Close Reading

"I've heard enough" as they were explaining... When you want to understand you listen to the whole truth vs fish for the facts you want to hear to reinforce a narrative. There probably is a problem but we can't know "barn" or "bread basket" if we don't hear the explanations.

I think it was Margaret Thatcher during the Reagan administration the one who said, Americans are notorious about choosing stupid presidents. So, what to say about that? What I've heard from some of my friends is that they don't care if democracy is gone as long as their taxes go down. They want a lower income tax bracket. They're very single minded about issues. We'll see how we fair once you have to pay more at the pump, when the price of electronics go up, when produce and beef, pork, and chicken become unaffordable. Yes, the middle and upper middle class probably don't care, but the lower classes and the already poor are not going to be happy. Once people are hungry, then you'll see people on the street. Once the farmers start losing their farms and small businesses start losing their investments, you'll see people on the streets. Americans are not hungry enough yet. Just wait.

I grew up in Calgary, two hours south. I've dealt with it on many levels, sometimes blatantly obvious, most times a series of micro aggressions that make you want to explode and destroy everything when it happens. As much pain it's caused over decades it's made me stronger as well as smarter. I will also say this and I can stress this enough, because of the demographics most of my friends are white and THEY HAVE MY BACK. in almost every aspect life will throw at me, they're ride or die people, I can say this with the utmost confidence The difference for me between Canada and the states is I'm not fighting alone if and when a situation comes up, there's people I can call if needed. Canada has it's issues no question and I could easily go ballistic when it happens to me or anyone I know, but we're not as bad as the states. I believe you can be heard.

growing up in canada, i felt left out in the blk community b/c i am a 5th generation blk cdn on mom's side and 3rd on my dad's - when other black ppl not canadian born met me - i tell them i'm cdn, but i always used to get the question - where are you really from - they were looking for me to say the islands - when i told them my paternal grandma was born in 1901 in canada - that's when the questions stopped. i've been told that b/c i wasn't from the islands, i had no culture in college, but a mbr of the black student society put him in his place i heard he got into a lot of trouble. i was asked what do we eat as in food as canadians what kind of music do we listen to - at our blk canadian weddings, the only carribean song played was hot hot hot by arrow - we played straight up r and b and motown. i hv been rejected by other blk men b/c i'm not west indian enough...it was hurtful. even with 'friends' they made of my cdn heritage but i used to think, why are you making fun of me knowing that my family and ancestors were in canada first - they were 1st generation - i live in the usa now and i'm with an african american man - he has never treated me as if i were different and he loves going w/me to canada. my parents told me it was jealousy on those ppl's parts - one guy i used to be friends with in college, when i went to his house, his mom was from the islands, when she met me - she said, 'you cdn ppl are loud' and that did it for me - i didn't date her son but when he met my parents, they never said any of that crap to him. in the usa, the african americans don't treat differently at all - my ex mom in law thought we were american but decided to live in canada - b/c she was surprised that blacks do live in canada. her other daughter in law's family were from the islands - but she gravitated more to my family and felt comfortable around them more than her family and this ex sis in law would brag about the islands this and that and she would make comments about my looks being skinny and such but it was jealousy - i didn't care much for her b/c she was very insecure. i felt once again, i was a young girl in college again - being around island ppl....i would love to meet drake and ask him did he feel left out and isolated because he wasn't from the islands - he makes me very proud being a blk canadian - his dad is african american and his mom is jewish. i still hv dealt w/racism not much with wht ppl, but with my own ppl - which is quite sad and on top of it-colorism, that also played a part from my family - being called pygmy, chocolate dip, nappy hair - it hurt but these so called relatives, they aren't all that anymore, they had hard lives as children...when ppl see something in you that is special and they don't have, that's when their ugliness shows -