Movie Friday: Stewart Lee – Political Correctness

A friend put me on to a new standup comedian:

There is a general misunderstanding that pervades the society we live in, and it comes from a grating lack of historical awareness. I’ve made somewhat oblique reference to it before, but the problem arises when we look at conditions today and assume that they were ever thus. For example, the words “political correctness” have taken on an almost pejorative connotation, implying an over-sensitive “culture of victims” where every word you say must be scrutinized and agonized over. What this view necessarily neglects is the reasons why those practices came to be in the first place. Whatever your feelings on welfare are, for example, there was once a time when there was no state welfare and poverty was a death sentence. Abolishing welfare isn’t an answer to anything, and suggesting otherwise is being criminally ignorant of history.

Stewart Lee points this out in a very dry way:

“…if political correctness has achieved one thing, it’s to make the Conservative party cloak its inherent racism behind more creative language.”

Racism, in a de facto sense, is inherent in conservative ideology and cannot simply be whitewashed over. When we forget our history and the struggles that it took for us to get here (however your feelings might be of “here”), we expose ourselves to the possibility of looking at the world today and crying “injustice” over issues where the alternative is far worse.

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The ongoing battle for cultural accommodation loses two skirmishes

Regular readers may recall last month’s discussion over the kirpan, a piece of Sikh religious iconography that has been the subject of recent debate in the Quebec legislature:

While it would be a complete failure on our part to refuse to recognize the impact on the Sikh community (as a manifestation of privilege) of such a ban, we also must respect the fact that Canada is a secular nation, meaning that religious symbols are not to be given any kind of legal standing.

Finding equally compelling arguments on both sides of the issue, I was forced to swallow the bitter pill of compromise and suggest that a reasonable accommodation would be to allow kirpans that could not be used as weapons – either because they were locked or because they were too small (some are worn like lockets around the neck and are less than an inch long). I dislike advocating compromise, because it is usually a sign that both sides have given up trying to convince the other and are trying to get out of the room in time for lunch. In this case, I found myself stuck between two secular principles and unable to arbitrarily pick a side.

It seems that the Quebec legislature suffers from no such quandary:

Quebec’s governing Liberals voted in favour of an opposition motion to ban ceremonial daggers from the provincial legislature. The Parti Québécois tabled its motion Wednesday — requesting the government prevent Sikhs from carrying their ceremonial daggers into the national assembly building — and the legislature voted unanimously in favour.

The Opposition PQ was more strident and applauded the building’s security details, while stressing the party’s view that multiculturalism is a Canadian but not a Quebec value. PQ MNA Louise Beaudoin urged Sikhs to make a “little bit of an effort” and demanded the Liberal government clarify its position on religious objects in the legislature.

It’s nice to see that despite our differences, lawmakers can all agree that there is no room for accommodation of any of those weird foreign practices. Certainly no middle ground to be found between respecting individual freedoms and the secular nature of the state – that would be ridiculous.

Sikhs, predictably, are unhappy with the ruling:

The World Sikh Organization of Canada is disappointed with the Quebec national assembly’s decision to ban Sikhs from wearing a kirpan in the legislature. Arguing that multiculturalism is under threat, Canadian Sikhs pointed out that the Supreme Court of Canada decided in 2006 that the ceremonial dagger, traditionally worn underneath the clothing, is an article of faith — not a weapon.

While I sympathize with their feelings on this issue, I can’t help but roll my eyes whenever someone tries to claim that the kirpan isn’t a weapon. It is true that the religious dictates requiring Sikhs to wear kirpans do not require them to be viable as weapons, but to say that the kirpan isn’t designed with that purpose in mind is willful ignorance masquerading as tolerance. The question is whether or not the religious belief surrounding the weapon allows it to be exempted, under the assumption that nobody will ever use it for violence. That would be a stupid decision made for a stupid reason.

There have been accusations of racism/xenophobia that accompany this decision, and for the most part I tend to agree. There have been exactly zero incidents of someone being attacked in the Quebec legislature by a kirpan, so passing a law that bans them isn’t motivated by self-preservation so much as the wish to make a statement that people who look and behave different must fall in line. Again, I think a reasonable accommodation could have been made here, and failing to pursue that (with a unanimous decision it’s hard to argue otherwise) is strongly suggestive to me of a pervasive attitude that precludes the idea of accommodation.

