Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 55

Is it possible to educate everyone? I mean beyond secondary? Beyond postsecondary? How would we all look, as a society, if everyone had the same education in humanities and the liberal arts? What would it take to get us there? How would this change us? It is my understanding that in countries where postsecondary education is completely publicly-funded, there appears to be greater equality, inclusion, and social cohesion. They likely don't have the same ciphers for homelessness that have really stained the Canadian demographic in recent years. This isn't to say that there is no racism, homophobia or misogyny in any of those countries. Of course there is. But I don't think those attitudes and behaviours are going to be given the same kind of pass that they are here and in the US. I just did a quick Google search and it turns out that the Scandinavian countries top the global social cohesion index. (yes, you look so very surprised, Gentle Reader!) Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand play a close, or perhaps distant, second. The Scandinavian countries all have universally accessible postsecondary education, still treated like a luxury here for the privileged classes. There is a strong ratio between education and quality of life. If the education of women is doing wonders in developing countries, even more, universal postsecondary education could do a lot to improve things in our own countries. Remember how the Dump got elected? That basket full of deplorables? What makes them deplorable? They are uneducated working class people who feel justifiably disenfranchised from the gutting of manufacturing jobs in their country, thanks to big corporations moving south on their race to the bottom. Instead of providing extensive education and retraining and all the necessary social supports to keep their own people from going south in rather a sideways direction, the various US administrations and the Republican dominant heartland decided those measures to be just too repugnantly socialist. Even the Dump, while on the campaign trail, would crow his love for the uneducated. It isn't that they were too stupid to not vote for him, but that they lacked the critical thinking faculties from poor education, and there he was, a reality TV star on the ready to help them channel their rage. This is the benefit of a liberal arts education, but if already poor people are too pressured and preoccupied with daily survival in order to move forward in more critical ways, then as voters they are going to make choices that might appeal to their well-justified anger and experience of disenfranchisement, but the candidates they will be choosing are more than likely going to be populist demagogues more interested in shoring up their own power and hegemony than in defending and promoting the principals of liberal democracy. An educated body politic is an empowered body politic and depriving people of higher education is going to happen at our collective peril.

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 54

Very recently, an African-Canadian TV news presenter in Toronto was jacked-up by the local police. This overzealous cop had tailgated her for a minor traffic violation, then stopped her car just in front of her house (a nice neighbourhood, I did tell you that she works in TV), asked her all kinds of dumb questions about who she was and if she really lived in this neighbourhood, demanded to see her ID, treated her like a second-class citizen and left her feeling shaken, dumbfounded and traumatized. I am trying to look up this story but Uncle Google ain't even whispering, and I don't believe the excuse of Fake News, so this surely must have happened because I was hearing about it on CBC all day yesterday, and on Sunday, too. Anyway, I have no doubt that this happened and that this woman has a legitimate complaint and that the police anywhere can be really despicable. I am neither black nor a woman, but I have also had my share of being bothered by police. My crime? Looking poor and bohemian. I am a white male, but I have still been targeted by police for simply looking...suspicious? Now, I have no doubt that there are racists among the police, and really a lot of them behave pretty despicably towards vulnerable people. Was this woman target for being black? Probably. For being female? Could be? For a minor traffic violation? Maybe, maybe not. Because the cop involved was a racist, misogynist jerk? Yep. What they aren't telling us is that being poor and having a mental illness also can make you a vulnerable target for police bullying, and it would only be nice if the Politically Correct Thought Police would consider including us in their pantheon. There is an elephant in the room here. This woman innocently assumes, as do her colleagues and friends, that being a member of the upper middle class should give her automatic immunity to police bullying. They are after all, the class that the police are especially mandated to protect. This to me speaks volumes about the smug, self-righteous arrogance of the white middle class, and this is one area where yes, I am convinced that there is White Privilege and that it is a huge problem. It is this assumption that income and social class makes you somehow special and privileged and that the rest of the Great Unwashed is fair game because, really, we only exist to serve the needs, whims and desires of the bourgeoisie. And if there is even the slightest hint that we are straying off course then of course Johnny Law is going to be in there like a dirty shirt, stopping us, demanding to see our ID, insulting us and generally making us know that we can never feel totally safe in our own country, our own city, our own neighbourhood. It is only a shame that it is a black woman who was picked on. I would love to see some of the smug white eggheads and other bourgeois swine from Upper Canada to get a taste of what a lot of us have to live with day after day: black, brown, aboriginal, female, queer, mentally ill, and poor. In terms of the police, they might always be a problem. It seems that the same personality that is attracted to police work also tends to be not very well educated with strong conservative values and authoritarian tendencies. If they vote, they are more likely to pick rightwing or right of centre candidates. So, what do we do about this? This is a problem that affects many strata in society, and a lot of it comes down to education and access to education. It is only too well-known that higher education in Canada as in the US is obscenely expensive, and there are also a lot of people like me, who would have flourished with a decent liberal arts university education, who simply have not been able to access the privilege for lack of funds and family stability and support. Here is my little idea. Make a liberal arts and humanities education not only mandatory, but completely accessible. If post-secondary education, centred around the liberal arts and humanities, focussing on psychology, sociology, history, political science, English literature, anthropology, philosophy, ethics and comparative religions, were to immediately follow secondary education, completely publicly funded, and obligatory to all students for an extra four or five years, I wonder what this would do to influence future generations, and whatever occupations they work at, including policing? Worth a try?

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 53

"Class consciousness is knowing which side of the fence you are on; class analysis is figuring out who is there with you." I remember this quote from a radical feminist poster of the seventies. I still don't know who said it and my Google search has been fruitless. I still find those words resonant and that they can apply to many situations and occasions as well as the struggle of women towards equal rights. As I've been hearing the black and white rhetoric about White Privilege (pun unintended) I have been having to figure out who is really saying what, and to whom the words are being directed. Even though, I am racially Caucasian, I have never benefited from so-called White Privilege. My skin colour has done absolute squat to help me advance forward in life. Even though I have lived an ethical and responsible life, I have always been poor. White Privilege is simply Middle Class Privilege. All you have to do is look around and see how many well-off and comfortably employed people in Vancouver are racially Asian or South Asian and you will know exactly what I'm talking about. Whatever they have that moves them forward, I am lacking. So, skin colour has nothing to do with success in 2018m, and I am sick to death of hearing the angry whining from Aboriginals, blacks and the White guilt-ridden egghead upper middle class academics at the CBC who buy into such a trite and easy slogan. Yes, there is still discrimination and intolerance in this country, and there are still horrible people who make horrible and hateful racist comments, but stop blaming me for my skin colour just because you have had a rough go of life. I am white and I have had every bit as hard a time as you, First Nations, Black or Latino. Is your skin colour an impediment to moving up and forward in life? Well, this certainly hasn't been a problem for a lot of well-off Chinese Canadians, so please watch whom you are blaming. I have a friend who reads this blog who insists that White Privilege is alive and well, based upon his own personal experience. But unlike my friend, I was not raised in a nice neighbourhood, by middle class academic parents. My parents were working class and all kinds of toxic dynamics in my family made my lack of doing well a certainty. I listen excessively to the CBC. What I find particularly aggravating about those people is they are assuming that all their listeners are just like them: university graduates with nice professions and good incomes, lovely families, beautiful homes, and a very privileged life to feel guilty about. Their information is slanted by their privilege and by their guilt about their privilege. They don't seem to know, or even care, that other people exist. This is what makes me angry. I am not invisible, and there are a lot of other people out there, very much like me, and we are treated as though we do not exist: we often come from working class or single parent families, have survived childhood abuse, often have some post-secondary education, are above-average intelligent and gifted, but our lives have always been hobbled by any number of obstacles, often from a simple lack of luck and connections, and we struggle with under-employment and jobs that pay poorly and are often vulnerable to homelessness. Some of us have mental health struggles, but most of us are just so tired and exhausted from coping, from not being able to meet our potential and for being treated as though we don't exist. When are we going to be given existence by you idiots?

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 52

I have already mentioned that White Privilege is a narrative. One of many. This doesn't mean that it isn't of value. Most narratives have value. They help to focus on the issues at hand, to define them, understand them and affirm them. Nothing at all wrong with that. Where narratives tend to fail is when they take on an ontological gravitas and their adherents assume that the perspectives that their particular narrative have helped sharpen and focus will also have a universal application. One size fits all. They can also become the motherlode for conspiracy theories, or at least a contained malaise, anger and self-pity, and too often a very reduced sense of proportion. Narratives work very well for oppressed and marginalized groups, as well as for anyone who is trying to formulate new ideas or perspectives. They can also become very easy tools and sometimes weapons for the intellectually lazy. White Privilege addresses the historical, systemic and still chronic discrimination and oppression that nonwhite, particularly people of African and aboriginal heritage have had to, and still unfortunately have to, endure from the white oppressors. Now there is pushback. There is a danger here. Racism is not an exclusively white domain, and now we are seeing a lot of blowback from working class and socially and economically marginalized Caucasians, especially in the US, organizing against nonwhite people and voting for idiots like President Dump, the Great Deplorable squatting in the Oval Office. They have adopted their own obnoxious and destructive white supremist narrative, irrationally casting themselves as victims and casualties of political correctness and globalized free trade. Those who read from the hymnbook of White Privilege are singing and chanting in triumph because now the white oppressors have become their own white toilet paper. They are filling the ranks of unemployed and homelessness and they are angry. It is helpful to remember that conditions have not changed that noticeably in the US for African Americans, by the way, and statistically they remain well ahead of whites for crime, poverty and mortality statistics. The disenfranchised working class white males in the US need also to understand that it was economic restructuring favouring globalized free trade (NAFTA, anyone?) that sucked all the good paying jobs out of the American Heartland and transferred them to Mexico, then to China, then to Southeast Asia and elsewhere. But immigrants are an easy target, and everyone struggles all the more. Here, in Canada, unions have been disembowelled, and not everyone has the education, credentials, nor the financial resources to upgrade and retrain for better paying jobs in this era of creeping credentialism, or creeping credentialitis, as I like to call it. Still, White Privilege, as a narrative, also has its limits. Perhaps it needs to be called Middle Class White Privilege, as I really don't see a lot of working class whites coasting on White Privilege. Because it is increasingly harder to find decent paying employment without credentials and degrees as long as your forearm, I think that it is going to be all the more difficult for anyone without the advantages and connections of wealth, family, and professional and social connections, to somehow not have to end up spending at least a few weeks of their lives homeless or lining up at the food bank. And if you look carefully at those who are moving ahead in life, not all of them are white. It is partly the fault of the chattering class (white, middle class). The eggheads at the CBC or in academia or in media journalism generally do not mix socially with people who are not their own kind, and their own kind usually has the same skin colour, the same income, live in the same nice neighbourhoods, drive the same nice cars, send their kids to the same nice schools, and all drink the same nice scotch and dine in the same nice restaurants and all belong to the same nice clubs and go on the same nice vacations to the same nice resorts. Business class, of course. They have no idea of the reality of the lives of the people they presume to study, write and broadcast about, and I really don't think that any of them are about to. They want to stay comfortable.

