This year marks the 30th Anniversary of Terry Fox's Marathon of Hope, which I will proudly be running in.
It's not something that I often talk about but I had an older brother named Alan. He was born in March 1982, less than a year after Terry Fox died. Before his first Birthday my parents took him to the doctor when he seemed to be having trouble recovering from the flu. It was at that point that they discovered he had Leukemia. After receiving treatment including chemotherapy and blood transfusions, he went into remission from the cancer. Sadly the cancer returned when he was three and my brother passed away at home in August 1985, a year and 2 months before I was born.
Growing up my parents often talked about my brother and by the time I started school I not only knew about him and his fight but also about cancer. When I was very young even watching the video that they showed every year before the Terry Fox Run was enough to move me to tears.
In addition to losing my brother both of my mom's parents with whom I had a close relationship, died of cancer and complications due to cancer. I also lost an uncle, my dad's older brother to cancer in 2008.
Although I have participated in the run in the past through school, this will be my first run as an individual. I am running 4 times a week to increase my running distance from 5 to 10km (I'm currently at 8).
If you would be interested in donating to the Terry Fox Society to support me in my run please visit my fundrasing page at: http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=931962&LangPref=en-CA
If you would prefer to support me in other ways, if you're in Ottawa I will be participating in the run at Carleton University on September 19th at 9 a.m. and would love to see you there.
Having the opportunity to participate in the Terry Fox Run means a lot to me.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Racism
Over the past year I have witnessed a trouble amount of racism and prejudice both in South Africa and in Canada.
While I was in South Africa I was troubled to hear that the local people, both black and white, were not accepting of refugees and felt that they did not have the resources to support them. There seemed to be an overarching ignorance of what would prompt someone to be a refugee and the significance that refugees could play within society.
What was equally troubling was the implicit racism which continues to prevail there. White people fear "black" violence, some black people vow revenge for white oppression in the political spotlight. On a more troubling level people continue to segregate themselves. There are dance clubs where black people go, and those where white people go, but they aren't the same clubs and it has nothing to do with the style of music. I heard stories of black people being refused entry to business and white people being spat at on the street.
Having had the opportunity to interact with white South Africans, black South Africans and refugees, listening to their hopes and dreams for their own lives as well as their country's, really reaffirmed for me that race is simply a social construction through which we identify other but doesn't really exist. I had already felt this way before, but now I was certain of it.
I had never noticed in Canada prior to my trip to South Africa that there was a significant amount of racism here. I heard my friends and family make they occasional comment which I often shrugged off or objected to, but I attributed this to a few people who were behind the times. I mean, I grew up in one of the most multicultural cities in Canada, I was one of the only blonde hair blue eyed students in my grade 8 class and I loved it. I loved learning about other peoples cultures and traditions and never once considered someone to be any less important than me because of the colour of my skin. I also never felt resentful when my friends got opportunities that I didn't in the name of diversity.
However, since I have been back and working in the refugee community and with the broader public outside the academic sphere I have been noticing an increasingly worrying trend. Several white men have approached me complaining of the disadvantage that they experience as a result of their status as white men. They complain about employment equity, suggest that immigrants and aboriginals cause the majority of the crime in this country, and that we should close our doors to refugees (although many of them seem to use the words refugee and immigrant interchangably). The problems with these positions are clear. We as a country have systematically discriminated against minority groups for generations, which continues to influence capacities within current society. We still think its appropriate to throw around words like nigger and claim that we can't support refugees and immigrant here in our country (which is the farthest thing from the truth, we aren't reproducing at a rate fast enough to support ourselves and need the extra bodies) and then we force immigrants and refugees into jobs that nobody wants. I have a hard time sympathizing with people who think they should get an easy ride because their grandfathers colonized a country by killing off our aboriginal people and denying those who survived of a cultural identity. Its like people are using the race card to legitimize their own mediocrity. Even worse is the fact that they use their supposed "disadvantaged state" as a cover for their own racism by for example suggesting that people of a certain ethnic background (or gender) are less capable of doing the same job as them or have a lower IQ, or are responsible for crime or are all drug adicts.
