maysie.web.net

This incident happened almost a year ago. I had forgotten it, and wanted to post it now, it's an interesting story.

First, the players.

My dear friend M (Asian man, early 40s), his partner D (South Asian woman, late 30s) and their daughter who was 4 at the time, K.

Me, mixed race light skinned Asian woman early 40s, and R, my partner, big loveable white guy, late 40s. R is mostly bald and at the time had a salt and pepper moustache and goatee.

So R and I went to spend the day with M, D and K at their home in Peterborough on a sunny Saturday last fall.

D is a professor at Trent University. Why else would they move to Peterborough, home of POC whose numbers can be counted on both hands?

They live near this great farmer's market, so our plan was to go to the market, chill out, then grab some lunch.

The market was great, outdoors, huge, all over this parking lot. We got some cute tiny pumpkins to make pumpkin tarts (homemade!) and many other goodies.

We found a restaurant to go to, just outside P-town, and to get there we took a lovely drive along the Trent waterways. Lovely. I love the colours of fall, and getting out of Toronto to see them in their lustrous glory was wonderful.

D had broken her foot, and was in a wheelchair and we had called the restaurant to ensure the place was wheelchair accessible. They assured us it was. When we arrived we saw one big step up to their front patio and another two steps into the restaurant itself. We pondered the logistics. With some chair-sit-pivoting done by D, who was at least mobile with her uninjured foot, she was able to maneuver into her chair at the restaurant level. When we politely pointed out that their space was not, in fact, wheelchair accessible, the staff told us that a guy in a wheelchair "always comes here. We just pick him up in his chair and bring him in, he's fine with that."

Never mind that staff aren't trained to do this, this is one of the most unsafe and disrespectful ways for people in wheelchairs to gain access to spaces.

But I digress. 

We settled in for a lovely lunch, it was a rather fancy place. The food was delicious if I recall.

I love K. She is amazing. I had known first M and then D for many years. They had been together for more than 10 years before they had K and she is just so adorable. Soon we were drawing in her colouring book and doing all sorts of fun things.

If it hasn't been said already, P-town is very white. So the 5 of us were a bit of a freak show. These are my friends who I love, but being aware of all the white folks around us is a bit of a natural hyper-vigilance thing that POC do in these kinds of spaces.

But we were completely not prepared for what happened.

And older white dude (late 60s or early 70s is my guess) and a younger couple entered the restaurant. We were right at the front at a large table, so they had to walk by us, which the couple did. The older guy, clearly one of those "friendly" small town types, beheld us. Heading straight for R he said, pointing at K, "Is she your grand-daughter?"

My eyes, wide with shock, met R's, then M and D's. M and D smiled and laughed, "No she's our daughter" they said. The old guy looked around the table, smiled politely, and walked on to join his table. 

"What the fuck* was that?" I asked. "Um, did that just happen?" Somehow I needed to figure it out.

So here's my thoughts.

White folks are very friendly, to other white folks that they recognize as being from a similar class level. Sitting in that restaurant landed all of us in the "correct" class category. But dude was clearly looking to relate to someone at our table, and there was only one white guy there, visibly older than the rest of us, but certainly not in the dude's age group.

But just in doing the quick math, if Rick was a grandfather (which if I think about it IS mathematically possible), who was the mother?? There were no clearly 20-something-year-olds at the table (I look younger than my age but not that younger, FFS  )   And parenthood has given both M and D way more grey hairs than me.

So it was white-guy to white-guy, the way of small town white patriarchal hegemony. It was good for a laugh on the drive back to the house.

P.S. The wait-staff brought the cheque to Rick. It goes both ways. Ha! 

 * I always try to decrease my swearing in the presence of my friends' children. Try. So I whispered this one word.

About me: 

Growing up mixed race Asian/white, very light skinned, and encouraged to be as white as possible by both my parents, it was possible for me to identify as white (I think) and pass as white most of the time (I think). Still is. Maybe sometimes sorta.

But like everyone who grows up in the public school system in Canada or the US, the culture that's taught to us is whiteness. I was marinated in this, as much as any of the non-Anglo culture that was my home life growing up. At home there were pieces and fragments of Chinese culture around the house, pieces that I owned and lived without thinking about them, like not remembering a time when I didn't know how to use chopsticks, or prepare the rice cooker, or hearing my father speak on the phone and not understand him. My connections to Jewishness on my mother's side, cultural rather than religious, was also fairly nebulous, including such fragments as "Chanukah gelt" from my Jewish grandmother once a year, which also included chocolate gold coins. That the "outside" world, a vast sheath of oppressive whiteness which I wrapped around myself was so different than the "inside" world of my family was simply a switch I made when traversing between the two. Having one Chinese parent and one white Jewish parent was normal, even while I knew it was not normal to my classmates and friends.

In the "real world" though, I was culturally white, and North American. I learned all the racism, sexism, anti-immigrant trash that is taught, and somehow filtered it into what my lived reality was. Not really sure how I did that, to be honest. 

As for feminism, there are parallels between feminism and the larger mainstream culture in Canada. Feminism (TM) is broadly understood to be a space for white women, with a sometimes nod to different groups of women who are not white or middle class or straight or able-bodied or cis-gendered. Marginality goes on until those of us who don't quite fit take over space, make our own, find our voices and do the change that's needed.

