is.

I do not buy the argument that the forces of Islamism are plotting a gradual takeover of Western society. It’s a fear-driven conspiracy theory carefully stoked in the xenophobic parts that inhabit all of us. It is convenient to our story-telling brains to dichotomize world events into “forces of good” and “forces of evil”. Hell, even I’m guilty of it (kind of… I trust my readers are aware of the sarcastic irony behind my categorization).

The reality is more like a variety of several ideologies, each competing for finite political real estate. The Islamist ideology is indeed fighting for supremacy, but not at the expense of Christianity. Islamism isn’t trying to “take over” any more than communism is trying to “take over” – all ideologies are fighting for dominance. This is where Wilders is wrong – he contrasts Islamic domination with Christian domination, when neither of these ideologies is truly dominant. While modern-day Europe owes a great deal to traditions laid down under true Christian ideological domination, most of the freedoms we enjoy today were despite Christian dominance (or rather, in the face of it) rather than because of it.

That being said, the world would be a much better place under the current situation of formerly-Christian secularism rather than an Islamic theocracy. Islam is, as written, much more hostile to the idea of religious pluralism than Christianity – I am happy to grant that. But the fight is not between an Islamic state and a Christian one – it’s between an absolutist state and a pluralistic one. Christian theocracy frightens me just as much as Islamic theocracy. Insofar as Wilders opposes an absolutist state, I am 100% with him. Where he and I differ has to do with his inability to divorce the ideas of Islam and absolutism. The two concepts are overlapping, but only mildly more so than are Christianity and absolutism.

Now, that covers basically where my position differs from Wilders’. The purpose of this post is to point out that what he said was a critique of an ideology, not the people who hold it. Mr. Wilders has gone out of his way several times to make this distinction – it is the religion of Islam he is criticizing as barbaric and dangerous. To the extent that individuals belonging to a religious group follow its strictures to varying degrees (and each insisting that theirs is the ‘true’ way), individual Muslims may or may not represent threats to secular society, just as individual liberals may or not represent threats to capitalism, for example. The courts have ruled precisely along these lines – criticism of ideas does not constitute hate speech, even if those ideas are religious or belong to a minority group.

It is precisely because this case lies on the balance of opposing concerns – distrust of religious extremism and distaste for intolerance – that it can be such a useful case to bring the free speech argument into the public sphere. You don’t have to like Geert Wilders to recognize that categorizing criticism of fanaticism as “hate speech” has very dangerous consequences that will do more to undermine secular society than all the forces of Islamism ever could.

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2 Germany: We can’t be

June 28, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · conservativism · culture · forces of stupid · history · race · racism

Then again, sometimes there are stories that completely shatter my faith in humanity:

A row with uncomfortable echoes of the past is gripping the world of Germany’s student duelling societies after a club admitted a non-European member. Duellers in Munich objected to the fact a Mannheim club had allowed a member with an Asian background to join, despite his service in the German army.

Yep… that’s happening. Apparently the member in question is German enough to serve Germany in the armed forces, but not German enough to dress up in a silly costume and wave a sword around. The reaction of the club? Well I think we could all have predicted this one:

The clubs’ national association insisted they were not racist.

“We’re not racist, honest! We just don’t like darkies being in our clubs!” The story reads like the plot of a bad Disney movie (Erinner Das Titan maybe?), and just gets more ridiculous the further in you go:

Such societies are usually male and involve dressing up in traditional 19th Century outfits, as well as drinking and fighting with swords. Real swords are used and the men who join often sport a scar on their cheeks to show they have fought a real duel.

There was a feeling from the more conservative elements in Bavaria that, according to internal documents, members with “non-European facial and bodily characteristics” did not qualify as Germans and so could not join what the objectors see as a bastion of true German identity, our correspondent says.

It’s funny, many of the rampant anti-immigrant sentiment currently running through Europe hinges around the idea that immigrants won’t “assimilate”. That people whose ancestry hails from another part of the world (by the way, Germany – your ancestry is from Africa, so maybe you should put down the swords and pick up a drum) will refuse to adopt the customs and mores of the majority group. Since immigrants won’t take on native ideas, we should keep them out! Except here’s a guy who is trying to do just that – take part in a custom that is about as German as it gets, and he’s being forced out by the same majority group.

These kinds of attitudes come from a mindset in which culture is a static thing that cannot and should not change. This is a faulty view of the world – all currently-existing cultures are departures from ones that came before. Those elements of cultures that are valuable are retained (co-operation, family cohesion, respect for individual rights), and those that are not necessary for survival can be sloughed off (exclusion of outsiders, absolute power of the patriarch, tyranny of the majority). There can be debate over the merit of the individual component values, but it is ludicrous to suggest that any change to traditions is a destruction of those values.