This issue of religious behaviour functioning in secular society may become the defining issue of our discourse in the next little while. With the Supreme Court wrangling over the constitutionality of bans on polygamy, the Ontario provincial court grappling with veils on testifying witnesses, and now the kirpan issue, can we throw one more log on the fire?

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney says a private members bill that would force people to show their faces when they vote is “reasonable.” A Quebec Conservative backbencher, Steven Blaney, rekindled the debate over veiled voters on Friday with the tabling of a bill that critics decry as an attempt to divide the electorate.

It is tempting to try and weigh the merits of this kind of issue and try to figure out if it is indeed reasonable. I would argue that asking someone to identify themselves in order to vote is very reasonable, and if that cannot be done by means of facial identification and there is no other alternative, requiring someone to show their face is perfectly fine. However, such a view of this issue ignores the real purpose – this is simply an attempt to find wedge issues in anticipation of an upcoming election. Unless there is a suspicion that voter fraud is happening at such a level that national-level legislation needs to be enacted, then this is simply an argument for argument’s sake. It’s a typical tactic of the Harper government that is about as transparent as it is utterly meaningless.

However, there is a larger point to be gleaned in all of this. Canada has to decide how it wants to define itself – as a rigidly secular nation where immigrants have to learn to adopt our customs, or as a place where accommodations are made as often as possible to ensure that everyone feels welcome. Both of these approaches have their merits, but I’m more optimistic about the second one working out as a long-term strategy.

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Please don’t be… aww crap

There’s a phenomenon in the black community, whenever someone sees a headline like this:

Man, 21, arrested for drug possession and assault

We immediately flinch and say “Please please please don’t be a black guy.” It’s a reaction to the fact that, nearly without exception, whenever a black man makes the news it’s because he’s a gang-banger arrested for some crime. The problem is that this event reflects such a small proportion of the black population, and yet the fallout is something we all must deal with. We are all tagged with the crime, as our culture unconsciously (in most cases) links the man’s skin colour to his propensity to commit crime. As a result, I get distrustful looks from old ladies when walking the streets at night, and am assumed to be the one in my group of friends who sells drugs.

I’d imagine that Christians are starting to get an appreciation for that phenomenon when they see headlines like this one:

Charity chief convicted of sexual assault

Given the number of Christian organizations, leaders and celebrities that have been exposed doing decidedly un-Christlike things in the past little while, you’ve got to imagine that Christians are more than a little concerned every time someone makes the news for doing something really evil.

I guess we can both say “oh shit” in unison:

The head of two Toronto-area organizations that were stripped of their charitable status after submitting “falsified” documents to federal regulators was sentenced this month for sexual assault for inappropriately touching a teenager, CBC News has learned. Daniel Mokwe was sentenced Jan. 13 to time served — two nights in jail — and given two years probation.

The victim, a minor at the time of the assault, told Det. Richard Petrie of the Toronto Police Service that she knew Mokwe was a pastor. As a result of the incident, she lost her faith in God and would never enter another church again, she said.

Yep, he’s black and Christian. His “charity organization”, Revival Time Ministries (which sounds like a children’s television program on a god-bothering channel) had its licensed revoked after Canada Revenue (the Canadian equivalent to the IRS) found a series of irregularities in their bookkeeping. Mokwe had another charity called “Save Canada’s Teenagers” – the irony should not be lost on anyone.

If I were a lesser blogger, I could score a few cheap points off of pointing out that Jesus didn’t keep Mokwe from being both financially and sexually corrupted, and that this is “proof” that Christianity is just as empty as all religions. I think the point to be made here is larger than that one though. Daniel Mokwe is undoubtedly a bad person, using the auspices of a charitable organization and his position as an authority figure to abuse both the tax code and, more devastatingly, a young girl. The problem is the source from which Mokwe derives his authority – namely, his position as a pastor. His parishoners, and likely those who donated to him, placed trust in him at least partially based on the fact that he claimed a personal relationship with YahwAlladdha. They essentially granted a portion of the trust that they placed in the deity itself in the hands of a man who told them he is tight with the almighty.