It's not a good idea to allow white women to define feminism for us. As far as I'm concerned, there can be no feminism without an anti-racist analysis, without a class analysis, without a queer analysis and challenge to homophobia, without an ability analysis, without an understanding of the many ways in which oppression forces us to live our lives and deal with the oppressive systems of this fucked up society. When I say the word feminism, proudly, I include all forms of oppression within it. And I'm glad that there is also a name for this: intersectionality, or intersectional feminism.*

 A personal example from my life:

There's an all-women Taiko drumming group  in Toronto, where I live, called Raging Asian Women (RAW). They are East and South East Asian women expressing music, rage, love and feminism. I saw them perform for the first time many years ago, and realized in that moment that I had never seen images of powerful, loud, angry Asian women before. They changed my life.

I attended an outdoor performance of theirs at Winterfest in February 2009. It was a mild sunny day and I was there with a visiting friend, also an Asian woman. Three white guys were in front of us in the crowd, and while they were not speaking English, as they began speaking about the women of RAW, it was clear they were not extolling their voice and power. The crowd was mixed, and it was a mainstream downtown crowd, due to the venue. While there were some Asian folks in the audience, it was not a feminist or activist crowd.

How dare these fuckers do this? How dare they take up space with their sexism, misogyny and racism? What possible response could my friend and I have done? Aside from what we did which was to move away from them and try to continue to enjoy the show. 

It reminded me that reclaiming spaces and reclaiming our voices, whether within the feminist movement or in the mainstream, is always limited by how far, exactly, we can push our politics. 

*In my professional life, my colleagues and I use the phrase "feminist ARAO framework" with ARAO standing for anti-racism anti-oppression. Focussing on the ARAO part compels white feminists to look at entireties and complexities of women's experiences.  Which is where the feminist movement needs to continue to go, in my opinion.

I guess it's time to 'fess up about a quirk of mine.

We all have those things, those pop culture things, for which we have to turn off our critical brains, switch off our rocking analysis and simply be entertained. Some friends of mine love action movies, some love sci fi/fantasy. As a Trekkie I understand. But one of my escapes has been my shameful secret until now.

I like rom coms.

Worse, I like schlocky Hollywood-style BAD rom coms.

Please don't judge me.

Amongst my favourite rom com actors is Sandra Bullock, so when I saw my first ad for the movie "The Proposal" (while watching the Oscars earlier this year), I knew I would see it.

It received horrible reviews, so I knew what I was getting into when me and my friend A made our date for dinner and a movie last night.

 Oh the lack of humanity.

The "plot" is that they work in publishing, hardworking sincere "everyman" Andrew is bitchy, mean Margaret's executive assistant. A few early scenes show us what a horrible person she is, and that everyone hates her, including him. When she comes into the office people text things like "It's here" and "The witch is on her broom". She's a Canadian and learns she's about to be deported. She decides to force Andrew to marry her, and in a moment of faking the legitimacy of their relationship in front of the immigration officer, invites herself to his family's celebration (in Alaska) of his grandmother's birthday.

Bla bla they fall in love by the end.

Great. Sounds like a lovely waste of time for me and A. Turn off the brain and away we go.

But. There was racism.

Now, in a movie about immigration to the US, there of course had to be racism. Damn! What were we thinking?

Margaret and Andrew go to an immigration office in New York City. The place is filled with brown people talking numerous languages, and dressed what would be thought of as non-USian clothing.I don't think of this as particularly racist, except for the underlying "othering" and disrespect given, but that can also be about Margaret (who, as part of her meanness, is very self-centred). Margaret takes one look at the line (full of brown people), and barges to the front. The man of colour behind the desk gives her a look but doesn't refuse her service.

This whole "front of the line" piece actually represents how white folks who are immigrating from English-speaking countries do get put on the fast track for immigration to the US, perhaps an unintended ironic non-ironic move on the part of the filmmakers. 

Now, to the really problematic stuff. 

Andrew and Margaret arrive in Alaska. 

The first time we see the character "Ramone", a Latino man, is during the party arranged for Andrew's return. Ramone is a waiter at the (catered) party at Andrew's parent's house. Of course Andrew's family is filthy rich. The next time we see Ramone he's an exotic dancer at an impromptu "bacherlorette" party for Margaret. Then he's working in the general store, then he's the minister at their wedding. He flirts with Margaret, stuffs an appetizer in her mouth, the lap-dancing scene is actually painful to watch, and his simpering and calling her "mi amore" is simply ghastly.

The only racist scene which does not have Ramone in it, is a scene in the wood in which Betty White, playing "Gammy", is doing a ceremony in the woods to welcome Margaret into the family. This scene is a despicable display of mocking and appropriating bits and pieces of "Americanized" First Nations culture. There's a bonfire, there's drums on a portable CD player, there's Betty White in a cape and feather headdress. By the end of the scene the two white women are dancing to a rap beat. It's "funny". 

But I need, for my own sanity, to deconstruct Ramone. Why a latino man? In Alaska? His presence also has nothing to do with the "plot" either.

My theory is this: Someone must be othered. Someone must be made fun of. The sparse audience laughed in all the "right" places. Such as every time Ramone talked, with a "heavy accent" of course. His behaviour, which was fairly shocking, and his subordination to the powerful white women who were the ones around him most of the time. His power and masculinity were effectively truncated, not unlike the subservient Black stereotype.

 I also think there's a very strong association in the minds of many USians of "immigrant" with "Latin@". Regardless of the truth. So keep hammering that in. In Alaska.

If there had to be a character in the movie to play the role of court jester, fool, clown, simple-minded strange half-man, why not also make him racialized? The equivalent of the "slipping on a banana peel" gag, it's a cheap easy laugh for the filmmakers to put in. They probably found it funny, and assumed (correctly) that the mostly white audience would also find it funny.

Every time Ramone appears, the audience was already giggling in anticipation, while A and I cringed, talking to each other during the scene, waiting until it was over. Not unlike what I do in more violent movies.

