I think that the next step that we need to take is doing something constructive with our emotions. Everyone seems to be losing it these days, or pretty darn close. It's understandable. We are living with this global pandemic and it isn't exactly going to have many of us at our very best. The hysteria seems to have particularly spilled out into interracial relations and on all sides I find this problematic.
They have found that hate related incidents against Asian Canadians have risen significantly because of ignorant and fearful idiots choosing to blame Chinese Canadians for the corona virus. Uh-huh. Just like my mother, a third generation Canadian and descendent of German immigrants from Crimea (none of our ancestors lived anywhere near Germany before the year 1800 or so) was to blame for Auschwitz. Yeah, really!
I won't repeat on this page any of the despicable acts that have been perpetrated against Asian-Canadians here in the last three and a half months or so, since I do not like giving oxygen to such ugliness. I did refuse to work with a client because of her racist views towards Chinese Canadians and oh, did the occupational therapist working with her howl and whine when I refused to budge, but especially in this climate of heightened emotions and hate, I am not about to waste my energy on haters. And I made that quite clear to the indignant OT who after rather pathetically trying to pull rank on me ended up losing her temper (I call this exploding someone) and finally admitted that she could have handled things a lot better.
I also find my patience being challenged by the Black Lives Matter folks. I will not use that slogan, by the way, since, like all slogans, this also tends to foster a lot of black and white thinking (pun maybe partially intended, Gentle Reader) I do agree that systemic and historical racism are still huge problems here, and the police record for mistreatment of persons of colour already speaks (or rather, screams) for itself. By the same token, no one ever hears any statistics about the proportion of men of colour who actually commit crimes, only those who are incarcerated. I can only offer anecdotal experience, but all the violence, aggression and threats that I have ever experienced have been from black or indigenous males. I have also been on the receiving end of some verbal violence from a couple of black women.
Do I think that people of colour are more inherently violent than others? No, I do not. Do I believe that there are serious problems of inequality and bigotry and racial prejudice that are still not being properly addressed? Yes I do. Does white privilege exist? Yes, it does. Does being genetically caucasian make one inherently privileged? Not necessarily. Are non-caucasians capable of racism? Every bit as capable as anyone else. I have been poor all my life, live now in social housing and I sunburn very easy. Are people of colour overreacting about a high school principal wearing blackface on Halloween thirteen years ago? Well, they seem to overreact about almost everything, and this is because they are collectively traumatized, but I would say in this instance yes. But the principal should have known better, though I do find intriguing his excuse that he and his black colleague dressed as each other, and this does put rather an intriguing twist on things, but the louder and more strident voices keep drowning out all nuance and paradox.
Am I a racist? I will not answer that question. Am I anti-racist? Ditto. I try not to do labels. Let's just say that all my life I have worked bloody hard at resisting racial prejudice in all its forms, and if that isn't good enough for some Black Lives Matter folk then they can simply go away and bore someone else with their shrill postmodernist nonsense. Do I admire Martin Luther King? Profoundly, and it is my humble opinion that the Black Lives Matter people are only going to make any real substantial gains if they really seek to follow in his footsteps, but I fear that his shoes are too big to fit any of their feet.
Does that make me an Uncle Tom? Maybe, maybe not. I don't do labels. All for now, duckies!
No comments:
Post a Comment