Hexbear

53 points

4 months ago

“Getting?” Canada’s racism is foundational. A bunch of trading corporations “given” supreme legislative authority over half of a continent that only became a country in order to cement the capital accumulation of railway investors who decided the best way to build their railways uninterrupted was slavery, primarily sino-immigrant labour, and torture schools with backyard mass graves. Literally had a “whites-only” immigration policy for like a hundred years, and now it’s a points system that is held up internationally as a gold standard despite being nearly indistinguishable from the Kafala system in the Gulf.

Hexboare [they/them]@hexbear.net

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6 points

4 months ago

coolie labour

I’m not sure if you’re trying to reclaim this but I think it’s a fairly offensive slur

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11 points

4 months ago

Ah, sorry in certain activism circles it’s pretty standard to continue to use that term (as well as Indian, rather than Indigenous) when trying to highlight Canada’s history of institutionalized racism, I didn’t consider how people in other contexts may just be unhappy/hurt to see the word. I’ve edited it.

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Lussy [any, hy/hym]@hexbear.netOP

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6 points

4 months ago

Co*lie is one of those old timey slurs that goes way back to the Victorian era, used primarily by Brits against Indians. It’s kind of weird it’s still being used today, in activism circles no less. It was infamously referred to in Gandhi’s autobiography, when he talks about what he was being called in the railway station in Cambridge.

The more I learn about Kkklanadians the more I’m weirded about you guys

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12 points

4 months ago

It’s because the actual institutional language used the term, so marginalized groups often continue to bring to the forefront the language the government employed (or still employs, in the case of Indian) as a way to combat the post-90s “liberal mosaic/colourblind” narrative that permeates Canadian society. Canada exists in this ahistorical cultural vortex where slavery was an American problem (they stress that the Underground Railroad led to here, but ignore that at the exact same time Canadians had their own slaves and it was border laws that “freed” slaves coming North, not an anti-slavery sentiment, and rarely teach about Canadian slavery at all) and work camps were a British problem (don’t look at what Canada did to Asian immigrants please) and residential schools are only recently even talked about at all.

It’s about rejecting this false ideal Canada has that it “solved racism” or whatever because it was always “more progressive” than America (please ignore that the country was founded by Orange Order racists, that the RCMP exists to wage war on the Indigenous population, and that the KKK chapters here flourished without scrutiny).

Anyway, that particular word is used a lot when addressing Canadian foundational myths, which are built on the idea of the railway (and especially the Canadian Pacific Railway) as this great nation-building project that allowed Confederation. What that myth most often ignores is the work camps of sino-immigrants, the violent occupation of the West and the consolidation of the industrial bourgeoisie as the ruling class as they ousted the old feudal order.

It’s a term used less in a reclamatory way by Asian academics and activists, and more in a way that forces acknowledgement of the racist legislative bodies of the country. There’s a lot to be said about the way pejoratives can be used in different contexts, but, especially online where you can’t know anything about the person on the other end, it’s usually best to avoid them altogether so as not to cause unintentional hurt, for which I apologize.

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Lussy [any, hy/hym]@hexbear.netOP

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3 points

4 months ago

Very informative, thank you.

I know jack shit about Canada, and I’d like to keep it that way, but this is a good perspective to learn.

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frauddogg [they/them, null/void]@hexbear.net

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4 points

4 months ago

and that the KKK chapters here flourished without scrutiny).

The what

I genuinely thought they were just our problem to deal with you mean to tell me you got klan up there too???

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2 points

4 months ago

Yeah that’s what Canada wants people to think, but unfortunately: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/the-sunday-magazine-for-november-22-2020-1.5807350/the-rise-of-the-ku-klux-klan-in-canada-and-why-its-lasting-impact-still-matters-1.5807353

“In just a year, the group became the largest and the fastest growing social organization in the country”

““You had rallies where you had five, 10, 15, 20,000 people who would show up at these Klan meetings in places like Kingston and Belleville, London, Hamilton,” said Bartley.”

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