The final insult is a montage sequence at the end of the movie where the immigration officer assigned to Margaret's case is interviewing Margaret, Andrew, his parents, his grandmother and Ramone. It's funny-ish, not spectacular, but after we see Ramone in the sequence, which makes no sense plot-wise, I realize that Ramone is going to be "used" until the very last second, wringing dry every last bit of "humour" at his expense, including, predictably, the questioning of his immigration status, making him spell him name and then asking him to spell it again, "in English".

To the actor who played Ramone (and any actor of colour who's ever played a demeaning racist character): I have no issue with you. Hollywood will always find actors of colour to play the racist roles that Hollywood constructs. This might even be your big break, and maybe in a few years when you're successful and don't have to kiss director and producer ass, you can share the racist bullshit you tolerated, as you announce the opening of a new production company for actors of colour, by actors of colour.

The story:

"  Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation's pre-eminent African-American scholars, was arrested Thursday afternoon at his home by Cambridge police investigating a possible break-in. The incident raised concerns among some Harvard faculty that Gates was a victim of racial profiling. 

Police arrived at Gates's Ware Street home near Harvard Square at 12:44 p.m. to question him. Gates, director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard, had trouble unlocking his door after it became jammed.

He was booked for disorderly conduct after "exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior," according to a police report. Gates accused the investigating officer of being a racist and told him he had "no idea who he was messing with,'' the report said.

...

The arrest of such a prominent scholar under what some described as dubious circumstances shook some members of the black Harvard community.

"He and I both raised the question of if he had been a white professor, whether this kind of thing would have happened to him, that they arrested him without any corroborating evidence," said S. Allen Counter, a Harvard Medical School professor who spoke with Gates about the incident Friday. "I am deeply concerned about the way he was treated, and called him to express my deepest sadness and sympathy."

Gates told the officer that he was being targeted because "I'm a black man in America.''  "

Link to the original news story: http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/harvard.html

Link to Gates' statement: http://www.theroot.com/views/lawyers-statement-arrest-henry-louis-gates-jr

Link to the police report:  http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/CANON8AA683_LNOTESMAIL_07202009-153909.PDF

..... 

So, a progressive discussion board has a thread on this news item. My first comment there is, this is only news because it happened to someone who is well-known and prestigious. This kind of treatment, and worse, happens every day in the U.S. And Canada.

Some have innocently, or idiotically, said:

"Was this really racism?" 

"He shouldn't have yelled at the police."

"What should the white lady have done?" 

So I'm going to break it down here, from the very beginning.

Step 1: Gates arrives home and can't open his front door, he and his driver (who is also Black) are standing on his porch. It's during the day.  Gates tries to open the door by jamming against it with his shoulder.

White woman observes this (by the way, from the news reports we know she's white because her race is not identified).

The first thing she thinks is that there are two (TWO!!) Black men together. Oh the horror. Oh the entitlement. Oh the white space. Jamming open a door is what thieves do, right? Right? And there is NO OTHER POSSIBLE EXPLANATION for two Black men on a front porch IN HER (white) neighbourhood than breaking in. Right? RIGHT?

FFS. 

Let's stop here. It's the middle of the day, in broad daylight, and this is happening on the FRONT PORCH. In a neighbourhood where PROFESSORS and other fawncy Hawvaard people live.

Please think about that. Let's let that sink in for a moment.

My thought is, if there are any thieves and robbers out there who would rob a house under such circumstances, they deserve to go to jail for lack of brains.

Step 2: White woman calls the police.

Step 3: The police arrive, and do the thing they do the best: act like assholes, deny that they refused to give their badge numbers when asked, make shit up, such as Gates was yelling so loud the cop couldn't hear the instructions on his radio? Come on, asshole, can't you be a little more creative than that? Fuck.

Step 4: Gates is charged, arrested and released. His mug shots are now all over the media. Once the charges aren't going to stick, the police will just do what they can to fuck him up.

Step 5: The charges are dropped. Link: http://wbztv.com/local/Henry.Louis.Gates.2.1094574.html

He was alleged to say "You don't know who you're messing with."

He was right. 

.... 

P.S. Answers to the above questions are: Fuck Yes!, Irrelevant, and NOT called the police. 

I met Uzma several years ago, at a pan-asian conference in Vancouver. At the time she was the ED of CASSA, Council of Agencies Serving South Asians and I was on the board of CCNC-TO (Chinese Canadian National Council- Toronto Chapter). She was funny, she was smart as hell, and she didn't put up with any guff.

Uzma recently wrote an article for the Toronto Star entitled "Immigration's Tough New Face".

Now, I write a lot of critiques (that's a nice way to put it) about the corporate media, including the Toronto Star. Here is a rare chance to see me say something nice about the Star. Enjoy this moment. It won't last long.

ATTENTION Toronto Star Powers That Be: Pay Uzma to write more! Make her an editor if she'll agree to it! Pay her lots of money!! She is so smartttttt!!

" Immigration's tough new face

Jun 27, 2009  

By Uzma Shakir The federal government's latest moves to step up deportations of foreign workers have solidified Canada's fall from grace when it comes to our immigration policy.

Coordinated raids throughout southern Ontario since May have already led to the arrest and deportation of at least 100 undocumented workers originating from places such as Thailand, Mexico, China, the Philippines and the Caribbean. Many more currently await their fate while in detention, according to No One Is Illegal, an immigrant rights organization monitoring the emerging situation.

Interestingly, no charges have been laid against the employers.

...

In this age of globalization, we are quick to celebrate the movement of ideas, money and trade that produces multicultural new realities. Yet we are almost contradictory in increasingly asserting the right to stop people precisely for crossing borders in pursuit of the very work that calls for being filled.

