It’s Black History month, dontcha know. The fine white folks of Canada would rather this not be remembered.

Africville, Nova Scotia.

From Daniel Paul’s website. He wrote this in 1997:

From its founding, the community’s residents, like their brothers and sisters in other African Nova Scotia communities, and likewise members of the Mi’kmaq community, were victimized by harsh racial oppression. They were segregated at will. Up until recent times, many of the province’s public and private facilities, including schools, were closed to them and in many instances, people were segregated unto death, by being buried in sections of white cemeteries reserved for “coloureds.”  

By the early 1960s, after approximately 170 years had passed since Africville had become part of the City of Halifax, the city had not extended water and sewer and many other municipal services to it. Actually, Halifax intensified the trying living conditions that the neglected people of Africville suffered, by locating the city’s dump and other undesirable entities upon their doorstep. One can only assume that the city’s historic mistreatment of Africville’s residents was motivated because of their colour and cultural differences. Therefore, when in the early sixties, the Anglo-dominated city council developed a paternalistic attitude towards the residents of Africville and decided unilaterally that they should be relocated for their own good – the same scenario was used by the Feds to justify relocating the Mi’kmaq – they crossed the boundary of acceptable conduct by a controlling culture towards a weaker one. This is especially so when members of the affected cultural group are not part of the decision-making process. 

Today, where Africville once stood, Halifax has located an under-used public park called Seaview. This situation is unacceptable. The time has come for Halifax Regional Council to accept full responsibility for the unthinking actions of its predecessors and institute a process to restore this property to its rightful owners. Then it should provide unfettered assistance to help rebuild the community. Until such time as this occurs, justice will not have been accorded these badly used people! 

Flash forward to 2010. And now, the apology:

“We realize words cannot undo what has been done. But we are profoundly sorry and apologize to each and every one of you. The repercussions of what happened to Africville linger to this day. They haunt us in the form of lost opportunities for the young people who never were nurtured in the rich traditions, culture and heritage of Africville.”

The apology was backed up a total of nearly $5 million from three levels of government for the black community — $3 million from the city, $1.5 million from the province and $250,000 from the federal government.

Story at cbc.ca

Don’t, under any circumstances, read the comments at the cbc.ca link. And when you do, don’t come crying to me.

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.  

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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

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!). 

 

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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