Close Reading

I’d love to visit Atlantic Canada: all my friends here on the West Coast say it’s very nice. \nI loved living in Quebec and Montreal, but both cities are very cold in winter—and I don’t speak no french too good, hoste! \nI’m from Ontario. it probably was a beautiful place until white people got there. But it’s way too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. Most of my family has moved out to the West Coast. I guess they missed me.\nManitoba is very nice, but you’re right about cold winters and lots of mosquitoes in summer. Winnipeg is a fantastic city. The biggest city on the North American Plains.\nSouthwest Saskatchewan is absolutely beautiful. Nuff said.\nAlberta is one of my favourite provinces—just too bad about the goofy government they got there. I lived and worked there lots over the years. Many Albertans have moved out here to the West Coast to get away from the horrid politics there.\nBC is by far the best place to live. I live in the steep rain shadow of East Vancouver Island, nice and warm, short if any winter. All my friends live here. I used to live in Victoria—we might move back there—it’s my favourite city anywhere. Vancouver is a blast—but too big for me. I wouldn’t live anywhere else in this country but BC. \nFriends tell me Yukon is great but NWT’s Yellowknife is a hell-hole. I read a great online zine from Nunavut—Nunatsiaq. As close as I’m ever gonna get.\nSo you’re ranking is not very good from my perspective. Alberta sucks because of its dependence on bitumen—and it’s not “cyclical”, it’s doomed. Tons of crazy anti-vaxxers and religious right wingers, too. Quebec is wonderful, but too, too cold in winter. Plus muh french ain’t too good, eh...

20:09\nLol this just happened at my local Walmart \nIt rang twice so a white couple got beeped on their way out and they stop and look around and just walk off \nAnd on my way out a single person a white dude beeped when he was leaving and he didn’t stop he just left....\nOkay now a month before a native family gets beeped and they are chased even when they stop like as soon as it beeped one of the workers just started a jog towards them and asked them all to come back in and searched all their bags while the kids were cryin..so their was this huge scene and at the end they were told they can leave...it happens sooooo much it’s like apart of Walmart staffs training or something lol

This is the best journalistic approach I've seen on this matter so far. Yet it still lacks a deepening on the fact that racism and other kinds of discrimination are not exclusively practiced by white people. Had the same experiments been performed in places where other ethnic or cultural groups are the majority, the results most probably would evidence their biases in favor of their own pairs. This evidences that there is an inherent component in discriminatory behavior that goes well beyond of an evil mindset. It’s clear that in general people tend to better identify with those that look like themselves and fear those who don’t. This has been imprinted in our minds all along our species evolution. Could we change that? Yes. Should we change it? Definitely. But it’ll not work if these subtleties are not accounted for and we oversimplify the matter by just pointing fingers to a specific group as the villain.

18:37: “Sometimes you just have to tolerate that behaviour a little bit.”\nBut why should people “tolerate it” weren’t we all taught the same lessons in kindergarten too speak up when someone was treating ourselves or other unfairly? I truly do not understand this sentence. It’s said by a white person so maybe he just isn’t getting it. I understand that It’s not easy to put yourself in someone else shoes, but come on man. Don’t tell people of colour to “just tolerate it” in fear of coming off as a SJW. That’s how the bullies win. Buzzwords can’t hurt you but racial profiling dose and has.

