Was Canada Always This Racist?
a story from Xwitter
Reader, today I want to tell you a story from Twitter, using tweets.
Sharan Kaur from Toronto gets on her high horse and wags her finger to all those concerned about government overreach vis a vis the maritime fire restrictions. Sharan from Toronto will school us on what is the Canadian way.
Nate is a white dude who’s decided a person named Kaur is not a real Canadian.
Sharan fires back to Nate the white guy that, since he’s not indigenous, he’s not a real Canadian either.
Vancity News 1 points out that indigenous people are fairly xenophobic and don’t like Indians (that is, people from India). Yes, Vancity News 1 absolutely has it right in reminding us of the humanity of indigenous people—they’re subject to the psychological phenomena known as racialisation and dehumanisation, like the rest of us humans.
All in all, we have two people possessed by destructive ideologies, we have one ideology that wants to turn Canada into a white supremacist wasteland and another ideology that wants to erect a new aristocracy of feudal lords and obliterate the existing class structure and render us all serfs and transform Canada into a feudal society.
Then we have the dude in the background pointing out Indigenous people, like all humans, have a propensity to xenophobic thinking.
That’s the story, reader.
Canada, are you okay?
Canada, I think you are not okay. As an epilogue to the story, here’s Geraldine bristling at Sharan Kaur deploying the settler colonial construct in discourse with her fellow Canadians.
So, whilst bristling, Geraldine employs projection, only further spreading the toxic ideology.
Like spinning wheels in the muck, the more you accelerate, i.e. the more you engage the racialisation with racialisation, the further you embed yourself in the stuck-ness of the ideology. You get nowhere. You expend energy and you sink deeper.
Note: my father was a windrush immigrant. I’m aware that Indians (that is people who originate ethnically from India) face hate everywhere a lot, just like Jews do.
Some things never ever change.
Do you not see how this “real Canadian” rhetoric alienates and dehumanises? “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of G-d and the rule of law …” begins the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Are we not all equal in the eyes of g-d? (Hint: go read the latest Sermon Reflection). Why does anyone promoting diversity or freedom think some of us more equal? (Note, this isn’t what “the meek shall inherit the earth means”, by the way). Who does that rhetoric benefit?
Do you see that ideology can possess a human psyche like the Biblical demons possessed human psyches? Do you need a heavy dose of Dostoevsky? Feel free to go get that, reader.
Was my Indo-Guyanese father Canadian enough for you all? What about my French Canadian mother whose great great grandmother was a so-called “half breed”? Was she Canadian enough for you all? As for me, I have known the liminality of having an Indo-Canadian father and a white French Canadian mother. The kids called me brown crayon and ugly one in early elementary (public) school because they knew I came from “mixed” parents. Incidentally, the racial taunting stopped when my parents moved me to Catholic school from grade 6 onward. I encountered a more ethnically diverse group of students in Catholic school. I encountered less meanness and cruelty from my fellow classmates in Catholic school. Make of that what you will, reader.
How did Canada get so racist? Why did Canada become so racist? Maybe we never evolved from the hidden mind rot of racism? Why do we see our own countrymen as the enemy? Where did this come from? It’s evil and we must stop doing that abusive behaviour. Or we will destroy ourselves from within and become fodder the 51st state American conquest.
This kind of racialisation rhetoric I’ve shown you in this short essay breeds dehumanisation. Dehumanisation gives birth to this kind of racist rhetoric. Dehumanisation underlies racism. Dehumanisation alienates and cultivates self loathing. Dehumanisation emanates from the alienated mind. Dehumanisation alienates people from their communities and from their society. Dehumanisation destroys. Dehumanisation leads to mass atrocities.
“Dehumanisation is racism on steroids.” — David Livingstone Smith
This kind of discourse is not okay. We have crossed into the danger zone. We don’t expect the descendants of persecuted witches to accept an identity of witch in order to acknowledge the evil of what happened to their ancestors. So we ought to apply this reasoning to those living with the horrors and suffering of racialisation. It’s actually humanising to abolish racialisation and to stop viewing humans through the lens of race.
Note the concept of race must cover all examples in humanity — the pale skinned blue eyed Jew or Ukrainian, the dark-skinned African or Hindu or Sikh or Native American, or First Nations or Inuit, race as a concept diminishes the humanity of all of these people. It’s evil and we must stop that thinking.
Canada, are you okay? Because I’m very worried about you.