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 51

I will begin with an email I sent my friends yesterday, following a visit together in a café on the university campus where they live: "... I don't feel that I did anything wrong, but this is one of those situations where nobody wins. I really hope that you don't feel at all tarred by the same brush that that young woman was trying to paint me with. I know how embarrassing that can be. Really, the way she went on, it was as though I was on my way to a cross burning! And really, I was simply calling out a tendency among Spaniards, in general, based on a lot of personal experience and observation, of discriminating against Latin Americans. But it's likely that that young woman doesn't know that there are differences between Latinos and Spaniards, and a lot of people don't know this. Besides which, she doesn't look at all Spanish, (she said in her note that people often mistake her for Spanish, which she is not) maybe she could pass for Mexican or Central American, but the Spanish are white Europeans, and she does not look like either. That said, just as we have free speech, we also all have the right to be offended and to voice our offence, so no problem with her handing me the note. It would have been nice had she stuck around to find out what we were really talking about but that might have been a little too brave for her. Besides, there's no telling what kind of stuff she might be dealing with right now. It is also possible that overhearing me might have triggered some trauma for her, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if she herself has been subjected to racist treatment. Still, I don't like giving offence, even if inadvertently, so I am taking this as a teaching moment about discretion. Really, university campuses have turned into hotbeds for intolerance and there is a huge culture of outrage now, so that anything that comes across as even remotely politically incorrect is going to make you a target for censure. And for that matter, why pour gas on this fire... On the other hand, it might also be wise to accept that there is no such thing as a safe place for conversation and dialogue and that it is always better, when in public, to err on the side of caution. There is no telling how others might react, and often they will. For me it is like this guy who left just before you arrived at the coffee shop. He would be about my age, talking with a friend in a very loud voice and often dropping the F bomb. Of course I found him offensive and really had to struggle to understand, from his conversation, that he was likely going through a lot of issues that I know nothing about, so of course I said nothing. I only wish that young woman had shown me the same consideration but I don't think that most people are about to do this for others. Everyone is too self-centred. Anyway, in the future I'm going to try to take care about what I say in public, which is going to be a bit of a nuisance, since no one likes walking on eggshells, but I also want to take care that I'm not hurting anyone with my words, no matter how inadvertently or how innocently. As for my attitude towards the Spanish, I am of course willing to be proven wrong. It seems that I've become so used to talking to Latinos about the Spanish, and they all universally dislike Spaniards and all I think for good reason, that I might have also allowed my discretion to slip..." Nobody wins. We're all on this sinking ship together. This young woman who passed me the note before she left looked Middle Eastern, perhaps. The way the note was written suggests that English is her second language. She had been sitting at the next table with her laptop. Quite honestly, these days with so many people plugged into their personal listening devices it is hard to imagine anyone having the ability or the attention span to eavesdrop on another conversation, but it still happens. And the assumptions also run high. If you are a white male, then that automatically makes you the Oppressor, and you only deserve to be punished. If you belong to a visible minority, or you are a woman, then more power to you, and if you are also LGBTQ, then so much the better. Nothing at all wrong with marginalized groups doing well and prospering, and an awful lot that is right with it. However, when people get stranded in this tiresome hectoring narrative about Privilege, then that colours everyone and everything with the same ugly shade of screaming acid yellow-green. This narrative needs to change, not to exclude the politics of power that occur with race, gender and sexual diversity, but to allow for another, newer and equally valid narrative: legislated poverty that is affecting everyone who is not in the One Percent, and whether some of you like it or not this is also going to include heterosexual, white cis males, the same ones who voted for Donald Trump in the US. I do not endorse their voting habits, nor their racism, homophobia and misogyny. But I am willing to allow that they also have legitimate anger for being disenfranchised and left behind, and that to call them out as whiners who have lost their privilege is simply to forget some of the basic empathy, compassion and human decency that so many of us have fought for ourselves and those we care about. We are all on this sinking ship together.

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 50

Trauma paralyzes people. Individual or collective, you become stuck in your pain, stranded in your suffering. It becomes the gift that goes on giving and you are caught in that loop that plays over and over and over again. It influences. colours, taints, and contaminates the way you think, perceive, talk, interact, relate to strangers, friends, colleagues, neighbours, authority figures. Anyone or anything that triggers the memory of trauma becomes suspect and you end up isolating or lashing out or both. If anyone has any doubts, by the way, that I am aware and empathic about the pain and trauma of African people, let me tell you a thing or two. This just in: There has just been a racist package sent to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, his fiancée. It is dumbfounding that people are still engaging in this stupid hate, but they are. It turns out that Meghan and people in her family and circles are routinely pilloried and bullied by racist taunts in the right wing media and all because her mother is black and she is marrying into the British royal family. I am always shocked and hugely saddened about these things, but what amazes me is that I am still surprised when they happen. I always want to believe that we are better than that. It seems that there will always be those wastes of DNA on this earth, many of them white, who do not want the rest of us to move forward on race and integration and human rights. And if there is any question about why many African people remain so angry, hostile and bitter, well, here it is. It's because of all the white idiots who simply cannot shut up and leave them, or the rest of us, alone, so that we can go on living our lives and doing the best we can on this sorry earth that we all share in common. I may never have had the opportunity to cash in on White Privilege, and I still have questions about the term and the way it is used and bandied about, but at least I have rarely had to endure the kind of racist bullying and hate that many others have to endure (and yes, I have been subjected to racist treatment, rarely, but I do know what it feels like. But all the time? My god, no wonder people are so angry!) Now, I really don't give a damn either about the Royals, nor about Hollywood, but even I find appealing the idea of a woman of colour entering the House of Windsor and adding a little African buzz to the royal genepool. This has been a long time coming. And, royals and Hollywood stars, or whatever, Harry and Meghan, like Will and Kate, seem like authentically nice people. I've always had trouble understanding this fuss about race. Perhaps it just isn't part of my nature, but to me people are people are people. Even when it is difficult not to judge a whole category of humans based on the bad behaviour of some of their worst representatives, one has only to remind oneself that there are a few bad people everywhere, but also everywhere there are many more good people. And maybe, despite my unpleasant interactions with some very angry persons of colour, I have usually been fortunate in the people and friends I have made throughout my life. When I was a child, I was best friends for six years or longer with a Japanese Canadian boy who lived up the road. From when I was fourteen, and exploring life more independently, I began to meet and befriend both people of African and Aboriginal heritage. Outside of the obvious physical differences, I really couldn't see anything different between us, and have never been able to fathom the kind of hateful fuss that some individuals and hate groups make about race. No one is inferior, and we are all part of the same bloodline. Why can't more people just accept this, celebrate it and move on? We have a lot of work ahead of us if we really want to see more real justice and peace in the world. As well as racism and this recent monster of populism baring its fangs in many countries, including the USA. I still believe that the global economic restructuring that we are seeing everywhere is actually supplanting what they are calling White Privilege, and that increasingly, despite the screaming hate-mongers on the right, and the justifiably angry people of colour who have had to endure their incessant bullying, the real equalizer, or should I say, disequalizer, is going to have less to do with skin-colour and more to do with bank accounts and investment portfolios. The so-called One Percent is already colour-blind, and eventually so will it be with the even more egregious .01 percent, and before you know it, poverty will become the new racism, and the poor will become the new niggers. It is already happening. Here in Canada, as elsewhere. I just hope that we can be all colour-blind enough to be able to work, organize and resist together, because we are going to be fighting for our own lives, our collective humanity in all its rich and multi-coloured beauty and diversity, and for the survival of our planet.