For almost 150 years the Liberal Left has been conducting an experiment. The subjects of the experiment: African people and working-class whites. The hypothesis to be tested: Can people taken from the jungles of Africa and forced into slavery be fully integrated as citizens in a majority white population?\n\nThe whites were descendants of Europeans who had created a majestic civilization. The former slaves had been tribal peoples with no written language and virtually no intellectual achievements.\n\nActing on a policy that was not fair to either group, the government released newly freed African people into a white society that saw them as inferiors. America has struggled with racial discord ever since.\n\nDecade after decade the problems persisted but the experimenters never gave up. They insisted that if they could find the right formula the experiment would work, and concocted program after program to get the result they wanted.\n\nThey created the Freedman’s Bureau, passed civil rights laws, tried to build the Great Society, declared War on Poverty, ordered race preferences, built housing projects, and tried midnight basketball.\n\nTheir new laws intruded into people’s lives in ways that would have been otherwise unthinkable. They called in National Guard troops to enforce school integration. They outlawed freedom of association. Over the protests of parents, they put white children on buses and sent them to African schools and vice versa.\n\nThey tried with money, special programs, relaxed standards, and endless hand-wringing to close the “achievement gap.” To keep white backlash in check they began punishing public and even private statements on race.\n\nThey hung up Orwellian public banners that commanded whites to “Celebrate Diversity!” and “Say No To Racism.”\n\nNothing was off limits if it might salvage the experiment.\nSome thought that the Talented Tenth would lead the way for African people. A group of elite, educated Africans would knock down doors of opportunity and show the world what Africans were capable of. There is a Talented Tenth. They are the African Americans who have become entrepreneurs, lawyers, doctors and scientists. But ten percent is not enough. For the experiment to work, the ten percent has to be followed by a critical mass of people who can hold middle-class jobs and promote social stability. That is what is missing.\n\nThrough the years, too many African people continue to show an inability to function and prosper in a culture unsuited to them.\n\nDetroit is bankrupt, the south side of Chicago is a war zone, and majority-black cities all over America are beset by degeneracy and violence. And Africans rarely take responsibility for their failures. Instead, they lash out in anger and resentment. Across the generations and across the country, as we have seen in Detroit, Watts, Newark, Los Angeles, Cincinnati, and now Ferguson, rioting and looting are just one racial incident away.\n\nThe white elite would tell us that this doesn’t mean the experiment has failed. We just have to try harder. We need more money, more time, more understanding, more programs, more opportunities. But nothing changes no matter how much money is spent, no matter how many laws are passed, no matter how many African geniuses are portrayed on TV, and no matter who is president.\n\nSome argue it’s a problem of “culture,” as if culture creates people’s behavior instead of the other way around. Others blame “white privilege.” But since 1965, when the elites opened America’s doors to the Third World, immigrants from Asia and India–people who are not white, not rich, and not “connected”–have quietly succeeded. While the children of these people are winning spelling bees and getting top scores on the SAT, African “youths” are committing half the country’s violent crime–crime, that has nothing to do with poverty.

It’s all on where you live and who you live around. There are like 7 black families in our town. There are no black folks to harass. The police and shop owners harass white people. They profile you on what you wear. What condition vehicle you drive or the way you look. In areas with lots of black folks they follow and harass black folks. \n\nI’m not saying it doesn’t exist. What I’m saying is it’s not everywhere like these videos make it out to be. Most of the time it has nothing to do with racism.

Do yourself a favour. Don’t read the comments...a lot of toxicity coming from toxic people...being a Punjabi Indian living in Ottawa, I don’t mind people of any background (white, black, brown, etc.) as long as all respect the bylaws related to driving, house maintenance, garbage...what pisses me off is that people from my community (not all) are actually creating troubles...seen that...seen indians trashing on the streets to talking shit about white and black people in their language be it hindi or punjabi, rash driving, seen some good indians truly respecting the laws...maybe it’s time for the Canadian government to realise that laws should be tightened and people disobeying the laws should face harder penalties...

Funny thing is the Sikh gurus were butchered by fanatic Mughal Muslims Kings. The Sikhs were tortured , raped, and murdered by Muslims because they started a new religion and followed a new spiritual leader/prophet their guru Nanak. This act goes against Islamic ideology which is based upon their belief that Islam is the only correct religion and their prophet Muhammad is the last genuine prophet. Historically Sikhs were the victims of Islamic intolerance. This Sikh man is a politician running on a liberal platform so he needs the minority vote. He knows Islam very well and the issues behind it but that is not his concern, so he’s only gonna respond that’s racist. First of all Islam isn’t a race it’s a religion so it’s not racist to be concerned about their exclusivist, intolerant, and fanatic belief systems. The thing about Islam and Muslims is that they want everyone to support and defend them\nBut in their own countries they don’t support nor defend anyone except for the people who share their religion. It’s a double standard, and they play victim when it suits them. Islam itself is very intolerant as a religion. That politician is correct but the white man needs to educate himself on Sikhs their history and culture. Sikhs don’t judge they defend anyone they feel that are being persecuted including the people who share a religion with their oppressors. That’s their strength but that is their weakness as well.

All Best Buy’s do that. Even in the state of Texas, to a old white guy like me. \nI find it annoying, but only due to the fact that I know to ask someone if I need it. If I don’t ask, let me shop. \nIf you’re on the move, they’ll leave you alone. If I’m in the store with the wife, and we split up, I’m just browsing to burn time.\nThat’s when I get offered multiple “May I help you”? \nSo yeah, corporate policy, which that “expert” knows nothing about, yet they say he verifies the “profiling” when he says “it’s possible”.