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-   -   How do you deal with the racism in Canada? (https://britishexpats.com/forum/canada-56/how-do-you-deal-racism-canada-516374/)

montreal mike Feb 24th 2008 3:08 pm

Re: How do you deal with the racism in Canada?
 

Originally Posted by Canadian Citizen (Post 5977264)
Montreal Mike :

Thanks for contributing that memory. Can you comment on the recent (2007 ) news stories about the criminal gangs that are operating on the St Regis reserve. Surely you have seen the coverage on Montreal tv or radio about the amount of criminal activity there ?

Jim B.

Yes I have seen lots of stuff on TV and in the print media. So I do not think all this stuff is being made up or is an outpouring of racism by Whites. But honestly it has never been of great interest to us.

Oka though did affect ALL Montrealers.

montreal mike Feb 24th 2008 3:13 pm

Re: How do you deal with the racism in Canada?
 
For the benefit of those here who don't have a clue what the term 'racist' means

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism

Tangram Feb 24th 2008 3:17 pm

Re: How do you deal with the racism in Canada?
 
I won't be showing this thread to my relatives.

hot wasabi peas Feb 24th 2008 3:35 pm

Re: How do you deal with the racism in Canada?
 

Originally Posted by Canadian Citizen (Post 5977247)
Hot peas:

I read your list of books. How interesting that with only one exception, ALL the books were authored by Natives. I'd suggest they have a bias, to make it as bad as it can be. Hardly an objective reading list.

Please tell me what "errors " you found in my words here. I'm dying to hear this........

Jim Bunting.


No, they are not all FN, Jim. If you'd like a list of only 'non-FN' authors, I can supply you with that.


Intros:
'Canada's First Nations - Dickason
Metis - http://www.naaf.ca/html/o_dickason_e.html



'Skyscrapers hide the heavens: A history of Indian-white relations in Canada' - Miller - 'white'
http://artsandscience.usask.ca/histo...ty_jmiller.php



'First Nations in the Twenty-First Century' - Friesen
Not known... can you supply me with the info?



'Imaginary Indian' - Francis

'white'




'A Way of Life that Does Not Exist' - Samson

White British. I've talked with him many times while I went to uni here:
http://www.essex.ac.uk/sociology/peo...ff/samson.shtm



'I Am Woman' - Maracle

First Nations.




'Visions of the Heart' - Long/Dickason

These are the editors... the book is a multi-perspective of FN Issues therefore various authors from various points of view.



'Peace, Power & Righteousness' - Alfred

FN, yes. And he's very well read in Western philosophies. Are you?


Let me know if you'd like the non-FN booklist.

hot wasabi peas Feb 24th 2008 3:36 pm

Re: How do you deal with the racism in Canada?
 

Originally Posted by Tangram (Post 5977297)
I won't be showing this thread to my relatives.

Do you really think that they'd be surprised?
(I know about your relatives.)

hot wasabi peas Feb 24th 2008 3:44 pm

Re: How do you deal with the racism in Canada?
 
If anyone like to see a very good documentary about the 'Oka Crisis' I recommend:

Kanehsatake : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107305/
by Alanis Obomsawin: http://www.nfb.ca/portraits/alanis_obomsawin/

It's excellent and it is also available in the UK... I saw it many times on the shelves at various libraries there.

Also, not directly related to the Oka Crisis...
A video about Residential Schools on the coast:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHvODdvAkdE

Tangram Feb 24th 2008 3:56 pm

Re: How do you deal with the racism in Canada?
 

Originally Posted by hot wasabi peas (Post 5977353)
Do you really think that they'd be surprised?
(I know about your relatives.)

No, not really Hot, they wouldn't you're right.

daft batty Feb 24th 2008 4:04 pm

Re: How do you deal with the racism in Canada?
 

Originally Posted by Canadian Citizen (Post 5977159)
BUZZ 365:

According to anthrapology Prof at the University of Toronto, the native population in what is now Canada , pre 1500 was about three hundred thousand Natives. Remember that they had NO large cities, and they were nomadic hunters and some had subsistence farming with small plots of crops planted between the trees in the forests.

A further point to note...........Un-like the USA which had an official policy of
extermination of the Indians ( remember all those western movies from Hollywood ? ) Canada did the exact opposite. We fed them, tried to teach them how to fit in with us, and gave refuge to many who were chased over
" the medicine line " into Canada. The choice of the red coats, for the RCMP was no accident. It was a deliberate choice so even a child could tell the difference between them and the blue coats of the US Army, who killed Indians without mercy for a period of 50 years, to help vacate the plains, so the settlers could take their land.