To treat people who are seeking work as criminals, and not prosecute the employers and recruiters who lure them for profit into precarious employment, is indeed a far cry from the days of nation-building.

But it is entirely consistent with our federal government's general approach to immigration and racial equity in the recent past.

Amendments to the Immigration Act (Bill C-50) that slipped through the most recent 2008 federal budget are now having far-reaching effect.

First, these amendments turned a relatively neutral system of immigrant determination into a discretionary one. The minister of the day is now given unprecedented discretionary powers to identify which occupations are to be given precedence in the selection process. The minister also can, without parliamentary oversight, issue "instructions" about who should be selected or rejected.

This makes the system arbitrary and subject to the vagaries of political whim.

Second, Canada is shifting from a nation-building approach to immigration to one focused on filling labour market needs through temporary permits.

 ...

Immigration is the cornerstone of our national lore – we are a land built by immigrants, the story goes.

To turn our national narrative, no matter how flawed, from seeking nation-builders to recruiting insecure, unprotected and exploitable temp workers is a sign of our collective descent into intolerance and a systematic suspension of humanitarian principlesImmigration is the cornerstone of our national lore - we are a land built by immigrants, the story goes.

To turn our national narrative, no matter how flawed, from seeking nation-builders to recruiting insecure, unprotected and exploitable temp workers is a sign of our collective descent into intolerance and a systematic suspension of humanitarian principles. "

 http://www.thestar.com/article/656850

Don't read the comments. Just don't do it. 

I have to blog about this.

In a certain leftist website, on a certain discussion board, there have been two recent threads on trans issues.

The first, started by a trans ally in the feminist forum, was about the exclusion of trans women from the new Vancouver Women's Health Clinic.

 http://www.rabble.ca/babble/feminism/new-womens-pharmacy-vancouverexcludes-trans-women

The level of discourse on the thread, on which nobody self-identified as trans, went from arguments such as "what's to stop any man from claiming he's a woman to access services?" to "women are defined by our woman bits". Basically, between and amongst the few allies and supporters and anti-oppression people, a bunch of transphobic, trans-ignorant and downright hurtful assholes. 

Some of my thoughts from that thread:

" I have no idea what the process was behind opening this clinic, but I'm currently doing work with a client that provides community health care services to very specific communities and they are embarking on an expansion of their clinic into a specific area of health care needs. They've mandated the consultants to gather information in the community, including medical professionals, community workers, and the potential clients/patients themselves. We call it a needs assessment and any/all future funding will demand that there is a need for this service, via a thorough and well-done needs assessment process.

So. Assuming that this happened and the need for a separate service for women was established to a critical enough point to satisfy criteria of the Ministry of Health in BC, which is a safe assumption, I wlll now assume that neither questions were asked about including trans clients, nor were trans women or trans men asked about the creation of this clinic, and were thus excluded.

Such an exclusion is about transphobia.

If there was a deliberate non-inclusion of trans clients, for any number of reasons, this too is transphobia, and a pretty vile kind might I add.

[A note about terminology transphobia and homophobia. I hate these terms, as they are inaccurate and indicate a psychological state/evaluation when really these terms are used as the equivalents to "sexism" or "classism" or "ableism". Using them as in "You're being transphobic" is not to say "You are experiencing an irrational fear of transpeople" but rather "You're being offensive and exclusionary and hateful towards transpeople."]

Vancouver feminist organizations sadly do not have tons of credibility when it comes to trans issues. I understand that the situation of Kimberly Nixon v.VRR as far more complex than I once thought it to be, but nonetheless, assumptions were made about trans women, assumptions that remain intact. The most pervasive is the lie that there is this entity called "A Real Woman" and that trans women are not, and will never be, and can never be, "A Real Woman."

I've had my own struggles, personally and politically, with issues of transphobia and trans inclusion. It's a very challenging politic to understand on an intellectual level. So I do have compassion and understanding for those who see that it's just fine to include only "women-born women". I first heard that phrasing from the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, and there was a fierce debate at that time about their trans-exclusionary policies. I think this was back in the early 1990s? But I moved past it, and since trans folks' lives and health hang in the balance, it's a pretty vital piece that feminists, and others, need to get a handle on, PDQ. 

...

I am cis-gendered.

Cis-gendered means someone who has a connection between the gender/sex they were born with and their present gender identity. It was coined so that there wasn't a dichotomy between "trans gendered people" and "normally gendered people." We are all either cis-gendered or trans-gendered. 

Being cis-gendered means that even though I may not fit everything that we're told "a woman" must be/act/say,  I identify as a woman. It's a part of my social, personal, sexual, emotional and I guess, psychological identity. Our society was built upon people having cis-gendered identities. Even if we fit into such genders "badly" such as very effeminate men, or very masculine women, we are still cis-gendered if we identify with the gender/sex we were born with.

So that said, I can barely understand what it's like to grow up and not fit the gender that a person was born into and socialized into. Little boys and girls are socialized very early, and very severely, into gender roles. Not just toys and books that are "okay" to play with/read depending on one's gender, but behaviour and actions, certain subjects in school. Some of these behaviours/actions are rewarded, some aren't. The world is very cruel to anyone who doesn't fit, or try to fit, or who doesn't stifle their real selves to fit a gender model. (Does it go without saying that how one is seen in terms of gender is also related to one's class, ability, race and sexual orientation? Well, I've said it nevertheless.)