Healing Trauma: Perpsectives And Attitudes, 49

What about forgiveness? A lot of people are angry these days, about a lot of things, and often not without some justification. The collective survivors of the worst possible collective trauma are going to have the most difficult time with this. Maybe. I have known privileged white people to hold grudges over the most trivial offences. Aboriginal peoples in Canada tend to be on a particular wave of rage right now. Hostility, actually. It would seem that the progress being made towards truth and reconciliation isn't enough for some, and that is to be understood. I would imagine that there are some indigenous persons who won't be happy until the colonist structure of Canada is completely dismantled and everyone who is not native returns to Europe, China, India and the Philippines. This is not going to happen. I think the vast majority are more reasonable than this and would settle for something that will help them to move forward out of poverty and cultural and social marginalization. There is a revival of interest in preserving and learning and speaking the languages of the First Nations, though many are still dying out. There is also a revival of "Native Spirituality and Spiritual Practices." Yes. Great Spirit and sweet grass. They don't like Christianity, at least a lot of them don't. Given that Canada is a secular country, this antipathy towards Christianity is going to be encouraged. There is a general attitude that Native people should practice their own spiritual traditions since Christianity is for them a religion of oppression brought over from Europe by the Colonizers. This is more truism than truth. There are First Nations people who are also faithful and practicing Christians. Their attitudes and positions towards their native spiritual practices are going to be mixed and diverse. There will be those who will want to find some way of compromise and integrate the various practices and ideologies. There are some who completely disown their traditional spiritual beliefs because for them Christianity is going to be it. A couple of years ago, in northern BC there was just such a controversy when members of an aboriginal Christian church protested against a sweat lodge being built on their property, claiming that these were demonic influences being introduced into their sacred Christian space. Even though I am a Christian, I'm playing neutral here. I quite understand and support First Nations people's desire to reconnect with their traditional spirituality. I also understand, as a Christian, that Jesus Christ is not a uniquely, nor particularly European entity. He actually was born and lived in the Middle East, and the Christian religion, with or without European help, is represented quite strongly all over the world. Unfortunately this has also come to be conflated with European cultural values and, given the complicity between church and stare during colonization, is it any wonder that the Church would be tarred with the same brush as the government, especially for the role they played in not just cultural assimilation, but cultural genocide. Still, when the heirs of the colonizers, whether in government or academia, assume that native people should naturally practice native spirituality, I would say that they are being insufferably patronizing. Native people, as persons and individuals, alone can make that choice for themselves, be it to revive their traditional practices, become Christians, or atheists, or agnostics, or Jews, or Muslims, or Buddhists... or whatever. I don't expect that forgiveness is going to come cheap. It never does, nor should it. I am also aware of the huge importance of restorative justice and that it be demonstrated in ways that honour the integrity of all parties concerned. However, back to forgiveness. This is really the only way out of the suppurating wound of trauma. Nothing else is going to heal it. Otherwise, more generations will remain trapped in a festering anger that will lead to more suicides, more violence, more self-sabotage. I feel I have a right to make these kinds of statements, even though I am white, because White Privilege or no White Privilege, as one who has been harassed and humiliated by police, lived in poverty and underemployment and now has to make do living in social housing, and probably for the rest of my life, I have also suffered at the hands of the same oppressors that our indigenous people are justly angry at, and I have suffered in much the same way. Skin colour is no guarantee. For anything.

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 48

I have never benefited from White Privilege. I am white. This doesn't mean that White Privilege doesn't exist. Of course it does. I have been arguing in these last few posts, not that there is no such thing, as certain of you, my Gentle Reader, have misunderstood. I am arguing that White Privilege is not the entire story. It is far more nuanced than the angry African-American women with university degrees are yelling and white Canadian academics of all genders are nervously whimpering. Being born Caucasian is not a ticket into privilege and fine living. There are many other factors. Type of European ethnicity can also make a difference. If your background is British, and particularly English, then you are already a shoo-in. You would have to be incredibly stupid or lazy or indifferent or disabled in order to be British-English Canadian and not be somehow well off. Or maybe not. I'm not even sure that that's a guarantee. These sweeping clichés about privilege all have wide cracks in their credibility that even an elephant could fall through. If you have had the good fortune of being raised by upper middle class parents in a good neighbourhood then it is only natural that you are going to spend the rest of your life "coasting on White Privilege." Well, privilege. However, a lot of those successful upper middle class families are no longer white. Many of them happen to be Chinese Canadian. Many are of South Asian provenance. A lot of Filipinos, too. Bang goes the cliché. None of those demographics are white. They are hugely successful, buying up properties and living in very choice neighbourhoods in very luxurious and expensive homes. Please, all you well-intentioned eggheads, explain to me why none of those people are white. I am not begrudging them there success. After some of the horrendous racism in our cultural and historical foundations, it is about time that people of other ethnicities and colour are finally enjoying the good life. I am actually very pleased for them. Even if the best I can hope for is that the nonprofit that runs my social housing building isn't bought up by market interests and I end up having to live out the rest of my old age in a low barrier shelter. There remain, of course, three particular racial and ethnic categories that still suffer terribly: people of African heritage, Latinos, and Aboriginals. I am going to suggest here that the collective abuse and attempted destruction of the cultural, moral and psychological integrity of the persons who inhabit these demographics, these acts of wholesale genocide, has been so barbarous, egregious and prolonged as to have completely hobbled them and their descendants for many generations to come. I would say this is particularly true for North Americans of African heritage as for our First Nations people. The Latinos would occupy a rather different category, given that racially and culturally they are largely the outcome or the fruit of generations of diverse culture and races mixing and blending together. But still, Mama Espana committed atrocities of such prolonged barbarism that to this day we are seeing the results in their descendants. Racist policies in the US and elsewhere, of course, have really helped exasperate things, and yes, I am naming White Privilege here. It does have its uses as a measuring rod, even if it also has its limits. The ancestors of most African Americans were simply abducted from their home in Africa and taken overseas to be despoiled of their heritage, their culture and their identity. They became the property of whites. Even more than a century and a half after the abolition of slavery, they are still treated like second or third class citizens, racially profiled, discriminated against, and no wonder many of them are so angry. Our aboriginal peoples, like their cousins in Latin America, were invaded by Europeans, their culture destroyed and themselves slaughtered and decimated. Even now, here in Canada, many on reserves live in Third World squalor. No wonder many of them are angry. Of course they are going to see this all through the lens of White Privilege. I think it is important to acknowledge and respect that. It is equally important to acknowledge that that is going to be their lens and not ours. The truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 47

I would like to open today's post with an exchange of emails that occurred yesterday: "Hi Aaron thanks for writing- it's always great to get mail from our ever-thoughtful listeners. Your points about white privilege are well taken, but I'd just make a few counter-points. First, I'd say that privilege isn't just about having monetary wealth, but there's a "wealth" that comes from just being white- you get to start the race with a headstart, no matter how small, but it's there. And thinking about what you said about there being no men on the panel, well, most such panels are dominated by men, but what struck me was that those three women talked almost exclusively about injustices suffered by black men. But your overall point, that there's prejudice and inequality everywhere, is I think worth heeding- and perhaps the best we can do as individuals is treat every single person with equal respect. That would solve a few things. Again, thanks for writing!" My reply: "I find it concerning that black men would need women to speak on their behalf, which is why I would have appreciated hearing it in their own voices. I think that the way white privilege is being addressed is a bit late in the game, or the horse is already out of the barn. We still have vast residues of white privilege from colonialism, post-colonialism and Eurocentric white-supremacy, but this is rapidly being supplanted, thanks to global capitalism, into a kind of winner-takes-all, and race and racial privilege are being replaced by economic success and prowess that seems to be quite colour-blind. To put it bluntly, the poor are turning into the new niggers. I hope this gets addressed in a future program. cheers Aaron" "One other idea, which I think I've already covered in my blog, but would be worth further exploring: is it white privilege, or middle class privilege, or both? Is it chicken or egg? Unlike a lot of people who believe that white privilege exists (and I actually believe that it does, but that's become somewhat diluted by other concerns) I was not born and raised middle class and I've always been poor. I have also known a lot of people of colour much better off than me, as well as other white people. I think this is why I tend to question this. If you are white and middle class then our experiences are going to be decidedly different. cheers aa" White, middle class, and...dare I say... of English parentage? The English and the Spanish contain some of the most egregious cultural arrogance in the world, and for the simple reason that these two nations have been the most shameful and brazen of the global colonizers. Even worse than the Portuguese. Worse than the Belgians. Worse than the French or the Dutch. It was in Colombia, formerly the Spanish colony of Nueva Granada (more than two hundred years ago), that I first really began to notice and consider the concept of collective trauma. I assumed that this would have been entirely because of the fifty year civil war with FARC. After doing some thinking, research, reading, observing and conversing with people, I came to realize that FARC was the packaging, or gift wrapping, for yet the latest version of the same kind of collective trauma that had been visited upon the aboriginal peoples of Latin America, the indigenous peoples of North America, thanks to the British and French and newly minted Americans, and the survivors and descendants of black African slaves throughout the world and especially in the Americas and specifically in the United States. England has never been invaded or occupied since 1066. Spain drove out the last of the North African Muslims in 1492. Two small, bullying, overweening and arrogant nations set to explore, colonize, rape, murder and plunder and all for their respective ruling sovereigns, each invoking God and Holy Church as their justification. Even if I am calling White Privilege a structural myth, Gentle Reader, I still believe that it exists and still holds sway over how our society has evolved, developed and mutated. The current branding of White Privilege as is being bandied about in the popular media? That needs to be examined and scrutinized. now, a further word about my own experience of White Privilege. Even though I am Caucasian, I am not English. My ethnic background is half Scots, and half Black Sea German. I have mentioned previously that my Scots-Canadian father was a white supremist, and how impossible it was having a rational conversation with him. Here's an example. My father was going on about "Indians" and was insisting that the way they dress and live "they want to be white men." I replied to my father that when I was visiting Scotland in 1991, I was intrigued at how similar everything was to the English. I assumed then, as I do now, that when a people has been conquered, colonized and occupied, there is going to be a marked trend towards imitating the new overlords, and often there will be little option because local traditional practices are often going to be oppressed, discouraged or downright forbidden. We have only to consider what happened in the cultural genocide against our own First Nations People, thanks to the Residential Schools. My reply not only shut my father up, but helped turn him against me permanently and irrevocably, thus almost completely ending our relationship. So be it. My father, by the way, as the son of Scots immigrants, did not have an easy time himself. I'm sure being Caucasian gave him and his brothers some advantage, but they all had to leave school early and work hard together to form a thriving auto body repair business. They had none of the social connections to the English elite of Vancouver, and thanks to their ancestral experience of English colonization of their mother Scotland, were going to have nothing but contempt and grudges towards their English "betters." My mother was the granddaughter of Black Sea Germans who immigrated to North America from Crimea in the eighteen eighties. They had already a legacy of being treated like second class citizens in Russia and this collective trauma they carried with them to the New World, just as my Scots grandparents carried with them the collective dominance of English (not British) dominance has gone on to influence and affect their descendants, including my own family. Still, this is but an owie next to the particularly grave injustices suffered by the African peoples because of slavery, but there still is some comparison here, and I think some relevance to the argument that it is more than just race that makes White Privilege so dominant and so insidious. Plus, one has to reckon with the huge collateral damage from the impact of collective trauma upon African American people because of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation and racial profiling. But I think it also needs to be considered that they are not the only victims, and even though race plays a role, it is not the only factor, nor is the only vector in this disease of prejudice, exclusion and bad treatment that impacts a very broad swathe of the human demographic. More tomorrow, Gentle Reader.