Canada didn't do that. We helped them to survive after the Americans had KILLED all the buffalo, which was the staple food of the plains tribes, on both sides of the border. The eastern tribes, who were forest dwellers, first traded furs with the French, then with the British, after they defeated the French in 1759. I don't know where some one here got the idea that the Natives were "forbidden to hunt " that is rubbish.

I see that the PC crowd have arrived to label me a racist. Please point out ANY points that I have made that are NOT TRUE. If the Natives are such wonderfull folks, please tell me about your personal interactions with them, and how they treated YOU as a newcomer to Canada.

Jim Bunting. Toronto.

Notice that I"m not hiding behind a "screen name " here.

A Cree band member helped us move into our new house.

An Ojibwa family gave my mum a front row seat at the powwow, shared their picnic with us.

YYZlover Feb 24th 2008 4:26 pm

Re: How do you deal with the racism in Canada?
 
One thing that humbled me when I was over in Toronto 2 years ago was sitting in this immigration lawyer's office and he started showing me things that a friend of his does. I saw video from a massive concert showcasing first nations citizens. Thinking that what I was going to see was the aboriginal music I was stunned when I saw rock bands, opera singers, classical musicians, anything BUT aboriginal.

Suddenly I was aware of how narrow minded I had been. I never thought I was considering I have many black musician friends who play rock, pop, heavy metal and are fans of bands such as NIN, Rammstein, Deep Purple etc. I've never equaled a black musician with jazz, gospel or negro spirituals. I also have jewish, homosexual, transsexual, atheists, pagan, new wave, blind, deaf, paraplegic, stupidly rich and extremely poor friends. And then some.

I learnt something new that day. Not so much about the first nations citizens but about myself and as much as I was thankful for the lesson I was ashamed of having been so narrow minded as to the first nations.

As a parallel - if you haven't seen the movie "Rabbit Proof Fence" - DO!

dbd33 Feb 24th 2008 6:10 pm

Re: How do you deal with the racism in Canada?
 

Originally Posted by hot wasabi peas (Post 5977108)
I do not throw the term 'racist' around lightly and I don't argue with racists.

There are many errors in JB's post beyond the one that dbd highlighted.

I picked that error only as an example. I know it to be nonsense because I share an accountant with a colleague who is Cree and a taxpayer despite being technically resident on a reserve and a member of the band council. Advancing "facts" about a group of people you know, or ought to know, to be untrue about a group of people in order to denigrate them is racism. Simple as that.

That said, I don't think racism against the aboriginal people is the only or even the most widespread racism in Canada. Not that I have to deal with racism anyway.

dbd33 Feb 24th 2008 6:49 pm

Re: How do you deal with the racism in Canada?
 
A quick go at pointing out some errors:


Originally Posted by Canadian Citizen (Post 5976824)
You seem to think that they are victims.

One can certainly make the case that some are victims. Their traditional way of life has been eliminated by industrialisation and the foibles of the white man. Hunting seals whales and polar bears, for example, is no longer a viable way of life. The white man has brought alcohol for which the aboriginal population has a limited tolerance. The population of, say, Davis Inlet did not bring their miserable fate upon themselves.


Originally Posted by Canadian Citizen (Post 5976824)
Not by a long shot. Many of them are using OUR money, to sue US thru OUR courts. The Natives have NO money that wasn't given to them by some level of Government. And of course we all KNOW that Governments have no money, except that which was collected by them from US, the gullible taxpayers.

Some native populations have sources of income beyond the government; casinos, corporate headquartering, land leases are some examples.


Originally Posted by Canadian Citizen (Post 5976824)
I have lived in Canada all my life, and my ancestors came here over 200 years ago. I'm entitled to make a few points.

I don't think that follows, if anyone it's people newly arrived from the UK who are most entitled to comment here.


Originally Posted by Canadian Citizen (Post 5976824)
The Natives are being encouraged to "claim back their land ".

That's very vague, what land, by whom, in what forum?



Originally Posted by Canadian Citizen (Post 5976824)
Right...... and many of those land claims are in the middle of our biggest cities. What a surprise. It is NOT about land it is ABOUT THE MONEY.

I fail to see a useful difference between "land" and "money" but since half of Quebec is the subject of land claims and most of it is unhabited the cities seem to be a hareng rouge.


Originally Posted by Canadian Citizen (Post 5976824)
Education rights. Every community college in Canada has reserved seats, set aside in every course for Natives, at NO CHARGE, but many seats go empty because the courses are "too far away " from the home towns of the natives.