I've never had a struggle with gender identity. I've presented as "more masculine" and "more feminine" throughout my life (sometimes related to my sexual orientation, sometimes not). But my identity as "woman" hasn't changed. So again, I can barely understand what that's like. Not until I heard a transwoman describe her life that I realized my transphobic assumptions (for example, that she had experienced male privilege before she transitioned) were ignorant, misinformed and downright hurtful. " 

Then, I stupidly decided to continue the thread, at this link: http://www.rabble.ca/babble/feminism/trans-inclusion-and-feminism

 " I disagree with the biological arguments.

Women don't share a common experience "as women". What can be argued is we share a common experience due to sexism and misogyny. Cis-women who don't conform to rigid gender roles,  are punished in smaller and larger ways (depending on the extent of the lack of conformity) by society, our families, our co-workers, etc.

The same goes for men, by the way.

I actually don't believe there are "common experiences" of sexism and misogyny except in very broad ways, since all of our identities as women are also grounded in our race locations, our class locations, our ability, sexual orientation, education, and other factors. The notion that "we are all women and suffer from sexism" is so wide to be effectively meaningless. And I say this to an audience that has a clue about feminism, not a mainstream one.

Some women don't acknowledge that sexism exists, or that they've ever experienced sexism. Such women don't speak for me. Some women are "protected" from more severe forms of sexism through class privilege and other privileges.

"Women-only" space was created during a certain moment in North American history (not that it didn't happen elsewhere, I'm only familiar with the NA context). Women's centres, women's bookstores, women's shelters, rape crisis centres and other spaces were created by women, in defense against a hostile world that erased women's experiences.

Sadly, the world hasn't changed that much in the 30 or so years since the idea of separate women's spaces arose.

But, feminist ideas of oppression, intersectionality and multiple subject locations have changed.

This is due, I think, to the few mini-revolutions within the feminist movement, mostly around inclusion issues. Lesbians and other queer-identified women fought to be included, and in fact fought to be counted as "real women". Poor women, women of colour, immigrant women, all have had struggles (some of them ongoing to the present) around inclusion. Many from all those groups gave up on fighting for inclusion and have created their own spaces. One could call this fractioning, but if there are service needs which aren't being provided, this takes precedence, imv, to some notion of standing together when that's not feasible or likely. 

An interesting point for me is that this discussion, as most discussions around trans issues, centers on transwomen. The bodies of transwomen are variously sexualized, exoticized and problematized. It's something worth thinking about which I'll continue to do.

Some random tales from my life and people I've known.

I worked in a women's space with a trans man, who I knew as a slightly butchy genderqueer non-gendered person with a female name. We worked together for a number of years, and he began taking hormones, eventually had breast surgery, and he changed a great deal. Physically. He was, and is, the same person, but this was his journey. He's a white man now, something that he really needed to come to terms with such as when he passes, how he's treated and what he responds to. He was queer-bashed about a year ago.

A few years ago I dated a transman for a brief period of time. He was taking hormones but had not had surgery and wasn't planning to. He was a man of colour, and when I first met him year before, had identified as a butch lesbian. Transitioning and becoming a Black man had very different implications for him, compared with my white co-worker.

I participated in the "Trans Inclusion 101" workshop that was offered to women's service organizations by the Trans programming at the 519 Community Centre. The program is no longer listed on their website, which is a shame. A transman and a transwoman did the training, and encouraged us to ask all our questions, that I would frame respectfully as dumb-ass, fairly non-informed and stunned. Including my questions. This was fine for the facilitators. It was 101 and it needed to get at all the basic issues, many of which have been touched on in the last thread, and every time we have a thread on this topic on babble. I learned tons. The biggest thing I learned is how little I know, and today, 4 years after that workshop I still have so much to learn.

Like most people, my struggles too have been with transwomen, and the idea that they had male privilege and didn't get what being a woman means, in all its sexist bullshit that we have to put up with everyday.

Gender is fluid, for some people. Gender itself oppresses some people. This is separate from sexism and misogyny, which is oppression because of membership in an identified gender, not oppression because of lack of conformity to one of two narrowly defined genders.

For those of us who gender doesn't oppress, it's something we really need to think about, and open our minds to. I continue to struggle to do this, and use dumb-ass essentialist language all the time, which I try to notice more, and try to change. It's not that we have to be "perfect" or anything, but we have to see where we've been, quite literally, brainwashed, about gender.

Final story. Gender matters. I do an exercise with myself sometimes, just walk down the street and look at people, and notice how much gender matters when I'm just looking at someone for 5 seconds. If I can't figure out the gender of the person immediately, I look some more, for cues, etc. It matters to me. It's completely fucked up that it matters to me, yet it does.  "

The discussion then continued, with both sides throwing quotes, articles and stories at each other. A reminder that no identified transpeople were present during any of this.

Then I closed the thread, with this post:

"  As an anti-oppression educator I feel very strongly that talking, communicating and furthering dialogue is better than shutting discussions down.

Nobody has full and complete understandings, empathies for and levels of "getting it" for every type of oppression. My view, and my personal perspective, is that this is political work I personally agree to do, for the rest of my life, as part of my commitment to social justice and anti-oppression.

That's why I started this new thread when I closed the old one. 

Agreement is clearly not possible. And I don't even mean agreement on the issues, terminology, etc, but we can't even agree that oppression is going on, that oppression of trans people exists. 

I have no idea what the purpose of keeping this thread open would be, and am closing it. Why? Because as an anti-oppression educator and a moderator on babble, this discourse is beneath a progressive discussion board.  "

Gender, while it is a social construction, acts on our bodies in a few ways.

First, there's gender identity. It works like the joke: There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world, and those who don't. In North America/Canada, gender is socialized, rather brutally, casing most of us to fall into line, on one side or the other, female or male. Some people do not fall into line, and they are described as having "issues" with gender. (Isn't it more accurate to say that gender has issues with everyone, and it's only some who directly challenge gender?).