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 46

Man is basically an ethical animal. I am intentionally using the traditional generic "Man." Not humans, nor human beings, nor humankind. Why? For one simple reason. I am sometimes so sick and tired of the Politically Correct Thought Police and their anxious and anguished shrieking and whinging at anything that sounds even remotely offensive to their poor virgin ears, and non inclusive, that from time to time I just want to rebel, just a little bit, Gentle Reader. Let those dear little delicate snowflakes melt. Sometimes a little assertive freedom of speech and expression is worth the nagging and finger-wagging. It is already public domain that I am a feminist, and I was a feminist many years before Prime Minister Junior even knew that word. When I say the word "Man" I am not thinking of male humans with penises, nor those who wish they had penises. I am referring to the old, traditional name for our species, before the word man became genderized and then women were suddenly treated like a distinct or inferior species. If you are a woman and you find this offensive, then please grow a skin and get over it, and just allow me my little non-PC enjoyment. By the same token, neither do I accept that trans persons should somehow get away with obligating or bullying us into calling them by their preferred pronoun. Just because you have been through hormone treatment and have had your genitalia surgically altered or mutilated with breasts added or subtracted doesn't change your DNA nor your chromosomes. Calling you she or her, or he or him after your desire might be the nice and polite thing to do, and likely that is what I'm going to call you because I really don't want to get my face rearranged, but sometimes I just want to call spade a spade. You are not, never were and never will be a woman, or a man. You are transwoman or transman, and that's perfectly okay. Now give it a rest already and please feel free to pee standing or sitting, as you desire. Now that I've got that out of my system, yes, we, humans, are an ethical animal. This isn't to say that we often, nor even sometimes, behave and act ethically. We already know that that is simply not the case. We do have a sense of ethics, of what is right and wrong. We have only to look at the actions of many of our political leaders, and we already know they are judged, or rightly so, as unethical: Rodrigo Duterte, anyone? Jacob Zuma, now kicked out of office? How about President Dump, the Great Deplorable squatting in the Oval Office. Our own Prime Minister Junior, over his choice of privately owned Caribbean Islands for his family New Year's getaway last year? To name but a few. We naturally want our elected leaders and mentors and public heroes to perform to our satisfaction, which is to say ethically. And not infrequently, they will disappoint us. I mentioned in yesterday's blogpost that it is bad judgment giving people from oppressed minorities a pass for bad behaviour. Yes, I am considering all the rotten social conditions and structural systems that help make their lives miserable, and I know about social and economic inequality and legislated poverty. I am also well aware that the way persons of colour and aboriginals are often treated in the courts and by police and other institutions of law enforcement are often shameful. But when I was being robbed at knifepoint by a black man, I wasn't thinking of him as a poor structural victim. I was the victim. Whatever set of circumstances put him in this kind of position, no one was holding a gun to his head and telling him that he had to threaten my life and rob me. Unless he was an incurable sociopath, and maybe he was, he knew better. We all know better. This is a feature of our humanity, or this sense of ethics, morality, of right-and wrong is a feature that makes us uniquely human. When we take groups of marginalized persons and take them off the hook for doing hurtful things to vulnerable people, even if they are doing this to vent their anger and outrage, we are not helping them. We are further dehumanizing them. This doesn't mean that there aren't other factors involved, but still they have not been sufficiently mentored nor supported in reaching their full potential. I think that ethics really need to take centre stage in our lives, and in the way we build and develop cultures and societies. I also acknowledge that in this current Darwinist climate of winner takes all consumer capitalism, that this is going to be a very difficult and thankless process.

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 45

I would like to open today's post with a quote that a friend of mine put on Facebook yesterday. I don't ordinarily go on Facebook, Gentle Reader, but from time to time I will receive an update from someone and if I want to respond I do it by email. The less those bastards at Facebook have on me, the better! It looks like someone thinks their words are too precious to be copied, and I am unable to copy and paste this quote, so I will type it out in full: "I want my friends to understand that 'staying out of politics' or 'being sick of politics' is privilege in action. Your privilege allows you to live a nonpolitical existence. Your wealth, your race, your abilities or your gender allows you to live a life in which you will not likely be a target of bigotry, attacks, deportation or genocide. You don't want to get political, you don't want to fight because your life and safety are not at stake. It is hard and exhausting to bring up issues of oppression (aka get political) The fighting is tiring. I get it. Self-care is essential. But if you find politics annoying and you just want everyone to be nice, please know that people are literally fighting for their lives and safety. You might not see it, but that's what privilege does." This is a quote of unknown provenance. I am imagining that the person who wrote it to be a very angry African-American woman with a postgraduate degree. Just hazarding a guess (emphasis on hazard!) We know this very familiar narrative about white privilege. There is something magical about this formula of being a white male that grants you access to corridors of status, power, wealth and privilege that no one else on earth can hope to enjoy. I think this is partly correct. However, no one says anything about certain white males, such as me, who stay poor and underemployed all our lives and if we are lucky can at least live out our final years in government-subsidized housing. True, our percentage is significantly lower than it is for aboriginals and people of colour. There are a lot of historical wrongs that need to be addressed in order to confront and dismantle this legacy of historical white supremacy. A lot has changed already and is changing yet more. I have noticed over the years growing numbers of people with Jewish, South Asian, and particularly East Asian heritage, coming into higher and more privileged positions. For example, here in my dear privileged little Canada, both the mayor of Calgary (our fourth-largest city) and the leader of one of our major federal political parties, the NDP, are men of South Asian heritage, respectively Muslim and Sikh by religion. As well there is a growing proportion of women, two of whom are premiers of the provinces, Alberta and Ontario. Close, but no cigar. Women still feel unsafe on the streets and in the workplace. People of colour and aboriginals are still being racially profiled and harassed by the police. Okay, but here is a cypher they are not sharing with us from the Hallowed Halls of Politically Correctdom. All those unfortunate conditions apply equally to the poor, and it isn't going to matter what their race or gender is going to be. I know this because it has happened to me. Throughout my teens and early twenties I was routinely harassed and profiled by police. My offence? I looked like a hippy. The harassment occurred again in my early forties when I was desperately poor and recovering from homelessness. I understand, and accept that some, maybe a lot of, people of colour are going to hate and distrust white people, especially white males in positions of power and influence. But I, for one, also marginalized and discriminated against, only wish that some of those people would be a little more perceptive and careful about whom they choose to target with their hate. Such as the young African man who robbed me at knifepoint in Amsterdam. And the two huge African Americans visiting my city who menaced, bullied and threatened me on Robson Street because I was wearing a bandana on my head. And the well-dressed and very grumpy African-Canadian (maybe American), who, twelve years ago or so swore violently at me when I tried not to inhale his secondhand smoke, swore at me even more menacingly when I tried to tell him "Dude, it's nothing personal, I just don't want to inhale any smoke", then got really ugly when I wished him a Happy New Year (it was New Year's Day). Maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut. Or maybe someone really defaulted in their responsibilities of how to nurture and role model for each of those men when they were kids. But you know something else, Gentle Reader? I don't buy this business that being black or aboriginal makes you automatically innocent. This is going to make me sound like a conservative rightwing reactionary, but right now I really don't give a you-know-what, because I actually believe this. Race does not give anyone a pass for bad behaviour. We all make choices. When someone decides to threaten another person's life, rob them, threaten their safety, they are choosing to ignore the humanity of their targeted victim. Even if that targeted victim happens to be a white male. That's right. Sometimes it just comes down to basic ethics and morals. Hating, harming and threatening others is a moral choice. It is a choice against doing the right thing, and no amount of social restructuring nor dismantling systems of injustice are going to do a damn thing to change this. Yes, our social conditions and structures that we live under play a significant role in our life outcomes, and in the choices that we make. But there are also fundamental moral and ethical choices that we are all very capable of making, and intentionally default on, concerning not harming other people, and this covers everyone: white, black, brown, aboriginal, male, female, queer, straight, trans, rich and poor.

