And it still keeps getting stupider and stupider. The latest in Vancouver? A bunch of angry First Nations people want to take down the statue of John Deighton, aka Gassy Jack. I'm okay with that, I guess. The stature is butt-ugly.. It stands on the corner of Carrall and Water Streets in Gastown, of which Gassy Jack is considered founder. The little I heard of him has left me puzzled as to why he would be honoured. As well as being ugly, I mean. He was likely a drunkard, lived only for his own self-promotion, and married a twelve year old indigenous girl from the Squamish nation. So, naturally, aboriginals have their knickers in a knot. I would too.
I am still neutral about the need to get rid of the statue, ugly as it is. I really don't know if tearing down statues and monuments of people we don't like is going to be the best or most constructive way of addressing historical wrongs and crimes. Perhaps draw up first a constructive and proactive plan for what you want to replace it with, then we'll know where to go from there.
I did not sign the petition for taking down the statue. And I wouldn't sign it. Neither would I sign a petition supporting its preservation. It is after all ugly and it honours a man who was anything but honourable.
What is equally concerning is, how did he get hold of a twelve year old aboriginal girl. What was he thinking? Or, What! Was he thinking? But I also draw the line at calling him a pedophile, and not because I don't have trouble with this pig marrying and shagging a twelve year old, though that is still pretty disgusting. As abhorrent as it is taking a child out of her family and culture and violating her like that, I am concerned that people are still viewing a nineteenth century incident through a twenty-first century postmodernist lens.
I do not know what the marriage and rite of passage norms were in the nineteenth century among First Nations people. I am aware of a couple of things. One is that by 1870, when Deighton married the girl, the aboriginal people were already largely disenfranchised and demoralized by the white settlers, and this puts quite a nasty light on everything. However, what, in the Squamish Nation in that era, would be considered the age of consent? Where were her parents? What role did they play in their daughter getting in the hands of that pathetic English alcoholic? How close and cohesive were family and tribal bonds by that time? No one has said anything about this so far.
What I find equally troubling is that we in our enlightenment and vastly superior education of course would never dream of seeing a twelve year old married off to anyone. A twelve year old, by all contemporary definitions, is a child, and will go on being considered a child until she turns eighteen. But this is now. And adolescence is very much a modern invention. Until the twentieth century, a girl became a woman as soon as she began menstruating, which could happen as early as ten or eleven years of age. A boy was considered a man once his voice deepened, and he might be as young as twelve or thirteen. And they were expected to take on adult obligations and responsibilities as befitted the customs and traditions of the era they were living in.
When I was fifteen, in 1971, I already identified and was treated as a young adult. I matured, emotionally, very quickly, most of my friends were older than me, and my peers at school respected me more as an elder brother than as a peer.
As an illustration of my concern of how we sexually label others, I will cite what happened to me when I was homeless and couchsurfing some twenty-two years ago. Even now in my sixties I am still considered attractive, and back in the day, being both good looking and vulnerable made me a sitting duck for curious and horny males, none of whom identified as being gay, all of whom either had girlfriends or female partners, or were in between arrangements. Six guys, more or less, and I was sexually harassed and in a couple instances assaulted by each of those individuals. And none of them were gay.
I just don't think it is advisable to label any historical figure based on the current lens and accompanying prejudices through which we are viewing life, especially when the pot is being stirred by all kinds of heightened emotion, anger and rage. There comes a point where we have to admit that we don't really know.
What can really add to the confusion is the way some girls physically mature as early as twelve or even eleven. I remember when I was fourteen, hanging out with a twelve year old with the body of a twenty year old woman. And she was already sexually active (not with me, if you happen to be wondering, Gentle Reader!). A year later I was befriended by another physically mature twelve year old (friends only), and a year after that, when I was sixteen and seated on a log at English Bay beach on an overcast cloudy day, this woman was trying to show off to me her very voluptuous thirteen year old daughter, resplendent in a skimpy canary yellow bikini. It was really rather creepy and I got away as quickly as possible.
Now all those girls, and me, would rightly be considered children. In a different era, we would be young adults, already being considered for marriage.
Was there anything gross and inappropriate about Gassy Jack's arrangements with the twelve year old Squamish girl? Yes, of course, it was totally gross. Do we have enough information for judging him as a pedophile? No. Should his statue be taken down? I really don't care, but I certainly wouldn't miss it..
All for now, ducks!
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