Which is precisely where I was heading with my innocent people remark. People who didn't ask to be born into a minority ethnicity/racial group shouldn't be slandered for who they biologically are. Nigger is derivative of Negro which comes from Negroid, the anthropological definition of the black race. So as a insult you're persecuting on the basis of not only one's appearence but their very being.
But being black shouldn't be seen as an insult. If the Toronto Star and CNN report Joseph A Blowtakamus is an asshole what the world learns is that Joseph A Blowtakamus is mean or has a bad attitude. If the Toronto Star and CNN report Joseph A Blowtakamus is a "nigger" what the world learns is that Joseph A Blowtakamus is black and that the Toronto Star and CNN are being rude and not politically correct. The word is definitely meant to be an insult but it lacks meaningful substance. Black isn't ones very being. Black is a colour. People believing that "black is their being" is what leads people to being copy cats of what they see in the media. Black doesn't tell you anything about ones self. Black doesn't say anything about an individual other than their skin is dark. If one wants to look to history "nigger" shouldn't be the insult because there is no crime in being the victim, the crime is being the enslaver. Being called a "racist" should be seen as a worse insult than "nigger".
Present-day blacks are no more accountable for their slavery legacy than whites but still are at a disadvantage due to social issues stemming back to slavery. People can only evolve so far if there's a systematic unwillingness to accomodate and appease in the name of racial parity and social equity.
The social issues that remain are largely due to self-esteem. These same social issues affect all races. A person born in a trailer park has a great likelihood of staying there. A woman abused by her alcoholic mother is more likely to become an abusive alcoholic mother. The solution to getting people out of the trailer park and out of a vicious cycle is to (a) have one-on-one counselling, and (b) programs that get them into the community like the Big Brother program and camps for kids. Programs that say "you are a normal person", say "you are equal to everyone else", and say "you are Canadian". People need to feel like they belong and have self worth. It isn't going to be easy to tell people they are the equal to everyone else if they are isolated from everybody else.
That's a hyperbolic reaction to a metaphor. Words ARE bullets, only with butterfly wings. Weapons are recognizable dangers. Word usage can con and manipulate the timid; criticize and irritate the righteous and most poignantly viscerate and accost the naive. The unforseen hazard of words leave the bigger impact.
Words are never more dangerous than bullets. I can go up to anyone on the street and give them the choice of me (a) calling them the biggest insult I can think of or (b) getting shot and with great certainty I can tell you nobody will choose to be shot. If you think that when you get shot that it has no mental impact you are wrong. People come back from war with serious mental problems. People who have encountered violence wake up in the middle of the night in fear. When someone shoots words at you, you have a choice to believe or not believe what they are telling you. With words you have a choice to see the person as an ignorant person whose words mean nothing. Only the words of someone you see as knowledgeable or who you respect should mean anything to you.
I meant 'friends' betraying you, talking crap about you behind your back, sabotaging or upstaging your projects. No rape was involved.
With friends or co-workers it will hurt much more because you trusted them and they betrayed you. That betrayal feels is bad regardless of race.
Okay maybe it's not "white" but look at it from this perspective. How does it appeal to minority youth? The history/geography/art of Canada isn't intentionally made to feel that way, but very well may not grasp the attention of a Congolese or Brazilian 2nd gen as readily as a kid from Bathurst, NB.
I think you are mistakenly thinking that somehow these subjects appeal to non-minorities more. The number of kids that jump up and down for joy at the idea of curriculum are few and far between. In addition this country has always been a country of immigrants so even a kid from Bathurst NB probably has parents or grandparents that arrived on a boat from somewhere.
Maybe an elective World History course in leiu of Cdn History would be of more excitement and intrigue to them. Show how Canada relates to the rest of the world and hence the various nationalities represented to most GTA classrooms. Make those connections and maybe the TDSB cirricula will become less alienable. Isn't Canada apart of an increasingly globalizational world?
In addition to the mandatory courses listed there is a wide array of electives. With those electives you can choose to learn a wide number of things none of which need to be "white".
If half the effort was put into implementing these electives in public schools that the TDSB exhausts in racially profiling the students it's supposed to have in its trust, then the issue of black-focused schools would never need be arisen.
There already is such elective courses for example:
- CAS331 History of Africa and Peoples of African Descent
- CHG381 Genocide: Historical and Contemporary Implications
- CHM4E1 Adventures in World History
- CGU4U1 World Geography: Human Patterns and Interactions
- CGU4C1 World Geography: Urban Patterns and Interactions
- ATF1O/2O/3M/3O/4M1 Dance – African
- ATK1O/2O/3M/3O/4M Dance – Caribbean
- AMQ1O/2O/3M/3O/4M1 Steel Drum – Music
- AMJ1O/2O/3M/3O/4M1 Vocal Jazz
In addition, in arts classes and shop classes you often can create whatever you like with the techniques you have learned. In English class there are some mandatory books but you also review books of your own choosing.
In all irony, breaking down the black community into further regionalist or nationalist divisions even further alienates and marginalizes these youth from any sort of community self-identity.
That doesn't make sense. If a generalization helps call them Canadian because that is what they really are. You are trying to impose a "black identity" which doesn't exist.
Every ethnicity has something to be proud of and come summer present that face to the whole GTA with countless weekend festivals.
None of those festivals are white or oriental. There are Italian events, Greek events, Chinese events, Caribbean events, but there is no "white event" or "oriental event". Ethnicity is Ethiopian, Greek, Italian, Scottish, Rwandan, Jamaican, Chinese, Japanese, etc. If you were to look at African history you would find it is much like European history where African kingdoms or tribes were protecting land, warring with neighbours, etc. All of human history is groups fighting with other groups and colour of skin didn't change anything. Black people fought black people, white people fought white people, they all fought each other.
Where's the black ethnic specific ones? Caribana- oh wait that's a collective representation of all Caribbean nationalities, not broken down into individualistic imagery
.
There is no unified black culture. A white person who is not Greek can't look at the accomplishments of Greece and say that is their history because they are white. Even if that person was Greek it is only false logic to believe that they had any part in it. A black cultural festival would have every type of music and every type of art because black is a skin colour and not a culture.
