Re: Corona Virus: is it the beginning of the end?
Swigjr23, if your country was small and inconsequential, it would be pretty silly of me to comment on what it is and isn't doing. There are a hundred plus countries that I almost never comment on, because they aren't busy smearing their drama all over the world stage.
But like it or not, America is huge, loud and sort of everywhere. This means that people who don't live there are going to have opinions about it. And because info is everywhere, and because I see myself as someone who knows how to disseminate the good info from the bad, the reliable from the unreliable, this means that, surprise surprise, my opinion has a good chance of being valid.
Don't like it? My suggestion is to get used to it. I'm not interested in tucking my head down and being meek. Know why? Because that's what allows things like busted democracy, right-wing propaganda, racism, sexism, classism, ableism and god knows what else to flourish. Obviously, my one opinion is not gonna change the world one way or the other; I recognize that. But please don't try to shame or silence me simply because I am not American.
If you wanted to have a meaningful debate based on logic, that would be one thing. But almost the entirety of your post boils down to "butt out, you don't live here. And we don't have problems.". No, I don't live there; I live an hour from the border. Yes, you do have problems. Laws may be better than they've ever been, I'll give you that, but that doesn't mean they're perfect and it doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist.
Now, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that all Americans are raging racists. Perish the thought. Many Americans are truly horrified by what's going on and are using their voices and their power to try and fix what's broken. But the country as a whole definitely has a racism problem.
And guess what? So does Canada. I'm not going to pretend that my own country is perfect either. But that doesn't mean I can't condemn others. Wrong is wrong.
Like it or not, white-dominated countries all over the world have considerable work to do where it comes to entrenched systemic racism. I know the most about Canada and the United States, so that's what I personally tend to focus on. If you are one of the deluded few that believes that America is not a racist country, I urge you to do a ton of research before waltzing in here with that opinion again. It's uninformed, it's self-serving and, worst of all, it's a bald-faced lie.
1. Racial profiling still happens, ensuring that white people are never harassed due to skin colour while blacks are routinely forced to be conscious of the colour of their skin for no reason;
2. Citizens sometimes shoot black people on suspicion without proof, and the police are routinely called on blacks for no reason;
3. Police still kill folks during apprehensions where murder absolutely does not need to happen;
4. Peculiarly, the numbers suggest this happens to blacks far more than other demographics, yet most people seem unwilling to talk about this fact;
5. equal opportunity employment had to be forced into law because folks couldn't be trusted not to use discrimination in the employee selection process;
6. Blacks are still often railroaded into certain parts of the city (the "ghetto" was not a mistake and it was not a black idea), and those neighbourhoods are often in logistically undesirable places (again, not an accident, this is redlining and city planning at its racist best);
7. Worst of all, many Americans either do not know these problems exist, try to pretend they're not problems, or actively argue in favour of these things because they truly don't know what systemic racism is;
So yeah, you go ahead and believe that your country isn't racist. While you're at it, you can also get started on your conspiracy theory that the sun is, in fact, revolving around the earth. See where that gets you.
For my part, though, I'm ready to stare my own country's shortcomings straight in the face, because that's the only way I'm going to be any part of any possible solution which may exist. It saddens me that Canadian police perpetuate a white-centric agenda. It saddens me that many Canadians perpetuate casual racism and think it's okay (even in my own family, I see this all the time). It saddens me that people of colour have a bad habit of dying during wellness checks. It saddens me that the colour of your skin can apparently justify ill treatment on that basis in the first place. But rather than cringe away from reality, I want to fix it. How about you?
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