Healing Trauma: Perceptions And Attitudes, 44

Reconciliation, I would imagine, is many things to many people. It happens, or needs to happen, on so many different levels, and usually it never happens. There has been a lot of grandstanding around that word: the truth and reconciliation process in South Africa, here in Canada between our government and indigenous peoples, currently in Colombia between FARC and the government. There are other controversies as to the obstacles to reconciliation. The ongoing frustration that is also called "Black Lives Matter"; the "Me Too" hashtag for the thousands, millions of women sexually assaulted, harassed and victimized by men in power. Then there are the many accounts pending that will likely never be ratified: the Spanish rape of the Americas; the English rape of the Americas, Australia and New Zealand; the French rape of North Africa; the Belgian rape of the Congo; the Dutch rape of Indonesia; the Portuguese rape of Brazil, Mozambique and Angola. It is less than likely that the Catholic Church will ever apologize for the Inquisition, the burning of witches and others they didn't like, and the sexual abuse by priests of children. and there are the interpersonal offences and griefs and gaffs and hurts for which we seem to be always apologizing, or ignoring, or trying to forget. Family life, anyone? It isn't as if it's that hard to say the words, "I'm sorry." Ask any Canadian. If someone steps on my foot, my first impulse is to apologize for getting in their way. Do these little daily apologies mean or amount to anything? Well, yes...and no. I like the idea of the voluntary apology, however insincere, because it does something to enhance and improve the general ambience. I am not being facetious, Gentle Reader. When I hear people apologize on the sidewalk or the bus, or wherever, somehow the world feels like a slightly kinder and safer place. But this isn't quite the same as reconciliation. I happen to know people who never want to see or speak to me again. I have on occasion felt this way about certain individuals, but I try to no longer let things get this far. We never know who will be needing us in the future, or whom we'll be needing. And this is why reconciliation is important. It is fine to express outrage and anger when you have been victimized, but staying in that warm bath of piss is not going to do anything to advance your cause. You will simply be angry, be seen as angry, and you will continue to fester and revel in your righteous indignation. On the other hand, the offender must be somehow exposed, identified and brought to justice. But what kind of justice? We already know that a lot of people in visible minorities hate white people, especially white males, and not without some justification. We already know that a lot of women hate men for being such abusive jerks and assholes, and for being such shameless liars about it. We already know they're angry. We're all angry. We live in an age of righteous indignation. Reconciliation does not come cheap. Someone has to own up and pay the rent. Forgiveness doesn't come easy. Sometimes all we are left with is either marinating in the juices of our bile till they poison and kill us, or to actually forgive and move on. What makes this onerous is having the knowledge that the offenders are being given a pass, will never face justice, and will go on with impunity harming the innocent. Or does it? I wonder, drawing from personal experience, if forgiveness actually disempowers the offender as the victim moves on in healing and getting on with our lives. Remember the saying: Living well is the sweetest revenge. By forgiving those who have harmed us we disempower them because we are no longer under their stamping boot. They still need to be confronted, they still need to be brought to justice. But we still also have to move forward and move on with our lives.

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 43

First, Gentle Reader, my email this morning to the Ideas program on the CBC. In the small hours they were broadcasting the program "Whose Lives Matter?" All the participants were black women and of course Whitey gets blamed for everything. And I agree, white people, especially white males, have a lot to answer for. Anyway, Gentle Reader, read my email below, and draw your own conclusions: "I just listened to Whose Lives Matter, with interest. I think there is racism on both sides, and of course an imbalance of power. But on the whole, I tend to believe that white privilege is a socially constructed myth. I am white, male, early sixties, healthy, and I have always been poor and live now in social housing. I have also been threatened and robbed on three occasions in my life by black males, never by men of other races. I believe that my race was a factor, or I was targeted by their hatred of white people. I am not blaming them, African people have been through the worst possible hell. However, I think the argument lacks nuance. It isn't just white men who are privileged, but white men with money, social connections, good family situations and upward mobility. I have had none of those things, I am poor and therefore find it hard to believe in white privilege. It's the race card, you know. And gender. No black men were interviewed on this program. By the way, I generally get along well with others regardless their race and have enjoyed rich friendships with people of African heritage, among others. Please give my blog a read, if you have a moment. https://aaronbenjaminzacharias.blogspot.ca/2018/02/healing-trauma-perspectives-and.html The legacy of slavery. Of the wrong-headed notion that one human being can own another. And the equally wrong-headed idea that some races are superior or inferior. This has been a problem since our Neolithic ancestors discovered farming. Slavery has had over ten thousand years to develop, mutate and fester in our collective unconscious. However, our species has been around a lot longer, some say for almost a half million years. I find it interesting that, at least for diet and health reasons, there are some academics as well as New Age fruits, nuts and flakes (your basic granola bar!) delving into our hunter-gatherer origins, if only to see if they were doing it better than we are now, and chances are, in some ways they were. However, unlike us, they also had larger brains. And much higher infant mortality. And a much lower life-expectancy. Whatever we do, we are all responsible to address and challenge our ways of thinking and to change our attitudes. Not easy. I really think that we have to live together, or close together, and work at building communities based upon reconciliation and common interests in order to really learn to appreciate and value one another, and to celebrate equally our similarities and our differences. But I would imagine that our similarities are going to take precedence. I had to work hard not to be impacted by a hatred of black men after: in 1991 in Amsterdam a little African guy robbed me at knifepoint of close to five hundred dollars and almost got away with my passport; in 1994 when two very large black men visiting from the US threatened and intimidated me for wearing a bandana on my head, and two women (I suspect they were street nurses) had to come in and rescue me; in 2007 or so when a young black man started aggressively swearing at me and threatened me with violence just because I inhaled as I was getting close to him, so I could hold my breath long enough to not have to inhale the second hand smoke from his cigarette (for me, second hand smoke has no skin colour. It is all toxic, deadly and offensive to me, with absolute equality.) I have also felt threatened on occasion by white guys, but not to that extreme, and never by East or South Asians or Latinos, nor by Middle Eastern people. By a couple of aboriginals, yes, and more recently in my apartment building by an agitated African tenant. Just black guys and a couple of white guys and a couple of aboriginals. You know, I really wonder if we need to stop playing the race card altogether and start looking at socio-economic differences, inequalities and structures. This isn't to say that race doesn't play a role. Of course it does. We still have racial profiling. Recently I overheard an aboriginal woman in the local Shopper's Drug Mart complaining bitterly to the Filipina cashier about an allegedly white store detective constantly harassing her, as though by being aboriginal she was also a shoplifter. I appreciate her honesty and her generosity, when she refused to file a complaint because she didn't want to see him lose his job. As I have said, this racial issue is very nuanced, and with most of us being so intellectually lazy, it is far too easy for us to simply play the race card and forget about the other details of systemic inequality and injustice that prevent many of us from moving forward. As well as the stubborn refusal on all sides to move effectively towards reconciliation and mutual understanding. I think there is a lot of grudge-holding implicit here, understandable, but still an obstacle to resolving anything. When I see so many people of Chinese and South Asian heritage doing well professionally in my country, despite the historical obstacles of racism and discrimination, I am more than a little inclined to just wonder if there is more to this picture than what meets the eye. I wonder what real reconciliation would look like?

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 42

I would like to continue exploring this idea of property, Gentle Reader, but take it in a decidedly different direction. I am thinking of our tendency of treating other humans as property. That's right, I am going to write about slavery. Not just the Ol' Man River style of slavery along the Mississippi in the US Deep South before Lincoln freed the African slaves, and not the kinds of people who were pressganged to build great ancient monuments and no household was considered complete in Ancient Greece, Egypt or Rome or, pick one, without at least a few slaves to do all the hard work. Slavery has been with us since the Neolithic, when agriculture was invented. Human settlements became stratified societies with accumulations of wealth and so slaves were obtained, often through warfare, to provide free human labour. Slavery has been with us much longer than it has not been with us. By the early nineteenth century, it is estimated that three quarters of the world's inhabitants were slaves or serfs. For less than the last two hundred years of our history of civilization and agriculture that goes back some twelve thousand years, has slavery been abolished. But our way of thinking still hasn't caught up. Most of us still are not free. We are still slaves to our occupations, our families, our social networks, our nations. We are not free. I think there are twin impulses in our deepest human psyche and they are equally strong: the desire for freedom and the desire to serve. We can only survive and cope for so long alone and without human infrastructure, then we perish. We can only survive and cope for so long among others and as part of the human infrastructure, and then we perish. Human survival has always been predicated upon our interdependence, otherwise we simply would not have survived long enough to keep passing on our genes. Each one of us still also has that primal urge to freedom, to individuation, to complete personal autonomy. Slavery is probably the most damaging institution that was ever invented in our human history, but it is also very old, with roots every bit as long as the Oldest Profession. When it was simple ownership of humans, slavery was of course out in the open. No one seemed to care much about the damage and human trauma that it caused, and why would they care, since these people were slaves, considered less than human, valuable only for their utility. Even in our enlightened twenty-first century, we still have the thinking of slaves. A lot of this is invested in our occupations. We almost all need to work in order to survive. True, our employers don't own us body and soul, but while we are at the job, we are theirs, so it's a kind of part time, temporary slavery. We all hate the Man. Even in professions and occupations that are meaningful and gratifying as what I do as a peer support worker, the experience is often tainted and warped by the experience of servitude. This understanding, however subliminal, that we must take care to not offend those who have the power to harm us, because then we could lose our employment, our income, and possibly our ability to feed and house ourselves and our loved ones. This experience of occupational servitude, of course, is universal, and it cannot be reasonably compared to the dehumanized misery of slavery. But it still feeds from those archetypes. We are not yet truly free, and as much as we long for complete freedom, it could also become our death sentence.