I can’t harp on this issue enough, it seems. The problem is not religion per se. The problem is that we take it seriously. If I told you I had a special insight into a voice in the sky, as revealed through interpretation of Beowulf, you’d (quite rightly) think me a lunatic in need of some therapy. However, if I tell you instead that I am granted authority by Yahweh based on the Bible, all of a sudden my cup doth overflow with credibility. Why? Why do people who claim a particular brand of magical thinking get a free pass into positions of trust? Why indeed, since they seem to have no lesser frequency of violating that trust than someone who is a non-believer?

It is there where the difference between the “don’t let him be black” and the “don’t let him be Christian” arises. Black people don’t claim to be morally superior, or to have a conduit to absolute truth based on the colour of our skin. Christians, however, do claim such superiority. Christianity has been made synonymous with honesty and righteousness over generations, despite all evidence that such association is a big steaming pile of turds. It relies on this borrowed heft of asserted uprightness in order to be made a member of the conversation. Why on Earth would we listen to a bunch of nutjobs who think that the only possible explanation for a woman giving birth without having sex with her husband is that God did it, or who think that a book written by amassing the third-hand account of people who claim to have known a particular Palestinian carpenter decades before the fact is the literal word of the almighty? When evaluating those claims at face value, they can be, and should be, dismissed as nonsense.

As long as we keep re-applying the thin varnish of respect to the rotting woodwork of religion, we will see scam artists like this perpetrate their fraud again and again.

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Privilege: when turnabout isn’t fair play

There is an age-old adage when it comes to argument – “turnabout is fair play”. Basically, the idea is that if an argument is reasonable in one direction, then it’s entirely reasonable when turned around and used the other way. When a homeopath demands 100% positive proof that homeopathy doesn’t work, it is an entirely fair argument to ask them to provide 100% proof that gremlins and faeries don’t exist. Because neither argument is reasonable, they can be scrapped. Similarly, when religious people invoke scripture to prove that something or other is ordained or banned by God, it is reasonable to turn that same argument around and show where the scripture ordains or bans something that contradicts the believer’s position.

Turnabout is entirely fair play in most cases, save one – when privilege is in play. Regular readers of this blog will probably remember my previous discussions of how privilege manifests itself in religious people, in discussions of racism, and even in the atheist movement itself. Privilege, for those unfamiliar with the term, is what happens when belonging to a particular group gives you an automatic advantage over those who are not in that group. The characteristic of this advantage is that it is not inherent to real differences between the groups (it is not, for example, an example of “tall privilege” that tall people can reach high shelves easier than short people), but due to some undeserved social assumption or historical advantage (the fact that tall people are considered more trustworthy and attractive than short people would be perhaps an example of “tall privilege”).

Members of a privileged group are doubly-cursed (or blessed, depending on your perspective) since the usual kind of  advantages that accompany privilege are completely invisible to those inside the group. White folks will angrily rant until they are blue in the face (as only they can be) about how they earned everything they ever had, and how life wasn’t handed to them on a silver platter, and how the real racists are the ones who think that white people enjoy privilege at all! Men will insist that men are the truly oppressed sex, since they are no longer allowed to use sexual banter in the office, and that feminists are neutering their manful impulses. Meanwhile, those of us not in the in-group will patiently wait until they run out of steam and point out that the phrase “mighty white of you” exists for a reason, as does “crying like a little bitch.”

It is in cases like this, where privilege is in play, that turnabout doesn’t function as a reasonable argument. For example, imagine this (not so) fictitious exchange between two people:

Boy: I don’t understand why you’re mad
Girl: That guy just slapped my ass!
Boy: So?
Girl: So it’s degrading and basically sexual assault!
Boy: I would love it if girls came up to me and slapped my ass. I don’t see why you’re making such a big deal out of it – you should take it as a compliment.

I doubt that anyone would find this sample conversation bizarrely unrealistic. Boy is trying to set up a bit of “turnaround is fair play” to illustrate that Girl’s position is unreasonable – being sexually objectified is a compliment and Girl should not be offended. Boy is doing this by showing that when the situation is reversed, there is no offense felt by the objectified party – indeed there is a positive reaction to the same stimulus. Any feeling of offense must therefore be purely in Girl’s mind, and all she has to do is adjust her bad attitude.