To be honest I am tired of listening to white men complain about how disadvantaged they are, I am tired of my friends being called niggers and I don't think for a minute that there is any argument that could legitmize saying that anyone does not have the same capacity to achieve their goals solely on the basis of their cultural backgrounds.
I'm tired of sitting quietly and nodding or faking a smile when someone makes a racist joke or a flat out racist comment. I'm not going to do it anymore. I am going to start standing up and saying something when someone says inappropriate and I am not going to feel bad about it. Racist remarks make me lose a lot of respect for people.
I think its time that we all learned or accepted that we are all created equally and that we can live much better lives by working together rather than working against each other.
While I was in South Africa I was troubled to hear that the local people, both black and white, were not accepting of refugees and felt that they did not have the resources to support them. There seemed to be an overarching ignorance of what would prompt someone to be a refugee and the significance that refugees could play within society.
What was equally troubling was the implicit racism which continues to prevail there. White people fear "black" violence, some black people vow revenge for white oppression in the political spotlight. On a more troubling level people continue to segregate themselves. There are dance clubs where black people go, and those where white people go, but they aren't the same clubs and it has nothing to do with the style of music. I heard stories of black people being refused entry to business and white people being spat at on the street.
Having had the opportunity to interact with white South Africans, black South Africans and refugees, listening to their hopes and dreams for their own lives as well as their country's, really reaffirmed for me that race is simply a social construction through which we identify other but doesn't really exist. I had already felt this way before, but now I was certain of it.
I had never noticed in Canada prior to my trip to South Africa that there was a significant amount of racism here. I heard my friends and family make they occasional comment which I often shrugged off or objected to, but I attributed this to a few people who were behind the times. I mean, I grew up in one of the most multicultural cities in Canada, I was one of the only blonde hair blue eyed students in my grade 8 class and I loved it. I loved learning about other peoples cultures and traditions and never once considered someone to be any less important than me because of the colour of my skin. I also never felt resentful when my friends got opportunities that I didn't in the name of diversity.
However, since I have been back and working in the refugee community and with the broader public outside the academic sphere I have been noticing an increasingly worrying trend. Several white men have approached me complaining of the disadvantage that they experience as a result of their status as white men. They complain about employment equity, suggest that immigrants and aboriginals cause the majority of the crime in this country, and that we should close our doors to refugees (although many of them seem to use the words refugee and immigrant interchangably). The problems with these positions are clear. We as a country have systematically discriminated against minority groups for generations, which continues to influence capacities within current society. We still think its appropriate to throw around words like nigger and claim that we can't support refugees and immigrant here in our country (which is the farthest thing from the truth, we aren't reproducing at a rate fast enough to support ourselves and need the extra bodies) and then we force immigrants and refugees into jobs that nobody wants. I have a hard time sympathizing with people who think they should get an easy ride because their grandfathers colonized a country by killing off our aboriginal people and denying those who survived of a cultural identity. Its like people are using the race card to legitimize their own mediocrity. Even worse is the fact that they use their supposed "disadvantaged state" as a cover for their own racism by for example suggesting that people of a certain ethnic background (or gender) are less capable of doing the same job as them or have a lower IQ, or are responsible for crime or are all drug adicts.
To be honest I am tired of listening to white men complain about how disadvantaged they are, I am tired of my friends being called niggers and I don't think for a minute that there is any argument that could legitmize saying that anyone does not have the same capacity to achieve their goals solely on the basis of their cultural backgrounds.
I'm tired of sitting quietly and nodding or faking a smile when someone makes a racist joke or a flat out racist comment. I'm not going to do it anymore. I am going to start standing up and saying something when someone says inappropriate and I am not going to feel bad about it. Racist remarks make me lose a lot of respect for people.
I think its time that we all learned or accepted that we are all created equally and that we can live much better lives by working together rather than working against each other.
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