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 41

I want to write here about found objects: particularly toques. I have three toques, all found: one is a hand-knitted beauty of gray, three shades of blue and mauve. It looks, and feels, as though it was made with a lot of love and care. Another I found in front of BC Place on a rainy day, a brown and beige number that also looks handmade The other, I recently found on the Granville Bridge while walking. It is a black Calvin Klein number, and it replaces the other black one, a Christmas gift from a few years ago, that I lost recently. I generally take a finders keepers attitude, but lately, I'm not so sure. I have been blessed with a lot of decent clothing items that I happened to just find everywhere, when I was too poor even to buy anything second-hand, and I would have to say that for a while it was God who was keeping me clothed. It was during that time, eighteen years ago, when I found the beautiful toque, the grey, blue and mauve one. It has a particularly androgynous look, not specifically guy or girly. Like me, in many ways. I was wearing it yesterday during a cold snap. On the bus, the lady next to me mentioned how nice it looked. I thanked her and mentioned that I found it eighteen years ago one night in a park in East Vancouver. When she mentioned that it looks handmade I replied that I sometimes feel a bit guilty wearing it, knowing that it might have been a poignant loss for someone else. She kindly suggested that the previous owner might also be glad that now it's keeping someone else's head warm. I thanked her, but I also said that, still, I feel like I'm keeping it in trust, and if some stranger on the sidewalk should tell me, "Hey, that's my toque you're wearing, I lost it in such-and-such park in East Van almost twenty years ago, then I would gladly take it off my head and return it to them. I wonder if that's the way I need to start thinking about all my possessions. That they aren't really mine to begin with. I am borrowing them, just as I am borrowing this body from the elements of the earth that it is made from. I think there is a difference between ownership and stewardship. I have written and said elsewhere that while we don't really ever own anything, anything can own us. When I was in intentional community this idea was very strong and we really took it to heart. I think some of us went too far with it and it became psychologically destabilizing. We still need familiar things and features that feel like they are ours if we are to feel stable and grounded. My rented subsidized apartment where I have lived more than fifteen years, feels like it is truly mine. But I also remind myself at times that I don't own it. I still keep it locked, whether I'm out or in, but this helps me feel safe and grounded. But how far do we need to go with that kind of thinking? When does ownership turn into theft from others, because our cold little fingers simply will not be pried away from our Precious? Selfish, property-oriented thinking does a lot to divide people based on wealth and income and to make our communities into something that are not communities, but little fortresses of gated condos and mansions. Recently, in Saskatchewan, an aboriginal youth got his head blown off while he and his friends were stealing a truck from a white farmer, who was recently acquitted on charges of manslaughter. True, they should not have been on that guy's property and they should not have been stealing his truck, but really, what is the value of a human life compared to a parcel of dirt and a machine on wheels that fouls the environment? How often do robbery and theft become the natural outcome of our being people too selfish and uncaring to actually share our possessions, our money or our lives with others. How much does our culture of consumer capitalism dehumanize us into a conglomeration of festering anti-social Gollums, each too obsessed with not losing his Precious and so we keep ourselves away from others, and others away from us?

Healing Trauma: Perspectives and Attitudes, 40

What I want to know is, what does it take to bring the oppressors to repentance? The Spanish have been collectively traumatized by the brutality of their own nation and culture, the way they brutalized and waged wholesale genocide and robbery against entire indigenous nations of people in the Americas. Why would I say this, that they are traumatized as well as being traumatizers, or vectors of trauma? There has never been any admission of wrongdoing or culpability proffered by the Spanish to the indigenous peoples of Latin America and their descendants, the Mestizaje (Latinos of mixed race and heritage who compose the majority of the populations of most Latin American countries), and the Spanish character, if it can be called that, remains famously arrogant, selfish and haughty, artificial and evasive. Spanish people, and by extension, many Latin Americans, appear to have an inherited allergy to truthfulness. If you are bluntly honest with a Spaniard, especially about their behaviour and attitudes and the way they impact you, I have found, then you have made an enemy for life. Latin Americans of my experience tend to show a little more flexibility and humility in this area but they have also been infected by the collective arrogance of Mama Espana, perhaps in a sonny boy mimicking daddy sort of way. In terms of a willingness among the Spanish to come to terms with the sins of their country? I had a chat on Skype recently with one of my friends in Colombia. He told me about a confrontation he had with a particularly arrogant Spaniard who was visiting his country. When he mentioned to this Spaniard, who had already shown himself to be quite disagreeable, that it was his country that had invaded and cruelly exploited his people, the Spaniard simply shrugged it off, replying that if Spain hadn't done it then some other country would have. That of course ended the conversation, though I did suggest to my Colombian friend that punching that idiot in the mouth might have been the only appropriate response (and no, I do not approve of violence. But there are certain exceptions to which I will kindly avert my eye, Gentle Reader!) I have noticed a similar obtuseness to repentance with people like Felicia, that rather fearful and unpleasant woman I mentioned yesterday, who tends to say cruel and blatantly untrue things about homeless people. I imagine she is like this for the same reason that a lot of people are like this. They tend to vote for right-wing politicians and their poor-bashing is legendary. I have also noted often a big elephant in our collective provincial living room, here in BC. An apparent reluctance in the media to remind us that it was our own BC Liberal Party that instituted some of the cruelest and most draconian measures in the history of our province against the poor and marginalized who live here. That their mean-spirited policies, followed by their dog-like submission to the market thus driving up the costs of housing way beyond the reach of people of average means, have contributed to a crisis of homelessness and housing that wasn't even seen here during the Great Depression. Now our leaders boast about our robust and thriving economy, yet we have a humanitarian catastrophe of homelessness. But to get people like that to come to a place of repentance? To 'fess up? Why are they too proud to admit that they were wrong and that their overweening arrogance, fear and greed are rapidly flushing us all down the toilet? Whether Spain, Felicia, our government, or those deplorable strongman presidents and leaders in other countries (President Dump, Duterte in the Philippines, and others). When we assume positions and attitudes of power, we also acquire the ability to inflict great harm on others, especially on the already vulnerable. This dehumanizes us. We become less than real human beings, because we are harming and exploiting others for our own gain. Human beings, being created in the image of God who is love, are naturally oriented to love, but so much gets in the way to warp, mutate and pervert our essential nature of love, and it is at our peril that we ignore this. Meanwhile, Gentle Reader, how do we get those in power, those abusers of power, to come to terms with the harm they have done? Che Guevara believed staunchly that such enemies of the people are good only for being taken out and shot. I don't accept this thinking. There has to be a better way, and there is a better way, but we have to really believe that love is stronger than hate. If this means Kumbaya, then so be it, because we are thus singing, "Come by here, my Lord, come by here." Only the presence and daily practice of real, universal and unconditional love is going to put to flight the work of hate, fear, greed and darkness. But we have to believe this enough if we are going to make it work.

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 39

Those of you who follow the local news in my city will be aware that we are in the middle of a homelessness crisis. There have been many small, very tiny, often false steps being made to address and remedy the situation. The problem is never a lack of funds. If they want to build freeways, stadiums and more luxury condos than can be flipped in a year, then the money is always there. The money would also be there if more people would change their attitudes. The City of Vancouver is finally moving forward on some more assertive actions in solving our homelessness problem. Modular housing complexes are now being built in specific sites of the city. One is due to be opened in just a few days and will be welcoming, I think, around seventy-five or seventy-six new tenants. I just checked. It's seventy-eight tenants, all aged forty-five or over. I just had a look at the website for the stupidly-named Caring Citizens of Vancouver Society. It's a coalition of NIMBYs who don't want street homeless people living in their neighbourhood. Not safe for the children, they say. Bad for property values and we don't like poor people, especially in our face, is what they mean. This happens everywhere in my city, every time proposals are made to house the homeless and other poor and marginalized people in neighbourhoods other than the worst parts of the downtown core. Here is my response to a particularly ignorant comment posted by one of their members: "Felicia, the homelessness crisis was not caused by a few poor people making bad choices; it was brought on by government cutbacks in spending on social services and by soaring real estate and rents. And now we are seeing the results. People don’t become street-feral overnight. This happens over time, after years of being refused, rejected and judged as being worth nothing. Now we are facing the consequences. I’m sorry this is so uncomfortable for you, but you’re going to have to just get over it and put up with it, or move somewhere else. Or maybe do something to help instead of judging and complaining as you appear to be doing a lot of." I'm not going to post her bitter rant here, because I don't want to give oxygen to this kind of ignorance, but she does appear to be judging people with major mental health and cognitive challenges on the basis of her own ableism, which is something that ignorant and poorly-informed people, such as the members of Caring Citizens of Vancouver Society tend to do. They ramp up the fear, which feeds into the hate and away we go! It is one of the most tragic ironies of life, that those of us who have been the worst beat up are also going to be receiving the most hostile reception by the so-called well folk. I am glad to know that not everyone is like that. A number of high school students in the Marpole area, just down the street from the modular housing project, set up a Facebook page supporting the project and welcoming the new residents. Great way of sticking it to Mom and Dad. Those kids rock! There are also faith groups of Christians and Muslims organizing and volunteering to help support and welcome the newcomers. Say what you want, atheists, but isn't it odd how most of the folks who end up doing something for the poor and downtrodden also happen to believe in someone whom you insist does not exist. Oh, there are also kind atheists out there, too, and I know some of them, but just sayin'! If we are going to heal our lives, our communities, our cities, our nation, and our world, then we are going to have to get rid of the fear. Love and fear do not and cannot coexist. There is a better way, and if we have the courage to reach out to others in good faith from our situations of privilege then I think that will be a good starting point. I think we also need to understand that it isn't going to be easy, and there will be problems at times, but that is life, and I think that by trying to shelter their kids from the realities of the street in their sheltered bubbles, that these parents are doing their children a great disservice. By cloistering them from the reality of homelessness and poverty and all the other problems associated they are actually harming their children and could even more successfully raise them to become adults every bit as selfish and afraid as they are.