And of course this would be a completely reasonable position to take but for the existence of male privilege. Boy exists in a world where women are not sexually aggressive in the way that men are. As a result, he has rarely (if not never) had cause to feel as though his merits are judged solely on his physical appearance. He is not constantly bombarded by messages that make his sexuality the sine qua non of his entire existence. He is not meant to feel stupid for simply being born a man. Perhaps most frustratingly (to Girl, at least), nobody ever condescendingly tries to “woman-splain” to him that his totally reasonable objection to being physically and sexually assaulted is just because of his bad attitude.

Boy is not necessarily a bad person, he has simply not taken the time to consider the real differences between his default position in any social situation and the position of Girl. There are a great number of other forces at work on Girl that Boy doesn’t even have to think about. By assuming that those forces, because he can’t see them, simply don’t exist, Boy is preserving the conditions that creates those forces in the first place.

This isn’t an abstract concept for me – I’ve been Boy more than my fair share of times. It’s a tempting trap to fall into, because then problems become everyone else’s fault and you can sit back and pass judgment on the rest of humanity. This type of thinking definitely runs outside of sexism, to be sure. Anyone who has ever said that black people need to just “get over” something are operating from that exact same position of privilege – racism is someone else’s problem! Anyone who has ever said “this is a Christian country, and if you don’t like it you can leave” is, in addition to being sorely deluded about their facts, operating from another position of majority privilege – civil rights are someone else’s problem!

This is why I harp on about privilege so much – failing to recognize its presence forces us to spend a lot of valuable time pointing it out. There will always be those who stalwartly refuse to recognize that it exists, being much happier to mischaracterize it as a device used by bleeding hearts to make white Christian men feel guilty (which is a crock), but there are others who are genuinely ignorant and are willing to put in the work to see how things might look from another perspective.

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Another case study of cultural tolerance

This morning I explored the stupid side of one of my pet topics, the idea of cultural tolerance. Basically, the argument goes that since we have a variety of cultures all calling this great country of ours “home”, we are called to make reasonable accommodations for different cultural practices. The important word in that last sentence is reasonable. Moving the location of a health care facility because some people are scared little babies about death is not a reasonable accommodation. To the contrary – it flies in the face of reason.

However, this case perhaps bears a bit less contempt and a bit more thoughtful reflection:

An emotionally charged debate over multiculturalism that has raged in Quebec in recent years has landed on the national stage and it centres on a ceremonial dagger worn by Sikhs. MPs face a demand to ban the kirpan, which is worn at all times by at least one Ontario MP. The discussion is being spurred by the Bloc Québécois, which promised Wednesday to take up the issue with the House of Commons’ all-party decision-making body.

Setting aside the obvious fact that this a political move that is motivated primarily by the cultural equivalent of racism (when’s the last time someone in the legislature was attacked with a kirpan?), there are actually two perfectly reasonable arguments on both sides of this issue.

Against the measure: A reasonable accommodation can be made to allow MPs to wear religious items without interfering with the good order and work of the parliament

As I noted above, there have never been any attacks within parliament by a kirpan (or any other weapon). Banning people from wearing a kirpan is not a reaction to an incident of violence, nor is it a pre-emptive attempt to fight a trend of imminent violence. It is simply making an arbitrary rule that has the effect of saying that certain people are not welcome to run for office. For Sikhs who take their religion seriously, the kirpan is a mandatory accoutrement that must be worn at all times. It has the same religious force of compulsion as the burqua or similar head-coverings for conservative Jews.

Given that there is a compelling reason (at the individual level) for wearing a kirpan, and very little is accomplished by banning it (aside from broadcasting xenophobia), a strong case can be made that the measure should not be adopted.

For the measure: The accommodation to allow people to bring a weapon into the legislature is not reasonable

I’ve made this exact argument before (way in the distant past, likely before any of you now reading the blog were around):

In my mind, allowing anyone to carry a weapon of any kind is not a good idea. I don’t care how symbolic or ceremonial it it supposed to be. If my religious convictions require me to carry a rifle in my hands because Jesus could arrive at any moment and I have to help him fight off Satan’s zombie hordes, common sense (and the law) would dictate that the danger I pose to society in general outweighs my religious autonomy. Such is the case here.