The fact that this kind of story merits any discussion at all, let alone the tide of public opinion against the egregious racism on display by these clubs (or at least their conservative elements), is evidence of the fact of this cultural evolution. Time was, not long ago, it was considered entirely reasonable to exclude members of certain racial groups from “private clubs”. This practice still occurs, mind you, but only in those places where the light of modernity hasn’t quite penetrated the curtain of stupidity.

As with the story this morning, these kinds of attitudes will be consigned to the dustbin of history, and be seen as simply an odd curiosity of our ancestry.

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4 Banking on poverty

June 16, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · crommunism · First Nations · politics · psychology

So at various points in the past I’ve talked about the pernicious lie that is the idea of Africa as a barren wasteland. Because Africa’s people are poor, we assume that the continent itself is poor. After all, isn’t that what we see in the charity commercials? People (mostly children) poking through rubble, having to walk miles across a barren wasteland for fresh water, dry savannah with no resources to exploit? It’s a lie, all of it: Africa isn’t poor because it lacks resources; it is poor because it is kept poor:

Hedge funds are behind “land grabs” in Africa to boost their profits in the food and biofuel sectors, a US think-tank says. In a report, the Oakland Institute said hedge funds and other foreign firms had acquired large swathes of African land, often without proper contracts. It said the acquisitions had displaced millions of small farmers.

When colonial powers officially left Africa, they left behind a long legacy of abuse and destabilization of local government. The lack of domestic education and infrastructure meant that newly-minted African leaders were woefully unprepared to resist sweet-sounding offers that came from foreign corporate entities, promising high-paying jobs and modern conveniences. What people didn’t realize was that, much in the same way European powers had taken control of American land from its native people, Africans were signing their lands away.

Africa is incredibly resource rich, but lacks the human capital to exploit its own powers in the way that, say, the United States was able to do to become a world power (of course the fact that outside Mauritania, Africa doesn’t really have a thriving slave trade prevents them from really matching the USA’s rise to dominance). The result is that Africans have a choice – work for foreign corporate powers or starve. Whatever political will there is for change is tamped down by well-funded and armed warlords that act as political leaders, but reap the rewards of selling their people back into slavery chez nous.

Of course with no real options for self-improvement, people who wish to survive in Africa agree to work for the corporations. It is only by allowing the conditions to remain oppressive and hopeless that the corporations can maintain an economic stranglehold on the nations of Africa. That is why I am particularly skeptical when one of the same hedge funds that owns African land roughly the same acreage as the country of France (wait… isn’t colonialism over?) say something like this:

One company, EmVest Asset Management, strongly denied that it was involved in exploitative or illegal practices. “There are no shady deals. We acquire all land in terms of legal tender,” EmVest’s Africa director Anthony Poorter told the BBC. He said that in Mozambique the company’s employees earned salaries 40% higher than the minimum wage. The company was also involved in development projects such as the supply of clean water to rural communities. “They are extremely happy with us,” Mr Poorter said.

Anyone who knows about the existence of a “company town” knows to be wary of statements like this. When the entire economic health of a municipality is dependent on jobs from one source, the citizens of the town basically become 24/7 employees. Without strong labour unions and the rule of law, this kind of arrangement can persist in perpetuity, or at least until the company decides that there’s no more value to be squeezed from that area and the entire town collapses, creating generations of impoverished people.

Much like we say in yesterday’s discussion of First Nations reserves, when there is not a strong force for domestic development – whether governmental or otherwise – people are kept trapped in a cycle of poverty. Poverty goes beyond simply not having money – it means that one has no hope of pulling themselves out. When you lack the means, the education, and the wherewithal to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” (a term I hate for both rhetorical and mechanical reasons – wouldn’t you just flip your feet over your own head and land up on your ass?), all of the Randian/Nietzschean fantasies of some kind of superman building his fortune from scratch can’t save you.

Which is why well-fed free-market capitalist ideologues annoy me so much. The private sector is not bound by ethics, and most of the companies doing this kind of exploitation aren’t the kind of things you can boycott (as though boycotts actually work, which they don’t – just ask BP). When profit is your only motive and law is your only restraint, you’ll immediately flock to places with the least laws and most profits. I’m not suggesting that more government is necessarily the answer – most of the governments in Africa are so corrupt that they simply watch the exploitation happen and count their kickbacks – but neither is rampant and unchecked free market involvement.

Like Canada’s First Nations people, Africans must be given not only the resources but the knowledge and tools to learn how to develop their own land. They must be treated as potential partners and allies, rather than rubes from whom a buck can be wrung. Small-scale development projects that put the control in the hands of the community rather than the land-owners are the way to accomplish this. Not only does it build a sense of psychological pride and move the locus of control back into people’s hands, but there are effects that echo into the future, as new generations of self-sufficient people grow up with ideas and the skills to make them happen.

While it’s all well and good to talk about bootstraps, when there’s a boot on your neck then all the pulling in the world won’t get you onto your own feet.