Healing Trauma: perspectives And Attitudes, 38

Every Saturday I seem to walk past the Canadian Memorial United Church on Burrard and West Fifteenth Avenue, here in my lovely, horrendously overpriced and overrated city of Vancouver. They have a message board on the lawn, which every couple of weeks has something new on it. Some of the messages are pretty good, some not so great, others, meh. The one I saw yesterday particularly caught my attention. Here it is, as I recall it: "Pride makes us artificial. Humility makes us real." I have seen and experienced and lived the truth of those words over and over in my life, pride and artificiality and humility and being real. Generally it's been one coming after the other, or, pride goeth before the fall, as the old sages used to warn us. It seems that one of the surest shortcuts to humility is pride. Exalt yourself, and you will be humbled. It is the natural order of things. I will say this much in commentary: humility makes us real because we have nothing to be proud about. We are small, weak and insignificant. That's right, all you pop-psychologist self-esteemers. You have created a generation of entitled spoiled little monsters and the fact of the matter is so simple and so very hard for a lot of you to swallow: it is getting our ass kicked that makes us human, makes us real, reminds us that we are not the perfect little gods we were brought up to believe. I am also thinking of this relative to yesterday's entry where I mentioned my futile exchange with Sergio, the prissy arrogant Spaniard commenting on YouTube about the inferiority of his Latin American brethren. Over and over, I have encountered this kind of arrogance among most of the Spanish people of my acquaintance (they're not all that bad, by the way.) I will post here my comment on Yahoo from three years ago: "I can't speak for all Spanish people, having never been to Spain, but I've done a lot of language work here in Vancouver with people from all over the Spanish speaking world. This is what I've found: Colombians, Mexicans and Central Americans tend to be the kindest, and most reliable. Mexicans are particularly tactful. I have done well with only one native Spaniard out of, say, almost ten: the others I've found to be prejudiced against Latin American Spanish speakers, generally unreliable and thin-skinned. I'm sure they're not all like that, but just sayin'." Since turfing out the Moors in the fifteenth century, Spain has never been occupied, invaded or conquered. They have been the occupiers, the invaders, the conquerors. They murdered, infected with disease, starved and committed the most loathsome acts of genocide against millions of indigenous inhabitants of the Americas. Yes, I know, so did the English further north, but on this page we are discussing the Spanish, Gentle Reader. I do not believe that there is any record of any apology coming from the Spanish government to the Americas and especially for the aboriginal peoples of Mexico, Central and South America for the barbarities and atrocities that were committed. This likely is never going to happen, just as it is highly unlikely that the Roman Catholic Church is ever going to apologize for the Inquisition (a Spanish invention) I believe that the ontological arrogance of their rulers and governments, past and present, has done much to damage and traumatize the collective psyche of the Spanish people. I have written elsewhere that cruelty and abuse is also traumatizing to the inflictors as well as their victims. Terrified of facing their crimes, their sins, their capacity for doing and being wrong, they become arrogant, haughty and artificial. They become, as it were, less than human, shadows of the human soul. We have seen already some of the results of the imperfect and very difficult processes of truth and reconciliation going on in South Africa, and here in Canada between our government, the churches and our aboriginal peoples. This is not easy, and people have to face their darkness and their own shadow if they are going to move on. The German people had to do this following the atrocities against Jews and others during the Second World War. The Japanese still refuse to do this regarding their role in that war (they are quick to play the victim, though, and rightly so, about the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Germany now is the most vibrant and robust nation in the European Union, and I think this is a fruit of repentance. The Japanese are aging to death, do not accept immigrants, and remain an insular and racist culture. The Spanish? They struggle on as a country with high unemployment, a staggering economy, huge influxes of immigration from African countries, and a collective racist and xenophobic mentality. The Franco dictatorship set that country backwards by several decades. The historical geographic isolation of the Iberian Peninsula with the Pyrenees cutting them off from the rest of Europe was another contributing factor, along with their traditional entrenched arrogance as conquistadores and as defenders of the Catholic faith. Even though the church isn't as strong in Spanish life as before (indeed, I would guess that a huge proportion of the younger generations are secular, agnostic or atheist), the legacy of intransigence and arrogance remains deeply rooted in the Spanish psyche. There has never been a collective repentance for the genocidal abuse committed in the Americas. The Catholic Church is as cozy with them as two peas in a pod. It is very ironic that the same institution that claims to represent Christ, whose faith is founded upon repentance, will likely never look in that mirror themselves. Even now, the popes and the cardinals drag their holy asses about dropping protections for pedophile priests, cardinals and bishops. I will conclude this little essay with a comment about repentance, the joy-filled life. This is a line borrowed from Basilea Schlink, who was the leader of an interdenominational Christian community in Germany. Repentance, in this context, has nothing to do with shame, or self-punishment. It has everything to do with bravely facing the truth and the consequences of our wrong choices and actions, and changing the direction of our lives into paths that are life-affirming and positive for ourselves and others. It is a joy-filled life because upon repentance, forgiveness is accepted and given and this sets us free to move forward.

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 37

It is amazing how much you can learn about people, history and geography as well as collective mental health through a brief comment exchange on YouTube. I don't generally comment on YouTube, Gentle Reader. It is often a cesspit of hostility and verbal and emotional violence and incivility. It is just appalling that they do absolutely nothing to moderate and delete these comments, with some of the cruel, sadistic abuse that gets posted there. From time to time I still put something on there, but then I usually delete any replies that come, without reading them. I know, what a coward. I actually did take the trouble since yesterday, of following up with one Spanish idiot (most of the Spanish people I have met and dealt with are idiots). They are the comments on the film, The Golden Bowl, this one dubbed in Spanish. I saw it once in English, in 2001, the day before the twin towers fell in New York City. It is a charming period piece based on the novel, or short story, I think, by Henry James, and Uma Thurman plays the adulteress. The dubbing is in Peninsular, or, European Spanish, which is widely despised throughout Latin America, and for good reason. The pronunciation is dreadful and many of the Spanish are arrogant colonialist snobs who look down on their Latino brethren. I made this comment on YouTube the other day, in response to this fatuous Spanish idiot, who likely has never travelled outside of his country, who waxed on about how beautiful and superior is the Spanish of Spain that is used in the film. I replied that the pronunciation in Spain is generally quite poor. The Spanish guy, a twit named Sergio, insisted that Latin American Spanish is horrible. He has probably never had a conversation with a Latin American in his life. I tried to reason with him, a waste of time with trolls on YouTube, suggesting that language is never static and is going to evolve and develop differently in different regions. He got nitpicking and downright offensive, refused to consider another point of view, emphasizing that Latin Americans are inferior people, and I refuse to argue further with that imbecile. This little exchange has really highlighted for me the whole historical dilemma of Latin America. The colonialist mentality is still alive and well among the Spanish, particularly the older generation, people who were alive during the Franco dictatorship. They are not able to see past their own cultural arrogance and simply seem convinced that anyone who disagrees with them is wrong, for the simple reason that they disagree. It is impossible to argue with such people, so it is better to walk away. I just find it a bit sad that this kind of arrogance is largely responsible for the huge destruction that has been wreaked on the indigenous peoples of the Americas, and that there are still people who refuse to recognize this, nor acknowledge their culpability. This also goes for the British and French and what they have done to the peoples of North America, by the way. I really don't know what it's going to take to open these closed minds, and perhaps it shouldn't really matter except for one small problem: We have people in positions of great power and influence who also have closed little minds and until this changes I think that we, our humanity, other species and this planet are going to be held hostage and face great and lasting harm due largely to some of those same precious, close-minded bastards. No more YouTube comments, Gentle Reader. I promise.

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 36

I am getting ready for my annual trip, my month in Latin America. It will be a month of Spanish immersion, of being away from the familiar, away from work, from friends and neighbours and clients and colleagues. It should be, and I expect it to be, a month of rest. I will be in Costa Rica. My fifth visit to that country. I will spend most of my time in Monteverde. My fifth time in that region. Why this tendency of returning to the same place over and over? Is this a fear of the unknown placing a control over the adventure and novelty of travel? I don't think so. I have a tendency of connecting and bonding with places and with people. I have mentioned elsewhere on these pages that I try not to think in terms of bucket lists. To me the bucket list is a problematic symptom of a consumerist and very selfish and narcissistic culture, something that I simply do not want to participate in. Simply put, Gentle Reader, if we want to begin to be agents of healing for our troubled and traumatized humanity, then we have to stop treating persons as commodities or as novelties. I have leveled this criticism from time to time at brainless tourists in my own Vancouver, when they become so caught up in their selfies and photo ops that it is not very clear to them that they are visiting a place where people live their lives, and I just tell them sometimes, "People live here, you know." For example, these idiots obstructing the sidewalk for their photos and those dumb but nice locals who indulgently walk around them so they can have their little tourist moment. Well, I think that tourists need to be educated. I do not change my route in order to accommodate or compensate for that half of their brain they leave in their luggage. I walk right past them, in front of their phone or camera, if I have to (it's never fully intentional!) and if they even dare to protest (they seem to know better not to), I simply give my sweetest Canadian smile and chime: "Umm, people live here, you know." For some reason, I simply am never inclined to sweeten the passive-aggressive rebuke with that classic Canadian, "Sorry." Recently, I have also had to remind similar visiting dumbasses while hogging the sidewalk on the Granville Bridge or the trail in Stanley Park, that "Sharing the sidewalk (path) is very good." It's their free ESL de jour. Some of them are actually rude about it, since they likely come from countries that do not have a culture of public civility, but most are downright decent about it (they don't know if I might be armed!) And this is the way it is when I am a guest in someone else's parlour. I am integrating among local people, speaking their language (Spanish), befriending anyone who makes themselves befriendable, eating in local places, and simply making myself as invisible as possible while observing the people around me, talking with strangers and learning about the city, the country, the people, the culture, the local trends, the politics, the mores and social expectations, the local ecology, a little bit of everything. I have made some pretty awesome friends this way, in Mexico, in Costa Rica, and in Colombia, almost all of them are local people, save for one, a visitor like me whom I met in a bed and breakfast in Mexico City, and to this day, almost ten years later we are still friends and still in touch with each other. This kind of travel also carries a rather steep learning curve, and mistakes are going to be made along the way, as any readers of my travel blogs will remember. I think that the internet has done a lot to make the world a small place, and this for some of us can really help facilitate a sense of global community. I think that as more of us become brave enough to learn new languages and travel alone in other countries with the express purpose of catalyzing community, then maybe we can also, through our own tiny steps, help facilitate a move towards greater global peace, harmony and reconciliation. And no one even has to sing Kumbaya, nor hum it, nor even (please, God, NO!!!!), whistle it.