The kirpan is not worn to commemorate a battle or to symbolize some kind of pillar of Sikh faith. It is explicitly a defensive weapon that is worn by Sikhs in case they have to prevent some act of evil from taking place. The same argument could be made for a non-religious knife, or a gun, or any other type of weapon. Given that we do not permit MPs (or anyone) to take a weapon into a government building unless they are a member of the security staff, making a special concession for this weapon because it is wrapped up in religious superstition is not a reasonable accommodation, despite whatever nonsense Michael Ignatieff says:

“The kirpan is not a weapon,” Ignatieff told reporters in Montreal. “It’s a religious symbol and we have to respect it.” When asked about the issue Thursday, Ignatieff said that it should be treated as a question of religious freedom rather than simply a security matter.

We have to respect it? With all due respect to your position, Mr. Ignatieff, we don’t have to respect religious symbols. We have to respect a person’s right to believe in their particular religious symbol, but we are under no consequent obligation to respect the symbol ourselves. Considering that the symbol itself, when divorced from its symbolism, is in fact a knife, it is entirely reasonable to ask why it should be allowed inside the legislature (or anywhere else, for that matter).

While I hate compromise (I really do… it usually means that both sides are giving up), I think one is appropriate in this case. While it would be a complete failure on our part to refuse to recognize the impact on the Sikh community (as a manifestation of privilege) of such a ban, we also must respect the fact that Canada is a secular nation, meaning that religious symbols are not to be given any kind of legal standing. The problem with the kirpan is not the kirpan itself – it is its potential to be used as a weapon. Kirpans can be purchased with locks, or made such that they cannot be drawn from their sheath. Passing a resolution that allows the kirpan to be worn but stripping it of its function as a knife is entirely possible, and involves a reasonable accommodation from both sides.

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P.S. Interestingly, as I was writing this piece, I found myself saying “this is absolutely my position” for both sides of the argument. I’m always interested to hear your opinions (even in those cases when I don’t post a reply), but I am particularly curious to know if you were swayed one way or the other on this issue.

Cross-burning comes to a close

One of the very first stories I talked about when I started this site about a year ago was the cross burning incident in Nova Scotia, where an interracial couple woke to find a flaming cross on their lawn. That story has come to a close:

The second of two brothers who burned a cross on the lawn of an interracial couple in Windsor, N.S., has been sentenced to two months in jail.

Justin Rehberg, 20, was sentenced in a Windsor courtroom for criminal harassment and inciting racial hatred. He will be on probation for 30 months and is barred from owning firearms for 10 years. Rehberg was composed during the sentencing when Justice Claudine MacDonald asked if he had anything to say.

“I want to say I’m sorry,” Rehberg told the court. “I screwed up. It was a horrible mistake. It will never happen again.”

On Monday, Rehberg’s older brother, Nathan, was sentenced to four months in jail for inciting hatred and to six months in jail for criminal harassment. The sentences are to be served concurrently, and with credit for time already spent in custody, he will spend two more months in jail.

Well, I should say that the story has come to a close as far as the two brothers are concerned. The victims of this incident will have to live with the aftermath for years to come. That also doesn’t take into account the black community in Nova Scotia, having to deal with the constant spectre of fear of violence for the crime of having been born with a different skin colour.

I don’t have much to say about the sentence. It’s less than my sense of revenge would have liked to see, but as far as I’m concerned the damage has already been done. These kids are royal fuckups, will pull this kind of shit again, and will find hero worship among a small but fierce band of white supremacists. Putting them in jail for a longer period of time won’t do anything to change that fact. I’m almost tempted to say I wish they had been sentenced to do community outreach work in Africville, but I wouldn’t want to foist scumbags like the Rehbergs on the black community of Nova Scotia just to satisfy my perverted sense of justice.

[Crown prosecutor Darrell] Carmichael has said the cases were the first involving a cross-burning in Canada.

“I hope this will be the last, as well as the first,” he said.

Would you like to place a bet, Mr. Carmichael?

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Movie Friday: The Job Interview

A reader has started her own blog, and one of her first posts features what I think is quite an interesting and funny video:

There are a couple of things you should know about a video like this. First, it is an abstraction of several actual experiences, somewhat punched up and stitched together to make a point. I’m somewhat in doubt that anyone has had a single job interview in which all of these things have happened. However, I can avow from personal experience that I’ve been on the receiving end of every single one of those comments.

