Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Canadian!

Sigh where to start?

Ok well I had wanted to do a post on the whole Golf-gate controversy surrounding Kelly Tilghman's comments in reference to Tiger Woods and Golfweek's follow up. In essence although I think Tilghman was an idiot for using the word lynching I didn't get too riled up because I just figured she was clueless or made a mistake. It wasn't deliberate or at least I don't believe it was premeditated. It was dumb, it was improper but it wasn't deliberate. Golfweek's subsequent action in putting a noose on their cover was however just blatantly wrong and inexcusable though. Mind you I believe that the firing of the editor who approved the image has less to do with the impropriety of the image and more to do with the market's reaction. When subscribers and advertisers speak heads roll, remember Imus? So don't think that Golfweek was just doing the right thing from a moral standpoint. Like the Lox this was all about the Benjamins baby.

And through all this mini-hoopla Tiger sweeps it under the rug. Non-issue for him he says. Of course it is cause well after all he's not black, he's cablasian. Whatever dude!

Canada and Toronto are alot like Tiger Woods. They just sweep the racist ish under the rug. Maybe if we pretend it didn't happen then it'll go away seems to be the thinking.

I was a little disturbed by the report of anti-black graffiti at one of our places of higher learning last week. When places we consider our centres of liberal thinking can be subjected to this type of stuff then one really wonders about our society.

What is to be noted here here was the faculty's slow response to the concerns of the students. Yet another example of sweep it under the rug. Canada and Canadians just tend to take a very cavalier, whatever man attitude towards racially charged incidents. (Oh and also tell me why City tv had to flash the graffiti on its news cast even though it contained a racial slur?)

There have been other incidents here; the racial threats to the prison guards at the Don Jail, the whole Nippertipping thing happening with Asian fishermen north of Toronto. Yet Canadians seem to either ignore these incidents or deny that there is any racial aspect to them. Its an ostrich, head in the sand mentality. Denial is more than a river in Egypt.

Ever thought about Canada and its melting pot of inclusiveness to immigrants and minorities though? Where are the minority leaders in this country challenging for a place at the tables of power? The US has Obama and before that Jesse and that was the 80s. How come we don't have any minorities running for leader of one of the federal parties? Actually come to think of it how many federal MP are visible minorities? How many Provincial MPs are visible minorities? Mayors? City Councilors even?

I'll leave you to draw your conclusions but don't for one second think that his place is any better than the US in terms of minorities breaking the glass ceilings to success.

Oh and now the word Canadian is slang for black in the US apparently. If only they knew the reality of Canada.

10 comments:

Melody said...

De man is a GREAT golfer, that's enough for me. Yeah, we've all accepted that Tiger's cauca-mongo-jeepgrandcherokee-Tie&DyeCotiledon, yet Sharpton still vex due to Tiger's response to de noose -- everyone always wants to claim a champion, yet only Blacks determined to claim this cat an' have him claim only Negroidness publicly. Wake up, Tigey -- Muta asked already: is it because yu BLACK:-o

Anonymous said...

Great post JDID !!

Dee said...

I think they did it for the attention
honestly

Anonymous said...

i'm not sure who is naieve enough to think racism doesn't exist in canada, but i really don't believe it's anywhere near the same scale as it is in the U.S. the stuff @ york U. is a really big deal up here, down there it's a daily occurance and might not even warrant coverage.

good point re minorities in high political places, but remember our percentages are lower than in the states. for example, in the states blacks make up about 10% of the population, up here, only 2%.

different histories, different trajectories but i'd still take toronto over just about anywhere down there. i went to the mecca atlanta, the supposed shining light for black folk in the early 90s. saw lots of black folk in nice homes and cars, but i also saw LOTS of black folk in shantys and the downtown area was CROWDED with homeless black folk. i hardly EVER see a black bum in toronto. i can't del with them extremes. yanks can keep all that.

Amadeo said...

Right now I'm more worried about Mitt Romney's "Who let the dogs out" comment.

Is that his plan for black voters...say something that was cool a decade ago and take some pictures? He's the guy that understands America...right.

Crankyputz said...

Your always going to have some ism in a society, even in a place like India, people are discriminated against over skin color, religion etc. As long human difference exist there will be issues..

I don't get Americans using "Canadian" as slang....wierd.

Miz JJ said...

Tiger is a punk. Straight up.

Great post about racism in Canada. People up here are just in denial.

Anonymous said...

i definitely think there is a significant amount of racism here - but that it flys under the radar. that whole 'nice-ness' complex, that we canadians have.

Anonymous said...

the sh!t is all over man. even in africa u got black people fighting against each other because of ethnicity.

Lola Gets said...

Ok, I think Im late with this but...I just foudn out that the movie "How She Move" is based in Caribbean culture in Toronto. Are you going to see the flick? Id love to hear your thoughts about it!

L