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 35

I am listening to CBC Ideas in the early hours of the morning. They are kind enough to rebroadcast this magnificent program full of content worthy of a liberal arts degree at four in the morning as well as nine at night. This works well for me because I am usually in bed and drifting off to sleep at nine or a bit later, when the evening broadcast is just getting under way. Today's selection is about the social and political underpinnings of poverty, or, why in a world, in a country of such plenty, we have so many people who work hard for a living and still have to choose between spending on food or housing. I accept that I am one of the lucky ones. I live in government-subsidized social housing. This isn't heaven on earth, though. I live cheek-by-jowl, with tenants who have some real issues and social and mental health problems, which I alluded to on my most recent post, Gentle Reader. I would love to move away from those neighbours, because sometimes they can be really difficult, a real pain, and on occasion, dangerous. Yet, I just can't up and move. On my slightly higher than minimum wage, market housing is out of the question. Even if I were to find an affordable bachelor unit like the one I live in, but at market rates, I would be paying at least nine hundred a month, before utilities, leaving me not quite enough food to eat, and regular visits to the food bank. I would have no money left over for savings, for emergencies, for dental care, clothes, transportation (I would have to walk everywhere, making my job very difficult, and likely resulting in a reduction of hours, because I have to see clients who live all over Vancouver, and sometimes walking between assignments is just out of the question, unless no one minds my arriving two hours late.) So, I put up and shut up, and barring any real housing options, I am in pretty good shape. However, I like to travel, and I actually need to do this. I need, for my psychological wellbeing, to be able to spend one month away from where I live, because some of my near neighbours in this building are also clients of the mental health system that employs me, and from time to time I end up interacting with certain neighbours as my clients. I also live in an unsafe area of downtown and this is also a major cause of household stress for people who live here. I already mentioned that in this fabulously expensive city, I cannot move, and why. At my age, relocating in a different part of the province or in another province is out of the question. It has taken me years to establish some of the lasting friendships that I enjoy here and I do not feel up to the social isolation that would be awaiting a near-senior trying to get reestablished in a new area. Employment would be difficult, given my age and the regionalized specialization of my field of employment. So, I stay where I am, make the best of it and it really isn't bad. I only wish that I had the kinds of options that my better-paid colleagues enjoy. Then there is this myth of white privilege. You are reading correctly, Gentle Reader. White Privilege is a myth. I am a white male. Neither race nor gender have done diddly-squat to give me an advantage, socially, economically or professionally. I have always been a low wage earner. Take a walk on the streets downtown and in other communities. Look at all the beggars. Most of them are...drum roll...white males. There are some aboriginals as well. No East Asians, no South Asians, almost no Latinos. And yet, the Politically Correct Thought Police would have us believe that poverty is a problem of white privilege, caused by white privilege, and that by assumption, someone like me must be either mentally ill, or a drug addict, or maybe just lazy. Well, I am not mentally ill. I am not a drug addict. I am not lazy (I have actually worked most of my life). I am a white male, and I am poor. Invisible on the socially progressive radar. I really do understand the popularity and appeal to poor and working class American white males of that shameless imbecile, the Great Deplorable in the Oval Office, el presidente Dump. The failure of the academic classes to really address and reign in their own intellectual laziness has contributed to this electoral catastrophe. Naturally a dumbass populist like the Dump isn't going to really care about, or do a lot for the people who have become his power base, because he was simply exploiting and channelling their vulnerability and anger in order to get elected. But I still think that we owe it to ourselves to de-racialize power and privilege, at least insofar as our assumptions are concerned. In a truly progressive society, no one is going to be left behind, not even white males. To simply claim that those who complain about loss of rights are just complaining about their loss of privilege does nothing for our collective wellbeing and serves only to shut down the conversation. Privilege needs to become a shared property and no one should have to feel like a branch broken off the tree so that something else can be grafted in its place.

Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes 34

Gentle Reader: My dear little laptop has tantrums from time to time, and this past Sunday, he had an absolute meltdown. I just got him back from the shop, he has a shiny new video card and no longer whines and grumbles and groans whenever I open him up. So, I am going to finish and edit Sunday's post and try to bring things up to date a little. Here is last Sunday: When I worked at Lookout fifteen years ago I first discovered how the already victimized and marginalized often end up victimizing and exploiting each other. It doesn`t appear to gel with conventional wisdom, but it occurs all too often. Lookout is an emergency shelter for homeless adults. Not a nice place to work and they have a tendency of hiring abusive jerks, so it isn't any wonder that I didn't last there much longer than a year. The clients were generally okay. Most of the staff were complete assholes. But here I'm writing about abuse that happens within exploited and victimized populations. I first became aware of this when a coworker told me about one client stealing money from another. They were sharing a room. This brings on another personal hobby horse of mine, which is the scandalous lack of privacy for adults in homeless shelters, as well as in hospitals, where they are expected to share a room with one or more complete strangers. Funding be damned! If they really cared enough about the dignity of clients and patients then they would find the funds to make sure that each person has privacy and a sense of safety and security while under care. I had to go through this when I was in hospital almost three years ago with a thyroid problem and Miller-Fisher Syndrome, which they failed to diagnose, and only today have I finally discovered this illness and I have no doubt at all that that is what put me in hospital. But I will save the details for a future post. While in hospital, I had to share a room with a twenty-three year old heroin addict who was abrasive, belligerent and foul-mouthed as well as nosy and inappropriate. Hospital staff did nothing even after I complained several times. So, here is another example of the kind of mistreatment that can and often does occur between people who are equally disenfranchised. There is something about the whole process of marginalization that can really bring out the worst in people. Feeling chronically belittled and marginalized, even dehumanized can really turn some people into monsters. Not all. We also find amazing displays of solidarity and empathy among the poor. I think that a lot depends on the individual, what kinds of issues they are dealing with, and dare I use this antiquated term, their level of moral development? Those of us on the left, especially on the extreme left where I tend to make my ontological habitation, are very big on demonizing the wealthy and privileged as selfish, psychopathic, and completely out of touch with the needs of ordinary people. This I believe to be largely true, except for this little caveat. Regardless of our relative privilege or social oppression, we are all equally human, and I think that some of us, regardless our demographic, too easily forget this. Today, very early this morning, I had an unpleasant encounter with a new tenant in my building. As you know, Gentle Reader, I occupy one of the oppressed human categories. I am poor, on a very low income (and yes, I do work for a living!), and I live in government-subsidized social housing. Many of my neighbours live with whole laundry lists of issues, and it really has taken me a few years to considerably reduce my own personal laundry list of issues, largely thanks to the secure and supportive, and affordable, housing I have enjoyed here for going on sixteen years. We were in the laundry room, and this fellow seemed a bit anxious and confused about how to navigate the washers and dryers. For this reason, I am wondering if he has spent some time living under institutionalized care, perhaps in a mental health boarding home, or similar. He is also, as the PC crowd likes to call it, a member of a visible minority. I did what I could to help this fellow find his way through the washers and dryers. When he asked me to change a one dollar coin for quarters I politely declined, and for two reasons: 1. I did tell him that I wanted to be assured that I have enough quarters for my own laundry needs. 2. I did not mention that I didn't want to foster his sense of dependency, but I did say that he could get change at the Seven-Eleven across the street. This is where the conversation began to turn a bit ugly. He insisted that he didn't want to go back there because of all the "bums" demanding money from him. I politely said that I do not like that word, I was myself homeless, I work with homeless people, and they are human beings who happen to be very vulnerable and unfortunate and should be regarded with compassion and respect. I didn't mention this, but also find it ironic that a person living off of government largess in social housing should be so free with calling other people bums. He started yelling at me and I was only too glad to get out of that elevator (some things you do not want to share an enclosed space with) Later in the day, after a walk in Stanley Park, I went to buy milk at the local Shoppers' then was cussed out by an aboriginal woman when I politely asked her not to block the front door of my building. I did tell her there was no need for that kind of language. The fact of the matter is, even though I'm white, that woman is aboriginal, and my belligerent neighbour is black, we are all poor, yet I suspect that my race became a kind of red flag for both those individuals. Somehow, picking out and picking on the differences we have with other outcasts can make us feel a little bit less like crap? I really get sick and tired of hearing about this White Privilege nonsense. Not all white people enjoy privilege, and I happen to be one of those white people and I for one am feeling extremely fed up with being treated like a scapegoat for the sins of our better off whiteys. But this is the problem with social marginalization. Like everything else, it is usually understood and interpreted by the intellectually lazy, who prefer neat categories and black and white thinking (pun not intended) instead of looking at and negotiating nuances. But categories aside, being flawed and very damaged humans, all of us, we really are all equally screwed though many of us tend to enjoy hiding within our own categories and fortresses of privilege, real and imagined, which of course helps us feel protected from having to face in ourselves some very hard and unflattering truths.