Then there's sexism, misogyny, woman-hatred. This is systemic, embedded, institutionalized, and also lives in each of us, regardless of our gender identity. They overlap, but they aren't the same thing.

Read Kate Bornstein for the question "how many genders are there?" and many more fun, informative and mind-opening questions and exercises.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=NjH32xMTu7kC&dq=kate+bornstein+my+gender...

Nalo Hopkinson is a writer who lives in Toronto (most of the time?) who I had the pleasure to meet a few times during my tenure at the Toronto Women's Bookstore. I also took a writing workshop with her a number of years ago.

This video clip is a short, profound and rich comment on what it means to notice race and other differences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1264mYzJY8

What I love about this piece is that she names some of the places that she struggles.

Often when doing the work of anti-oppression education, I find that people respond to me as if I'm somehow presenting myself as perfect, that I'm judging them or pointing fingers, saying they're bad people, etc. When I reveal early on that unpacking oppressive ideas and thoughts and actions is a lifelong commitment, that I struggle with issues and with noticing my privilege, that it's the commitment that matters, the engagement, the openness to being wrong, to making mistakes, and to learning, then some lights go on.

Nalo also talks about making mistakes. This is such an important point. A strong value in Canadian society is to not make mistakes, ever. If you do you're stupid, etc. But this work is fraught with mistakes. To engage in this project ethically and deeply will bring about mistakes. It is in fact from our mistakes that the most profound learning and changing can emerge.

Thank you Nalo. Your words are powerful. Thank you for your gift to us.

"It's a case of ‘glass half full' for gender diversity, but unfortunately that glass is half empty when it comes to ethnic diversity," says study lead author Pat Bradshaw, Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour in York's Schulich School of Business.

Of the 240 boards surveyed, 43.6 per cent had only one ethnic group represented.

"In almost every case where there was only one group, that meant the board was all white," says Bradshaw. "In this day and age, with all the attention to issues of diversity, it's quite disturbing."  "

I've wanted to write about this for a while, and then this article inspired me:

Smug Toronto Seethes as Tamils "Go Too Far"

By Eugenia Tsao 

http://www.counterpunch.org/tsao06012009.html

" “Tamil protests a test of our tolerance,” the Toronto Star pronounced, while the Globe and Mail chided the demonstrators for squandering public support with their disruptive tactics (“Tamils earn goodwill—then lose it,”  May 20). "

"“Ours, you see, is a tolerant society” Canadians smugly confide to visiting Americans. And while the line between tolerance and mere endurance is a slender one, few would deny Canadians’ infatuation with cultural diversity. We like to lunch on sushi and samosas, sport henna tattoos, practice yoga, wear paisley embroidery, listen to reggae, and hang feathered dreamcatchers from our rearview mirrors. We proudly subscribe to magazines like National Geographic for the exotic, high-contrast photography and romanticized verbal portraiture. We love falling asleep on the subway to a velvet medley of diasporic languages, and nothing delights us more than consuming enormous sandwiches filled with things like prosciutto and chorizo.

But we cannot eat acts of non-violent civil disobedience or wear political grievances, you see, and this confuses us. "

 Tsao is so right on. In fact, whenever I hear certain liberal multi-culti white folks in Toronto yammer on and on about cultural diversity, it's almost always immediately followed up with some bull about how great it is that in Toronto they can have samples of cuisines from around the world.

Of course that is something that I, too, value about living in Toronto, however, to simply eat the other is not enough. Consuming culture (metaphorically) and food (literally) without a political understanding of struggles, power and colonialism, is just reiterating imperial power relations all over again.

Back to Tsao:

 "Rather than forcing the natives to dance for us at the crack of a whip, we expect them to do so voluntarily, citing our need for unending cultural enrichment and enlightenment, or their need to evince gratitude for our generous foreign policies. Rather than accusing them of high treason when they dare to publicize historical injustices in inconvenient—and unentertaining—ways, we cluck our tongues and accuse them of strategic imprudence. “Can’t you see you’re just alienating your audience?” we hiss, annoyed, mouths full of falafel and tandoori chicken."

Hot damn, I love this woman. 

Seriously, enough with "Happy Canada Day". Are people idiots? Can't this just be a day off work and that's the end of it?

Canada is a shameful country, with a shameful history and present, and there's nothing to celebrate.

Two reasons why:

1. 

Anti-Canada Day Solidarity Statement with Akwesasne

July 1, 2009 - Montreal

To the members of the community of Akwesasne --
To all members of the Haudenosaunee --

We write to publicly express our respect, solidarity and support with the continued struggles for sovereignty and self-determination by Haudonausanee peoples.

In particular, we highlight our admiration for the courageous and ongoing community resistance to armed border agents at Kahwehnoke in Akwesasne. The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is an occupier on Kanionke:haka lands, and we unequivocally support the demand of the people's movement at Akwesasne to refuse the arming of any border agents. We also support the demand for free movement for all members of the Akwesasne community.

We understand the resistance at Akwesasne in the context of continued struggles for land and self-determination throughout the Iroquois Confederacy: from the ongoing Land Reclamation at Six Nations to the re-occupation of the Culbertson Tract at Tyendinaga; from the opposition to the Highway 30 expansion at Kahnawake to the restoration of the Confederacy Council.

Resistance to Canadian colonialism and neo-colonialism has meant attacks on Haudenosaunee people who refuse to submit to colonial rule. We have noted and learned from members of the Akwesasne community about Jake Ice who was killed by police agents in 1899. Recently, during the resistance at Akwesasne, the OPP attacked protesters on the Skyway Bridge at Tyendinaga, leaving members of that community bloodied, arrested and jailed.

