Canada has Indian reserves, so you can substitute your own country’s historical sins. These sorts of arguments always come back to history, even if only in subtext. These sorts fo questions can’t even be understood never mind properly answered without historical context.
I just find it very odd that people would get worked up over a sign saying it’s OK to be white. If you saw a sign that say black power would you be offended?
Don’t get me wrong, nobody is giving me a hard time about my skin color. I just see a lot of insane shit like this in the news nowadays, and this probably takes the cake. At the same time, I don’t really feel like there’s a huge benefit to being white here. Maybe you’re a bit less likely to get stopped by the cops, but when I was 16-25 they used to fuck with me regularly.
About your airport story, one time I landed in Toronto on the way back from Jamaica. I was accused of smuggling cocaine - the border agent to me “I don’t think you’re carrying weed, and I don’t think you have a gun hidden in your ass”. I was detained, strip searched, and made to shit in some sort of electronic toilet. Apparently under Canadian law you have no rights at the border, elsewhere they can’t hold you without charge but they can at the border. They can also raid any place you go for then next 48 hours (or something like that) without a warrant if they have probable cause. The agents weren’t assholes at least, I guess they were going off some bad information or something. Being white didn’t help me that time, I was one of the only white people on the plane (it was early September, not tourist season).
There’s nothing indicating that it was the same person. People write all types of stuff on walls, I haven’t been to any university campuses lately but in the past I have seen plenty of political graffiti, including racist stuff.
Turban privilege:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-allows-sikhs-to-ride-motorcycles-without-helmet-1.4858361
What you’re talking about here is what some people now call “micro-aggression”. If you get offended by micro-aggression then you must be hypersensitive. The thing is that there is no indication that there was anything against any other races or ethnic groups, and it wasn’t something like “white power” which is linked with racist groups.
You asked what you were missing… Which was the second half of the story that put the first part into context.
BLM is kind of messed up though, it’s true that police brutality and unjustified killings are a problem but they aren’t unique to black people. BLM basically set themselves against the rest of society, they would have gotten farther if they did things differently. There are also plenty of videos of BLM protests where random innocent white people are attacked. This isn’t going to gain them the support of white people, especially not in a place with so many racial issues as the US.
Man, I am pasty white, walk around wearing a stetson and cowboy boots, normally carrying my military issued luggage if not actively wearing my uniform, and I swear I get randomly selected by TSA at least 50% of the time I fly.
I definitely do not believe I am being profiled against, TSA just hates me.
There are black Jews in Ethiopia and Arab Jews in the middle east who look like Arabs.
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I don’t know man, the IDF sounds kind of like unlawful enemy combatants to me.
You know what, I don’t give a damn about the people who founded this country at all, they were a bunch of assholes for real. I’m not standing behind their actions at all. I’m white and I live in Canada but I’m also a Polish citizen. According to our prime minister Justin Trudeau-Castro, Canada is the first post-national state so there is nothing left to identify with.
There is no context, there is nothing in this story that a reasonable person would interpret as racist or offensive in any way. Unless the people behind this actually are part of a neo-Nazi group as has been claimed (and they don’t know who did it) then there is nothing to be concerned about and it’s just someone trying to stir up controversy because of this backwards political correctness.
One of the founding members of BLM Toronto said “White ppl are recessive genetic defects. this is factual,” and “white ppl need white supremacy as a mechanism to protect their survival as a people because all they can do is produce themselves. black ppl simply through their dominant genes can literally wipe out the white race if we had the power to.” She also said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a white supremacist". A year earlier at a rally she tweeted “Plz Allah give me strength to not cuss/kill these men and white folks out here today”.
No racism to see here.
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So a racial epithet scrawled in several highly visible areas isnt offensive? Damn, what does qualify?
So are those generals de facto symbols of racism, slavery and oppression? Or just guys who fought for their state?
Honest question. Want to know your thoughts.
BLM Toronto is fucked up. There are not many unjustified police killings in Toronto, there is one black guy who got killed a few years ago and that’s the one case they kept going on about. They are mostly focused on other bullshit, and a lot of it isn’t even supported by most black people. Like one of the things I kept seeing in the news is how they were opposed to having any police at the gay pride parade. Most black people in Toronto are from the Caribbean, and gays are one thing that are not accepted at all in their culture.
See some of the “demands” on their site:
The acknowledgment of the existence of anti-Black Racism and white privilege in the governance and policing of this city by all elected officials in the city of Toronto.
The creation of community healing space for Black-identified students in TDSB schools who have experienced anti-racist violence in the school board through harassment by staff and administration.
The creation of a Black students’ council to advise the board on issues such as: standardized tests used by the Ministry of Education in Ontario.
Adequate support for any community-determined educational programs prioritizing the emotional well-being of Black students, prioritizing programs with an intersectional lens addressing anti-Black racism in conjunction with colonialism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, abelism, xenophobia, and other systemic oppressions that contribute to the violence inflicted on Black communities.
The creation of community healing space for Black identified students who have experienced anti-Black racist violence in the school board through harassment by staff and administration.
@flipcollar - Canada must immediately open the Canada-USA border. This includes revocation of the Safe Third Country Agreement which bars most refugee claimants entering from the United States over land to claim asylum in Canada. The Designated Country of Origin list, which makes it almost impossible for US citizens and citizens of forty other countries to claim asylum in Canada, must be eliminated.
(Most immigrants coming into Canada right now are African and Trudeau brought something like 20,000 Syrians (mostly Muslims) after winning the election)
Canada must end racist, anti-refugee, anti-Black, Islamophobic exclusion of migrants and refugees within this colonial border. This includes ending the system of indefinite immigration detention. The federal government must create a regularization program so that all undocumented residents can live here with their families rather than fear mass deportation. Migrant workers in Canada must also be given permanent status and open work permits. We want real, not symbolic, Sanctuaries that guarantee access to services and refuse collaboration with Canadian and American border agents.
That’s what I mean too, even though though these days it’s chic to play goofball and ask, “Who’s really white?” and “What’s a white person?” and state there is no white race, but then sometimes in the same conversation talk about a collective “white people”. Funny how that works: state there is no such thing as white people but then talk about a white people.
And then there are those who recognize some people as white and then consider other actual whites as not really white. It usually goes something like this: Anglo-Saxons, Celts, Scandinavian and other Germanic people are white, but Slavs, Latins, Hungarians, and Balts are not “really white”.
Usually in such a discussion they’ll throw in examples of European bigotry, such as “Don’t you know the Irish weren’t considered white?”, even though there has never been a government that didn’t consider them white.
They’ll also undermine that white is simply a laypersons term the same way is black, and then point out some Northern Asians and Middle Easterners have pale skin, sometimes very pale.
The world is in an interesting place these days.
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I never said it wasn’t offensive, I said that there was nothing linking it to the people who put up the posters. Those are two separate things, if there were posters saying that then it would be a totally different story.