This implies the ludicrous notion that there are physically empty seats which, by implication could be occupied by a deserving person if only they weren't held for the feckless Indians. In fact there's a complex system of grants and preferences. If you can show an example of a person displaced from a community college in order that an aboriginal person not take a place there please do so.


Originally Posted by Canadian Citizen (Post 5976824)
In the far north of this country, Innuit villages are totally supported by OUR tax dollars, There is NO PAYING WORK, and every single modern thing , such as snowmobiles, big screen TVs and the kids designer clothing is bought with Canadian tax dollars, when the welfare cheques arrive on the 28 th of each month. Health care and dental services are FREE, and if you get sick , the Government flies you out to a big city for FREE treatment, and new clothes if you ask for them. Modern schools complete with gymnasiums and exercise equipment are located in places with a total population of 600 people. Teachers are sent up there, at taxpayers expense, and they have to be housed and paid at a "isolated community " premium rate, and they get to fly out , to the south 3 times each year, for a "break ". All of the social services providers are whites, and Doctors, Nurses and school administrators are all paid a premium to work up there.

I'm curious as to what you would have the government do. Obviously you object to the provision of healthcare and education in the north but without it you're fostering dependency; a sick and uneducated person is not likely to pursue a career. Would you collectivize the natives like Stalin or Joey Smallwood?



Originally Posted by Canadian Citizen (Post 5976824)
People have commented on the Natives history in Canada. Make sure that you understand that they were no angels, back then. Slavery, torture of captives, cannibalism, and constant raiding of other tribes, to steal women, was the normal life of the North American Natives. No written languages and no use of metals .

Just like us then.


Originally Posted by Canadian Citizen (Post 5976824)
Today they are still not angels when it comes to the use and misuse of the land and animals. I have personally seen tremendous waste of animals, by Native hunters. For example black bear gall bladders are highly valued in China, for traditional medicine. Here in Northern Ontario, Cree hunters will shoot a black bear, JUST for it's gall balder, leaving the rest of the carcass to rot in the forest. West coast Natives have been convicted in court for killing bald eagles, for their feathers, to sell to those who make the Pow wow dancing costumes. Remember that un-like the rest of us, Natives do NOT have to obey , and they can kill as much and as often as they want, with no restrictions at all.

If they don't have to obey any hunting and fishing rules, how come they are prosecuted for breaking those rules?


Originally Posted by Canadian Citizen (Post 5976824)
The blame for much of the poverty on Native reserves lies squarely on THEIR shoulders.

Well not quite, people who grow up in poverty generally don't do as well in life as those with a better start so it's unfair to suggest that people from reserves are to blame if they fail to achieve as well as people who weren't born on the reserve.

buzz365 Feb 24th 2008 6:56 pm

Re: How do you deal with the racism in Canada?
 

Originally Posted by montreal mike (Post 5977154)
I do not think so.

Let's say the English, French and Spanish had never ever set foot in the Americas do you honestly believe this land mass, from arctic to the antarctic, would still be stuck in the 1600's and the natives would continue to blissfully continue their idyllic existence?

Even those countries in Africa and Asia, former european colonies, have changed drastically with the times.


No mike i imagine there would be much change, but it would be change of their own making.

marclouis Feb 24th 2008 7:11 pm

Re: How do you deal with the racism in Canada?
 
I was suprised when an old friend i normally respect from Van recently told me her area was going downhill, now that loads of "Iranians" were moving in. She told me they are the cause of all the drug crime and rising property prices. If felt it was a pretty racist point of view. I felt quite uncomfortable hearing that, for her it sounded so matter of fact.

buzz365 Feb 24th 2008 7:18 pm

Re: How do you deal with the racism in Canada?
 

Originally Posted by marclouis (Post 5978049)
I was suprised when an old friend i normally respect from Van recently told me her area was going downhill, now that loads of "Iranians" were moving in. She told me they are the cause of all the drug crime and rising property prices. If felt it was a pretty racist point of view. I felt quite uncomfortable hearing that, for her it sounded so matter of fact.

Unfortuanatly those who are often the most prejustice seldom admit it to themselves. Instead they spend extentive amounts of time trying to justify their stance. Meanwhile the world moves on and they just stand still bitter and twisted.

marclouis Feb 24th 2008 7:24 pm

Re: How do you deal with the racism in Canada?
 

Originally Posted by buzz365 (Post 5978081)
they just stand still bitter and twisted.

Nope, shes off to the Island.


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