Of course it’s not simply just mindless entertainment – imagine having to deal with questions like this every day, every time you do anything that doesn’t fit with the stereotype. When that stereotype is a negative one, it disincentivizes people from pursuing anything that puts them constantly in a position of having to defend themselves from such stupidity. There’s a lot of tearing down that happens within the community as well, and that’s certainly a problem that must be addressed. It’s fun, however, to watch the interviewer stumble all over his words, knowing he said something stupid but not knowing how to extricate himself. It is partially for this reason that I write about stuff like this – to give people some insight and vocabulary on how to navigate situations like these.

For the record, while I wouldn’t personally respond to a situation like this in the way that Marcus does, I can certainly appreciate his reasons for doing so.

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The face of racism in Canada – same as it ever was

There is a great scene in one of my favourite movies where a black TV executive assembles a writing team for his new black-themed TV show, and expresses his baffled dismay at the fact that they are all white. To try and explain the phenomenon away, the writers sitting around the table offer a variety of suggestions: maybe they couldn’t find anyone qualified; maybe black writers didn’t want to work on the show; the executive sardonically suggests that maybe they couldn’t put their crack pipes down long enough to fill out the application.

Of course there is a real answer to why there weren’t any black writers around the table: the people that make the decisions on who gets hired picked a group of white people. It’s not a mystery, it happens all the time. For reasons that are (likely) completely unconscious to the powers that be, the black writers who applied just didn’t “seem right” for the position, so they didn’t get hired. Aren’t we lucky that this kind of thing only happens in movies, right?

While it is my usual practice to post an excerpt from the articles I link to these stories I am sadly unable to do justice to what’s contained in the link. I will, however, provide you this screengrab:

January 2011 Federal CabinetDo you see what I see? Go to the link, scroll down the list, and see if you can spot what I’m talking about. Yes, it’s a sea of white faces. White, male faces actually.

Now I feel the need to back up here and clarify a lot of things.

  1. I am not not not not not accusing Stephen Harper of being a bigot. I don’t like the man, I don’t like his politics, I don’t like his policies, and I definitely don’t like who he’s in bed with (although I do find his wife delightful). However, none of that, nor anything that he has said or done, leads me to conclude that he is particularly racist (at least not above and beyond what I would expect from any other person). Anyone who thinks I am trying to smear him by tagging him as ‘a racist’ is way off base.
  2. This cabinet is not not not unusual or particularly white and male. In fact, the linked article points out that there are more women in this cabinet than served under the previous Martin Liberal government. While conservatives and Conservatives tend to be an old-boys club, this particular cabinet does not reflect that any more than Liberal cabinets.
  3. This isn’t about black people. Given that black people represent about 2.5% of the population of Canada, I’d be surprised to see a preponderance of black faces on the Federal Cabinet (especially since few of the ministers are from the Toronto or Ottawa areas).
  4. I have no reason to suspect that unqualified white politicians were hired over qualified People of Colour (PoCs), with the exception of Gary Goodyear who isn’t qualified to hold my cock while I take a piss, let alone be the federal minister of science. I’m sure they are all (with the aforementioned exception) competent politicians in their own right.

This is not a commentary on this cabinet. Please rest assured that while I have strong political disagreements with the Conservative party, I am not interested in smearing them with as ugly and ham-fisted an approach as “they is a bunch of racists”.

This is a commentary on all cabinets, at all times. This is a commentary on the cultural zeitgeist (I am sorry, I cannot avoid using the word) that surreptitiously pushes out PoCs. Aside from Bev Oda and Leona Aglukkaq (and possibly John Duncan, although I don’t think so), the cabinet is made up of white faces. This is not in any way unusual, although it probably should raise some eyebrows that the minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway, the minister for Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, and the minister for Indian Affairs (I think) are all white faces. To be sure, International Co-operation and Health are not rinky-dink positions and there are two prominent female PoCs in those ministries, but the preponderance of positions are monochromatic.