We condemn all Canadian government, police and army attacks on Haudenosaunee peoples, including the continued criminalization of members of the Six Nations and Tyendinaga communities, where dozens still face charges and trials. The colonial Canadian courts and police cannot stand in judgment of the sovereign peoples of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and all charges must be dropped.

No One Is Illegal-Montreal is a grassroots migrant justice, anti-colonial, no border group comprised of members from racialized and immigrant backgrounds. We are struggling for the self-determination of migrants and in support of the self-determination of Indigenous peoples. We are in active confrontation with a colonial system built on the dispossession and genocide of indigenous peoples, as well as racist anti-immigrant laws.

The CBSA, and the border they enforce, serve not only to divide Haudenosaunee peoples, and the community of Akwesasne, but also to enforce a racist immigration regime that deports and detains members of our communities. We struggle actively against those deportation and detentions, and against all borders and barriers to free movement.

This July 1, 2009, we join with others in a convergence on Akwesasne to show support for the Kanionke:haka peoples resistance against the CBSA. We also stand in opposition to the Canadian state and its policies and practices. We can think of no better way to spend our "Anti-Canada Day" than to stand in solidarity and to learn from you.

We continue to try to practice our own decolonization, rooted in the traditions and understanding of the Haudenosaunee - such as the two-row wampum treaty --and in a present and future where we can establish and re-establish relations based on values of mutual aid, solidarity and respect, in a common struggle against oppression.

In struggle and solidarity,
With respect,
No One Is Illegal-Montreal.

nooneisillegal@gmail.com
http://nooneisillegal-montreal.blogspot.com

2.
Chief Dan George, Tsleil-Waututh Nation, born "Geswanouth Slahoot' (1899-1981)
presented this at the 100th year of Confederation - 1976

"How long have I known you, oh Canada? Two hundred years? Yes, a hundred years. And many, many seelanum more. And today, when you celebrate your one hundred years, oh Canada , I am sad for all the Indian people throughout the land.

For I have known you when your forests were mine; when they gave me my meat and my clothing. I have known you in your streams and rivers where your fish flashed and danced in the sun, where the waters said come, come and eat of my abundance. I have known you in the freedom of your winds. And my spirit, like the winds, once roamed your good lands.

But in the long hundred years since the white man came, I have seen my freedom disappear like the salmon going mysteriously out to sea. The white man's strange customs which I could not understand, pressed down upon me until I could no longer breathe.

When I fought to protect my land, I was called a savage. When I neither understood nor welcomed this way of life, I was called lazy. When I tried to rule my people, I was stripped of my authority.

My nation was ignored in your history books -- they were little more important in the history of Canada than the buffalo that ranged the plains. I was ridiculed in your plays and motion pictures, when I drank your fire-water, I got drunk -- very, very drunk. And I forgot.

Oh Canada , how can I celebrate this Centenary, this one hundred years? Shall I thank you for the reserves that are left to me of my beautiful forests? For the canned fish of my rivers? For the loss of my pride and authority, even among my own people? For the lack of my will to fight back? No! I must forget what's past and gone.

Oh God in heaven! Give me back the courage of the olden chiefs. Let me wrestle with my surroundings. Let me again, as in the days of old, dominate my environment. Let me humbly accept this new culture and through it rise up and go on.

Oh God! Like the Thunderbird of old, I shall rise again out of the sea. I shall grab the instruments of the white man's success -- his education, his skills, and with these new tools I shall build my race into the proudest segment of your society. Before I follow the great chiefs who have gone before us, oh Canada , I shall see these things come to pass.

I shall see our young braves and our chiefs sitting in the houses of law and government, ruling and being ruled by the knowledge and freedom of our great land. So shall we shatter the barriers of our isolation. So shall the next hundred years be the greatest in the proud history of our tribes and nations."

Shame. Don't celebrate. Struggle, support Aboriginal resistance and educate others. And not just today.

And don't tell me to have a happy Canada day. Just don't do it. 

Shame. 

Teaching ARAO to women who work in women's services is something to dread. Not only because of the phenomenon of white women "owning" this work, in the ways that white women "own" much of social work, and work with people who can be termed "sub-citizens": children, the elderly, abused women, immigrants, welfare recipients, others that are too numerous to name. Pretty much anyone who's not an able-bodied white straight middle class man. Meaning the rest of us, yes?

But also because the levels of entitlement, overt racism and classism and deliberate exclusion that says very clearly, "I belong here, you don't". 

And "how dare you imply that I'm racist/classist?"

We can't get along because holding the gatekeeping powers is power isn't it, and many folks don't want to name that power, never mind work at giving it up, and actually sharing it with women who have never, in the Canadian context held it. We can't all get along because holding on to power is something we have ALL internalized, and the idea of even looking at this truth is so threatening to folks. Ergo: "How can I have white privilege? I grew up poor!"   "I'm a lesbian!"   "My husband is Black!".

For the love of cats.

Shut. The. Fuck. Up. 

Let's look at all the progressive movements of the past 100 years. Looking at Canada and the U.S. only.

The union movement.

The white feminist movement (first and second wave).

The environmental movement.

The civil rights movement. 

The Gay rights movement, now the LGBTTIQQ2 movement.

The official Left (in Canada). 

The animal rights movement.

The anti-poverty movement.

All (most?) helping professions dominated by white women and the politics such professions teach and practice. 

All the above have replicated parts of the white supremacist, male supremacist, capitalist, settler-minded systems that we have all been taught.

This truth answers the question: Where are the women of colour? Something asked when folks deign to look around and think, "hey wait a second, who's missing?" Should we be thankful that they ask in the first place?

Fuck no!

