Newspaper Comments Highlight Canadian Racism

The comments sections on some newspapers and online news sites can be infamously bad. The Calgary Herald’s commenters, many of them frequent enough to be “top commenters”, put on a despicable display today. Chief Spence ended her hunger strike, and was hospitalized as a precaution because she’s been without proper nutrition for six weeks. Obviously such a drastic diet, with the purpose of forcing an emotional outpouring of support for political ends, is not healthy.

Mike Neumeier · Top Commenter
Look at her, there’s no way she was on a liquid-only diet – stop lying already. I’m pretty sure I saw her pounding down 6 mama-burgers at A & W the other day.

Ah yes, fat jokes about the lady who has been starving the past six weeks. Starving because the Prime Minister is too prideful to grant even an hour for himself and the Governor General to meet in person with some First Nations leaders. Starving, because First Nations people across Canada tend to suffer and be murdered at higher rates than other Canadians, yet this is not deemed an emergency that needs immediate correcting, according to the Prime Minister. She was starving for justice, and you mock her.

At least one journalist at CTV realized that there are some stories where there is a clear morally just side, and another where people die needlessly*. Can the corporate media as a whole begin to extend this realization to the issue of racism also? It’s not like racism has ever killed millions of people before, but their imaginations need to be stretched (if they can’t recall any race based genocide).

I don’t know how these people listed below will feel later about their negative comments, but if I’d ever made a nasty comment about someone based on their appearance or their race, I’d feel ashamed. These people signed their names to racist, fat jokes, some while listing their employer. That either takes guts (minus a heart), or a heck of a lack of brains.

Ken Schmied · Top Commenter
Hopefully the poor dear will be able to quickly put on some weight. She looks emaciated.
Reply · 16 · Like · Follow Post · 22 hours ago

David Kolling · Telephony Analyst at Shaw Communications
I think we as canadian tax payers should pony up and pay to send her to a really nice spa for 3 or 4 months to help her heal. You’re right she looks awful. Hahahahaha.
Reply · 7 · Like · 17 hours ago
Ken Schmied · Top Commenter
Grand Valley would be a wonderful resort for her to spend 6 to 10 years with time off for good behavior.
Reply · 3 · Like · Edited · 17 hours ago
Alan Beaulieu · Top Commenter · Calgary, Alberta
Looks like she could have done a few pushups and situps while she was Idling.
Reply · 1 · Like · 2 hours ago

The Problem With Racists

Focus groups are good at focusing. If there is a strong racist voice in the group, they might start to focus on race.

When I heard the news this morning mention the Bank of Canada changed the image of a woman on the $100 because she wasn’t white-bread enough, I thought I must have missed something. I couldn’t understand what the point was. That’s because there isn’t a point. It’s pointless racism, plain and simple, and formalized by the Canadian bank.

(I also immediately pulled one of the $100 bills I keep from under my pillow {kidding}, and checked what the fuss was about. Turns out, the image on the bill had already been changed {not in the time between hearing the report, and looking under my pillow}.)

I’d actually looked at the $100 a few days ago, inspecting it closely for the first time. At no point did I think, “You know, I think that should/shouldn’t be an Asian woman on the back.” What I did think strange was that I couldn’t find a name of a single Canadian medical innovator on the bill, even though it says “Medical Innovation” and they have a bottle of insulin and a DNA structure on it. Not sure why DNA is there, although there are no doubt important Canadian innovations in that field, Watson and Crick were not Canadian. Banting and Best were. I was a little confused why they were not gathered at the microscope on the bill while their life saving, world changing innovation appeared in bottle form in the foreground.

I found someone suitable for a Bank of Canada focus group, on Twitter:

The one thing I always wondered was why do some chinese/asian looking people talk like they are regular White people !!??—
Keyko ♥ (@pocha_morose) August 17, 2012

ADDED:
I can imagine the process this debacle went through. Here’s a dramatization with thought bubbles for your amusement/horror:

Focus Group participant (in their inner voice): “I know I’m supposed to focus on this money, but all I can think about is Asian women. Holy crap, it’s because there’s an Asian-looking woman on the $100! Maybe that’s what the Bank wanted me to notice? I’d better say something.”

Bank of Canada group guide: “Our money isn’t supposed to make people think that only Asian Canadians know how to use microscopes to make medical innovations. We’d better use a race-neutral person, yet still female so as not to say that only men can make innovations, since we wouldn’t want to be sexist. There’s no race more neutral than white people, because white includes every colour, that’s a scientific fact. Scandal averted. Hooray for cultural sensitivity and political correctness! We didn’t offend Asian-looking Canadians by suggesting they have the capacity to be medical innovators and equal opportunity to appear on our money.”

Media: “OH RLY?”

Public: “Canadian Actress Sandra Oh should be representing medical innovation on our $100 note.” #GreysAnatomy

Me: *Head desk*