Prelude
I was born in Lachine, a suburb of Montreal in the province of Quebec. My family moved to west Etobicoke, Ontario in 1974 when I was 7 years old. I moved out when I was 20 years old, but it wasn’t until I was 23 that I moved downtown, where I’ve remained. For almost 20 years I lived within the boundaries of Bloor/Christie/St George and College, with a brief stint on Brunswick Avenue a few blocks north of Bloor. In 2007 I moved to Cabbagetown, east of Yonge for the first time. I fell in love with what’s known as West Riverdale, and I’m here to stay for a while.
This is my city. Especially the downtown. My various workplaces over the last 20 years, where I went to school (ah, OISE), my volunteer gigs, my credit union, all within this relatively small space in the larger city that I love so much.
Art, culture politics. In the late 1990s I read my written work for the first time in my life, to an audience as part of the Mayworks festival, at a venue on Church Street.
Why this preamble? Because today this was not my city. Today my city was taken over, today, I saw Toronto in a way that I have never seen it before, and it wasn’t good.
Saturday June 26, 2010
2pm
There are no streetcars running on my stretch of Carlton Street, so I walk to University Avenue. I pass Yonge Street and see my first set of police, standing around, not doing much, their riot helmuts dangling down one leg, and a large pouch strapped down their other leg. What’s in the pouch? Tear gas canisters? Extra rubber bullets? I will never know.
I arrive late to the march and rally, and join it in progress at University and College.
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My friend P told me about this website: Derailing for Dummies.
It’s the site I’ve always wanted to find. Funny, snarky, succinct and fucking brilliant.
Some highlights:
You know how it is. You’re enjoying yourself, kicking back and relaxing at the pub or maybe at the library; or maybe you’re in class or just casually surfing the internet, indulging in a little conversation. The topic of the conversation is about a pertinent contemporary issue, probably something to do with a group of people who fall outside your realm of experience and identity. They’re also probably fairly heavily discriminated against - or so they claim. . The thing is, you’re having a good time, sharing your knowledge about these people and their issues. This knowledge is incontrovertible – it’s been backed up in media representation, books, research and lots and lots of historical events, also your own unassailable sense of being right. Yet all of a sudden something happens to put a dampener on your sharing of your enviable intellect and incomparable capacity to fully perceive and understand All Things. It’s someone who belongs to the group of people you’re discussing and they’re Not Very Happy with you. Apparently, they claim, you’ve got it all wrong and they’re offended about that. They might be a person of colour, or a queer person. Maybe they’re a woman, or a person with disability. They could even be a trans person or a sex worker. The point is they’re trying to tell you they know better than you about their issues and you know that’s just plain wrong.
You know how it is. You’re enjoying yourself, kicking back and relaxing at the pub or maybe at the library; or maybe you’re in class or just casually surfing the internet, indulging in a little conversation. The topic of the conversation is about a pertinent contemporary issue, probably something to do with a group of people who fall outside your realm of experience and identity. They’re also probably fairly heavily discriminated against - or so they claim.
. The thing is, you’re having a good time, sharing your knowledge about these people and their issues. This knowledge is incontrovertible – it’s been backed up in media representation, books, research and lots and lots of historical events, also your own unassailable sense of being right. Yet all of a sudden something happens to put a dampener on your sharing of your enviable intellect and incomparable capacity to fully perceive and understand All Things. It’s someone who belongs to the group of people you’re discussing and they’re Not Very Happy with you. Apparently, they claim, you’ve got it all wrong and they’re offended about that. They might be a person of colour, or a queer person. Maybe they’re a woman, or a person with disability. They could even be a trans person or a sex worker. The point is they’re trying to tell you they know better than you about their issues and you know that’s just plain wrong.
What a great beginning. And they say sarcasm isn’t a pedagogical tool. Ha!
My favourite sections include:
If You Won’t Educate Me How Can I Learn You Just Enjoy Being Offended – NEW! Don’t You Have More Important Issues To Think About – NEW! You’re Taking Things Too Personally You’re Not Being Intellectual Enough/You’re Being Overly Intellectual
If You Won’t Educate Me How Can I Learn
You Just Enjoy Being Offended – NEW!
Don’t You Have More Important Issues To Think About – NEW!
You’re Taking Things Too Personally
You’re Not Being Intellectual Enough/You’re Being Overly Intellectual
OMG. All the snark, all in one place.