Women of colour have had to fight and struggle to make headway into any of these movements, some with great success, and some with great pain. It's been far easier to develop our own communities, our own services, our own cultures and art, within our chosen communities, across cultural boundaries, held together by our multiple versions of what feminism is.

No good can come of my reading the paper. Everyone who knows me, knows this.

I yell at the paper, I read particularly obnoxious quotes out loud, thus subjecting my innocent friends/victims to hearing my snarky analysis and comments, I throw the paper across the room.

It's not a pretty sight.

But tonight I'm in Kincardine. There are free copies of the Toronto Star in the lobby, and I have nothing to do.

Again, nothing good can come from this situation.

So, the article.

"An Ontario Superior Court judge says it is time to scrap the practice of routinely asking jurors in Toronto and the surrounding area if their ability to render an impartial verdict could be affected by the fact the accused is black." 

I know the goddamn revolution hasn't happened. I brace myself.

"We live in the world of Spike Lee – not that portrayed by Harper Lee," said Justice John Murray in refusing to permit such language, which singles out black people, while challenging jurors for bias at an assault trial of a man in Milton. 

Excuse me?

I mean: EX-FUCKING-cuse ME?!?!

"We live in the world of Spike Lee"?????

He suggested jurors be asked in more generic terms whether they would be able to judge the case "without regard to the race of the accused." 

"Without regard". As if race is a sweater that we simply put on, and can be removed, so the case can be judged "objectively". Oh right. He's a judge. I forgot who I was talking about for a moment.

Now, to be fair, on the one hand, racism in the courtroom affects more than  just black folks. But on the other, pajillions of studies have shown a particular bias towards harsher treatments for black folks, particularly black men. Time and time again this happens.

There's something systemic going on methinks.

So yes, open up the terminology, sure, but not like this! 

"without regard to the race of the accused."

ARGHHHH!!!  

The questions suggest there is a recognition "embedded" in the justice system that society consists of "Us" (whites) and "Them" (black persons) and that one particular form of prejudice, anti-black racism, is more pervasive and pernicious than any other, he said in a written decision Wednesday.

The Ontario Court of Appeal opened the door to race-based challenges of prospective jurors nearly 16 years ago in a groundbreaking ruling known as the Parks decision, saying anti-black racism is a notorious fact that must be confronted.

In that case, the accused, Carlton Parks, a former drug dealer charged in connection with a 1988 stabbing death in Regent Park, was black. The victim was white.

But "in 2009 we live in a different time and in a different place than we did in 1993, when the Parks questions were approved by the Court of Appeal. Our communities have changed and continue to change," Murray wrote in his decision. 

Really, 2009 is so much more different than 1993? Live in the real world much, doofus?

Instead of focusing on a particular form of prejudice, Murray said questions designed to weed out prejudice should be asked in a "generic" form.

He approved a more broadly worded question to be put to jurors at the trial of Ishmael Jahmar Sinclair in Milton.

After being advised a juror must judge the evidence without bias, prejudice or partiality, potential jury members will be asked whether they will "be able to judge the evidence in this manner without regard to the race of the accused." 

smh

Frank Addario, president of the Criminal Lawyers Association, called Murray's ruling and remarks gutsy.

"The courts have an important role to play in making a litigant feel that they are going to get fair treatment, and here is a very courageous decision to confront the known prejudices in our community and to address them directly," Addario said.

"What he has done," he added, "is to start a conversation about how judges and juries understand racialism as a phenomenon that affects decision-making."

 Let's read that last paragraph again:

 "What he has done," he added, "is to start a conversation about how judges and juries understand racialism as a phenomenon that affects decision-making.

I don't even know what the hell Addario is saying.

I'm continually amazed at the lengths people will go to NOT say the word "racism".

"Racialism"? What the fucking hell fuck is racialism?

I need to lie down now. 

I was just in the Thunder Bay area, this week and last week, so I saw first hand how ugly some of the racist white folks are towards Aboriginal people.

The story:

A Thunder Bay woman is demanding an explanation after a teacher's aide at her son's school cut his long hair — an action her lawyer says is clearly assault while the Crown insists there are no grounds for charges. 

The seven-year-old boy had chin-length hair before the incident last month. His mother said staff at McKellar Park Central Public School were aware her son was letting his hair grow so that he could take part in traditional First Nations dancing.

The mother told CBC News she was stunned when her son told her it was a teacher's assistant who lopped off 10 centimetres of his hair.

"I said, 'Why did she do this? Did she say anything?'" said the mother. "And he said, 'No, and after she cut my hair, she took me by the shoulders and forced me to stand in front of the mirror. She made me stand there and said look at you now.'" 

Reading this story, as I sit in my apartment in Toronto, I'm reflecting on the realities that I barely know and understand of what it can possibly be like for Aboriginal communities in the near- and far-North, in dealing with the white population, and having vile ugly racism at every turn. 

Hearing this story now, allows me to understand to a bit of a greater extent the levels to which white folks disrespect, disregard, invisibilize and render person-less, anyone who is Aboriginal.

They have to.

Settler discomfort is so great, as well as "family secrets" of Aboriginal relatives and ancestors, that vile hatred is the only response, all the while claiming friendship and caring. As long as it's done by white rules and on white terms. I'm truly not sure what can be done to begin to touch on this level of racism, as it's not only imbedded in the society, laws and culture (as it is everywhere in Canada) but exists as a tangible reminder of white superiority. No generation shift will change this, as I saw this level of racism in white women under 30. Unlike the ways in which progressive values can begin to take over in larger centres, there is no possibility for that kind of change in smaller more remote centres.

Full story here: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/05/21/thunder-bay-hair.html