dbd33

what or who are they?[/QUOTE]

A fine question ! I don't know exactly. I woke up with an American, drove in with a Swiss-Canadian, bought a bagel from a Korean-Canadian, greeted a Polish-Canadian, checked the email and found one from an Indian-Canadian. As usual, no unhyphenated people have come into my day so far.

hot wasabi peas

You're obviously white!

dbd33

Well yes. An Asian friend reports that touring Newfoundland was unnerving because people kept wanting to touch her, they'd never seen anything similar. I lived with a Newfie for years and we made many trips down there, it amused me hugely that people had never seen a non-white person nor anything as ethnic as a Chinese restaurant. Canada, outside of the three cities, is another world.

hot wasabi peas

Sorry, but what a load of bull.

dbd33

Have you been to Fogo Island ? Or even big places like Cornerbrook or Lewisport ?

buzz365

What about them?

iaink

So on one hand Belleville is a "suburb of toronto", but on the other we only get our garbage dates in one language, so which is it? What are you trying to argue here?

Belleville is hardly a suburb of toronto(thank god), and outside of the city itself is pretty rural. Sure its nowhere near like toronto, which the media like to portray as a "multicultural quilt", but there are certainly immigrants spread all over canada. Most people seem to come to one of the big cites at first for the security of a preexisting ethnic community , but then after a few years some will diffuse out from those centers. Widespread "non-european" immigration is a relatively recent thing in canada so it takes time for that to happen, but just because there are few coloured faces around in some of the remote communities dont go assuming that these places are racist, although just as anywhere else there are some idiots around. I think maybe there is some curiosity factor, but I dont think its worse than anywhere else in the world, and its not mallicious in any way in the vast majority of cases.

I wonder what posters like LadyTyger make of this, she would have direct experience rather than our speculation on it.

hot wasabi peas

I've been to Fogo Island and Cornerbrook. A branch in my family tree is from Fogo Island. I've never been to Lewisport.

dbd33

I'm arguing that, even a place as close to Toronto as Belleville, is very different from Toronto and once one goes into really rural locations, Canada is entirely different. I don't think racism is an issue in, say, Fogo Island, because there's no variety of races there. I actually find it astonishing how homogenous small town Canada is. One of my children attended university in Halifax and said that less than 1% of the student body was non-white and from my visits there I could well believe that. Canada is home to a diverse population but the distribution of the immigrant population is massively skewed meaning that it's only in the three cities that there's much scope for racism. I'd also say that it's only in the three cities that there's much scope for grocery shopping or dining out but, I suppose, one can get used to donuts and back bacon.

hot wasabi peas

In many communities in Canada, coloured faces are the norm.

hot wasabi peas

Your view of racism in Canada is incredibly myopic.

flashman

If Belleville is almost a suburb of Toronto then Kingston must be almost a suburb of Montreal.

dbd33

Oh, I dunno. I work closely with someone who's Cree. We've been refused service at bars, restaurants and hotels when travelling together. I assume the Inuit get treated as badly but have no direct experience. Is it aboriginal Canadians to whom you refer ?

hot wasabi peas

Yes ,you could put it that way.

prodigyking

Jees... you say one sentence and the vultures get on my back.... For all the no-lifes who are digging the archives for dirt, I can just say that I was having a bad day. The question is: Are you a racist if you equally dislike EVERYBODY?

Well if you don't like my reasoning, (fill in the blanks).

I still think the original post didn't make any ****ing sense, whatsoever!


Cheers MATES!