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.