As I’ve said countless times, this is how we can tell that we have not reached anything that even resembles the post-racial utopia that many of us (liberals and conservatives alike) would like to pretend Canada is currently. Instead what we have is tokenism and rampant under-representation by one group, with an accompanying over-representation by the group that just happens to be the one with the most political clout historically. This is no accident, although I am doubtful it happens on purpose. It is for this reason that I roll my eyes whenever someone talks about “personal responsibility” being the answer to racial disparity – so much of it happens below a level where we are aware of it. As a result, we get more of the same thing, by a process that looks quite accidental.

This is no accident.

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Revisionist classics, part 2

I’m somewhat surprised that nobody else brought this to my attention, since it’s right within my wheelhouse:

A new edition of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is causing controversy because of the removal of a racially offensive word. Twain scholar Alan Gribben says the use of the word “nigger” had prompted many US schools to stop teaching the classic. In his edition, Professor Gribben replaces the word with “slave” and also changes “injun” to “Indian”.

Come on, guys! What’s the point of having a loyal fan base if I have to get my own latté? You guys don’t remember when this exact issue came up in July with To Kill a Mockingbird? How about one of the first stories I cut my teeth on, when someone was trying to censor one of the Tintin books? Am I so easily forgotten?

Well have no fear, because this story has crossed my radar. An book publisher, under the advisement Auburn English professor Alan Gribben, is producing a new ‘sanitized’ version of Mark Twain’s classic novel. This particular book has long been a lightning rod for controversy because of the explicitly racist language contained therein, leading it to be banned from many schools.

One thing needs to be made clear off the bat: this is not censorship. Many people are prematurely crying ‘foul’, accusing the political correctness police of once again sacrificing art in the name of sensitive feelings. Of course, the ironies abound when we look at the kinds of people who oppose political correctness, and what kinds of things they are happy to censor. The book is in the public domain, which means the original language is still available to everyone. This is one publisher printing one version of one book with a handful of words changed. Anyone trying to turn this into a fight over free speech or changing historical documents is suiting up for the wrong battle.

That being said, there is a real fight here, and it’s worth exploring. Professor Gribben is a man who is deeply concerned about the fact that children aren’t being taught this classic of American literature because of a few words. There is much much more to the story of Huckleberry Finn than the two characters of Nigger Jim and Injun Joe. The book holds a mirror up to the attitudes of the times and forces the reader to confront the ugly truth about that period in American history. To refuse to teach the book in its entirety because people are squeamish about a few words is a completely flawed and illiberal approach to education. We can’t gloss over the rough parts of our past simply because we wish it had never happened. Teaching the book to children gives them an important contextual link to a point in human history where a great injustice was being practiced, unquestioned by mainstream society.

The other side of this argument is equally valid, though. Surely, by the same tokens described above, isn’t that exactly what Professor Gribben is doing by removing certain words from the work? Mark Twain was not a sloppy writer when it came to choosing his words. He didn’t put the words ‘nigger’ and ‘injun’ in this book out of either laziness or for some sort of perverse amusement; the words are specifically chosen to evoke an emotional reaction within the reader. By hitting readers with these words repeatedly (‘nigger’ apparently appears 219 times in the book), Twain allows the lexicon of the time to wash over them, forcing them to confront the constant, interminable racist attitudes that were the norm at the time. Once removed, these words lose their entire meaning. It then becomes like a ballet without music – missing an important and crucial element of the art.

In the tradition of George Orwell, I think that words are much more than placeholders for ideas. The proper combination of words arranged in a certain way, much like a properly-measured and compiled recipe, makes the finished product so much more than simply the sum of the constituent parts. Disturbing either the order or the content will forever change the outcome. In the case of this book, changing these words robs the work of an important tool in its arsenal. So much more than simply a story about a delinquent child and his rag-tag band of misfits, Huckleberry Finn is a work of art that uses a variety of devices to persuade the reader, essentially forcing them to confront the ugly truth about the history of North American racism.

The question we must resolve for ourselves is whether or not the same lesson can be imparted through the work with these words removed. After all, Professor Gribben’s intent is to encourage more children to read the book and learn from it – can they still learn the lesson without the full context? As I’ve said before, when we remove the word nigger from its historical context we simply lose any perspective of what it means,  making us far less reluctant to use it. I strongly disagree with Professor Gribben’s decision, since it will likely only accomplish the opposite of its intent. History needs to be taught unvarnished, and art should not be customized to fit the times.

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