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0 Canada’s third world nations

June 15, 2011
by Crommunist
· blog · Canada · ethics · First Nations · health · politics · race · racism

Remember when Katrina hit, and the underbelly of American neglect was exposed to the world? The fact that millions of people in the richest, most prosperous country in the world were living in squalor was the subject of much consternation and concerned tongue-clucking. The fact that the vast majority of people affected (and subsequently neglected) by the disaster were from a racial group that has historically been abused and continues to be patronized or ignored by the powers that be also didn’t escape notice. We here in Canada were comfortable, perched atop our high horse, thanking the heavens above that we were simply better than that:

Conditions in one Haida Gwaii hospital are so bad that chemotherapy drugs are mixed in an outdoor wooden shed and the morgue is housed in a temporary trailer. Not only that, but the regional hospital district says water needs to cleared from the main building’s roof by hand and physiotherapy sessions need to be conducted in an old greenhouse.

The problems at the 61-year-old Queen Charlotte General Hospital and Health Centre were detailed to the NDP in a letter from the North West Regional Hospital District, sent in mid May. On Tuesday, the NDP raised the issue in the legislature, pressing the government on why it has let the facility deteriorate to such a low level.

I am not a popular entertainer, and I don’t have an internationally-televised live broadcast to exploit. All I have is this humble blog and my microcelebrity (I got Pharyngulated yesterday! Sniny!) to make this statement: Christy Clark doesn’t care about Native people. Neither does Gordon Campbell, under whose watch all of this happened, but he’s gone. For those readers outside of British Columbia, I should probably explain. Christy Clark is the current premier (akin to a governor in the United States, or a First Minister in many other parliamentary democracies) of British Columbia, having recently been elected after the resignation of the disgraced Gordon Campbell.

Health care is administrated by the provinces, meaning that the premier is responsible for ensuring the funding and oversight of health care facilities meets a provincial standard. It is up to her (or him) to ensure that resources are properly allocated, which means that the extremely sub-standard conditions of the Haida Gwaii (formerly Queen Charlote Islands) are her responsibility.

If this were an isolated incident in which political powers neglect First Nations communities, then I might be content to shrug it off. Shit happens, and sometimes things get missed. But for some reason (more on my suspicions on what that reason is later) it is always Native communities getting a shipment of body bags instead of health supplies; it’s always Native people being the subject of NIMBY protest, and because they receive taxpayer support, everyone with an internet connection thinks that they’re qualified to offer an opinion on the issue, which usually contains at least one racial slur (prefaced by “I’m not racist, but…”) and an admonishment to “get off their asses”.

I’ve spoken before about the need for effective political opposition, and this is exactly what I was talking about. Instead of running around trying to score cheap political points and play games with the debt ceiling, the provincial NDP has found an area where the government is slacking, and has brought it to the forefront. My cap is tipped to them, at least on this issue (although I am no fan of the provincial NDP generally). However, this issue is not simply relegated to the provinces:

Announcing the release of the joint work plan, INAC Minister John Duncan noted that “Canada and First Nations have an enduring historic relationship based on mutual respect, friendship and support.” However, the 2011 June Status Report of the Auditor General of Canada (AG Report) tells a different story. Chapter 4 of the report highlights the ongoing appalling conditions on First Nation reserves, the stark contrast between conditions of First Nation reserves and other communities and the federal government’s repeated failures to address adequately the deplorable conditions on First Nation reserves.

The report itself is pretty chilling, detailing the several ways in which the federal government has failed to take meaningful action on issues of basic necessities to First Nations communities across the country. Their approach is disorganized, slipshod, and shows a complete lack of commitment to actually ameliorating the problems faced by First Nations people. And therein lies the problem: it is convenient and easy to blame Native people for their lack of success, but when the support they receive from the federal government is so woefully inadequate (compared, say, to the amount that municipalities receive), one cannot simply chalk these problems up to being lazy. We’re talking about thousands of people who don’t have clean drinking water. This isn’t asking for “a handout” or special favours – this is ensuring that our citizens have what we would describe as the bare necessities to live.

So, if bringing the conditions of Haida Gwaii to provincial attention represents a successful official opposition, then the complete lack of progress and the widening disparity between Native Canadians and everyone else represents an appalling dereliction of duty on the part of the Liberal Party of Canada (with whom I am aligned) and the New Democrats. Government has a duty to look after the interests of its people, and the opposition has the responsibility to take the government to task when it fails in that duty. This failure is just as appalling as what happened in New Orleans – more so, because it’s happened over the stretch of several years.

Shawn Atleo, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, describes the problem in much the same words I would use:

This isn’t about assigning blame or pointing fingers – it’s about accepting responsibility and saying “my brothers and sisters need my help.” And while Mr. Atleo wasn’t at liberty to say it, I will put into words the general feeling I got from his discussion: First Nations people are treated like the ‘niggers’ of Canada, and we have work to do if we care enough to change that.

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