The author(s) also use the adorable technique of (TM) and the copywrite symbol to indicate terms like Privilege® and Marginalised Person™ . Loving it.
From: But That Happens to Me Too! What this demonstrates is your total lack of understanding of what “othering” means in a practical sense. You’re ignoring the way your life is otherwise entirely immersed in a state of absolute privilege and revealing the fact you fail to comprehend the process of objectification and marginalising they go through all the time. When you are Privileged®, “similar” experiences simply do not happen on an equal footing because they do not otherwise reflect marginalisation. This obliviousness is highly insensitive and trivialising and will definitely cause them to grind their teeth! But it’s also an important step in affirming your privilege: Privileged People® are accustomed, after all, to it being “all about them”. Not used to simply sitting back and listening to othered people‘s issues, Privileged People® like to be the centre of attention at all times. It reminds them that they are important. By doing this, you will feel good about yourself and send a crucial message to the Marginalised Person™ (yes you really can diminish their experience by making it all about you, all the time!).
From: But That Happens to Me Too!
What this demonstrates is your total lack of understanding of what “othering” means in a practical sense. You’re ignoring the way your life is otherwise entirely immersed in a state of absolute privilege and revealing the fact you fail to comprehend the process of objectification and marginalising they go through all the time. When you are Privileged®, “similar” experiences simply do not happen on an equal footing because they do not otherwise reflect marginalisation. This obliviousness is highly insensitive and trivialising and will definitely cause them to grind their teeth!
But it’s also an important step in affirming your privilege: Privileged People® are accustomed, after all, to it being “all about them”. Not used to simply sitting back and listening to othered people‘s issues, Privileged People® like to be the centre of attention at all times. It reminds them that they are important. By doing this, you will feel good about yourself and send a crucial message to the Marginalised Person™ (yes you really can diminish their experience by making it all about you, all the time!).
Read it, bookmark it, share it with your friends.
Dear god why do I glance at the newspaper headlines, why?
So I’m out and about yesterday, just living my life, happy, and I come upon a Toronto Star newspaper box with the headline above. Full article here.
DO NOT under any circumstances read the comments. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.
There’s also a snarky column by Lorrie Goldstein of the Toronto Sun (I KNOW), and an equally unhelpful column by Marcus Gee in the Globe and Mail.
A sweeping year-long probe into racism at Ryerson University has found a staggeringly diverse campus where some visible minority students say they feel harassed and excluded, where profs don’t always deal with offensive comments made in class and some non-white staff report a “chill” that shuts them out of the power loop.
A year-long probe, that’s great. Good opportunity to be thorough and non-superficial.
I need to state once again for the record that I HATE the term visible minority. Hate it hate it hate it. Almost as much as I hate the term non-white.
Talk about a chill.
This blog was inspired by the panel with Judy Rebick and others, which I linked to and talked about here.
The evil MW, who spoke on the panel in question, talked about victimhood and oppression in ways very common by those on the right, as well as anyone who doesn’t understand the levels of how oppression works, and the ways in which it manifests in people’s lives.
This isn’t the first time that I’ve heard this “argument” put forth, by both ardent right-wingers, as well as white folks on the left.
This is my first attempt to articulate, in writing (rather than indignant sputtering) the flaws in this argument, and this framing, and to try to get some talking points and arguments assembled in a coherent manner.
So, the argument goes something like this:
“Why do you focus on oppression so much? Are you saying Group X* is so oppressed that everyone in Group X is just a passive, helpless victim? Now, that’s offensive! I belong to Group X (or I’m married to someone in Group X, or my best friend is from Group X or someone from Group X once sat beside me on the subway and I smiled at them, etc) and I’m (or They say they are) not oppressed! By using this language you’re manufacturing victims where none exist! Just to further your bleeding heart agenda! Shame on you!”
…or something like that. Rolleyes.
*Group X is any marginalized group, and can include people of colour, Aboriginal people, women, people who are poor / low income, queers, disabled folks, youth, seniors. And all intersections between those groups, and anyone else who experiences systemic marginality.
So, to the debunking.
There’s not much more I can say that hasn’t been said. So instead I will link to the best commentary, history, context and resources that I’ve read online.
From the Angry Black Woman Why is American tv coverage of the Haitian disaster driving me to drink?
From Jay Smooth On Haiti
From Ted Rall Haitian Earthquake: Made in the USA: Why the Blood is on Our Hands
For Facebookers: from Manuel Rozental Haiti: Aid and Strategic Resistance
