Jane Elliot, Keeping the White Man Down

I caught a program on the Saskatchewan Learning Channel called "Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes." It was a documentary of sorts, about a workshop conducted in Regina last year. 12 white people and 12 Aboriginals sat in a room. From the beginning, the woman running the program treated the white people as insignificant and the Aboriginals as superior. Basically, flipping the lid on racial relations in Saskatchewan. It was quite the sight to see. She was the perfect bitch, beating down the whites and ‘putting them in their place.’ Afterwards, she explained what she was trying to do: expose standard actions in society that actually hide racist intentions. She tried to show that people who don’t think they are racist still live in a society that makes basic assumptions based on race, which unconsciously affect our actions. By recognizing inherent racism, we can work to improve race relations.

For me, the most startling scene was when Jane Elliot (the woman in charge) was taunting a white person about his lack of motivation and his reliance on welfare. After a few minutes of constant shaming, she turned to a white guy sitting on the left. "Do you agree with what I said to him?" she asked. "No." "Then why didn’t you say anything to defend him?" "Because I didn’t want you to start picking on me." Elliot then turned to the class and asked them to think about how intimidation and silence actually work in society. I was dumbfounded. The white people were too ashamed to contradict her, and that silence was a major instrument in propagating racist attitudes.

I liked the program because it showed how subtle racism can be and how we are all guilty of it to some extent. Elliot just wants racism to be brought out into the open, so it can be talked about and overcome. Jane Elliot is actually an American who has been doing this program for twenty years and has tailored it to fit any situation of racial tension. The link below is specifically about Jane Elliot’s work involving attitudes towards Canadian Aboriginals. I urge you to look through the site, especially the viewpoint section. It’s good to know what other Canadians are thinking.
http://www.cbc.ca/passionateeye/indecentlyexposed/

The link below contains an extremely critical view of Elliot’s work. I don’t agree with what is printed here, but like I said before, it’s always good to know what the other guy is thinking (watch out, Britney Spears!).
http://www.vdare.com/fulford/jane_elliott.htm

Elliot has also done work in Australia, and this link talks about it. These comments are remarkably similar to the Canadian ones. I agree with Pottie, who feels most of the critics missed the mark: Elliot doesn’t want white people to feel guilty, and she wasn’t trying to solve racism with a single seminar. She is trying to make people see that racism exists even where it doesn’t seem to. She’s teaching awareness and understanding. From this, change can occur.
http://www.sbs.com.au/australianeye/index2.html?id=91

In the program I watched, she specifically said to forget about guilt. Guilt gets us nowhere. Acknowledge that wrongs have been done, but don’t feel the need to feel guilty about it. Instead, work to make sure racism doesn’t continue to happen. I find that simple and practical message.

Psst...You want a Cigarette?

There is currently a standoff happening in Caledonia, Ontario, where Aborginal groups are protesting the legality of a construction site. You can read about it here:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/news/national/2006/04/20/caledonia-protest060420.html

Things are getting pretty tense, and I don’t want to even touch on that right now. Instead I want to talk about cigarettes. CBC news did a story about the Mohawk community involved in the land dispute, but focused on their thriving cigarette trade. They make and sell their own cigarettes. This is technically illegal, because they refuse to incorporate Canadian taxes on the smokes. They claim that their cigarettes don’t fall under Canadian law, because the processing of tobacco is an inalienable right. As in hunting and fishing, tobacco processing is part of their culture.

This is genius, if you ask me. I can understand the logic behind this, regardless of the motivation. The courts have allowed Aboriginals the right to hunt and fish because they are traditional activities; why isn’t cigarette production the same thing?

What I found impressive was how the tobacco trade has shaped the Mohawk community. According to the story, unemployment is fairly low, and tobacco money has been used to fund community programs such as childcare and helping out the elderly. In essence, they have circumvented the need to rely on welfare or other government programs. People who think Aboriginals are just mooches should see this initiative as a positive. However, the Canadian government is pushing for this practice to end, and it will become a legal battle sooner or later. I don’t know about the legality of it, but I have to respect the ingenuity.

Urban Legends, Bring 'em on!

I found this website called Snopes that outlines a whole whackload of urban legends, explaining their origins and whether they are true or not. Pretty much every crazy story you’ve ever heard is in here, and the authors do their best to systematically fact-check all their sources. From this page I learned that TV’s Mr. Ed was not a horse, but a zebra. Black and white lines did not show up on old B&W televisions, so they could get away with it. This was a problem with football, because the referees looked like they had floating heads. I also learned that a news reporter in the 1970s committed suicide -- on air. And rather dramatically, too.

www.snopes.com

Something to Either Depress, or Light Your Fire

A friend of mine lent me a movie called "Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price." It’s a documentary about Walmart’s business practices in the US, Europe, China, Bangladesh, Canada, and Honduras. You can find out about it here:
http://www.walmartmovie.com/

I know that the producers are extremely anti-Walmart, so you have to keep that in mind when you watch it. But here are just a few of the things Walmart does, according to the documentary:

• The 5 main Walton family members are worth a combined $106 billion.
• While Bill Gates gives 58% of his worth to charities, the Waltons give 1%.
• In the 2000s, 31 states have filed wage & hourly abuses lawsuits against Walmart.
• CEO Lee Scott says that Walmart has 71% of its staff working full-time. The Daily Show claims that Walmart considers 28 hours a week ‘full-time.’
• Walmart has health benefits, but are disproportionally high for their paychecks. Employees have been instructed to go on Medicaid instead.
• A Quebec Walmart became the first to win union certification in North America. It was shut down a month later because it was deemed "unprofitable."
• What the anti-union Walmart never tells Americans is that all its stores in Germany (and some in other European nations) are unionized. In the film, a German Walmart worker wondered what Walmart was scared of by refusing to unionize American stores.
• In China, workers at Walmart’s factories make 13-17 cents/hour and have dormitory rent deducted from their paychecks, regardless if they live in the dorms or not.
• A former Walmart human resources inspector, appalled at the conditions in the Chinese factories, was further shocked by the top brass’ lack of concern when he brought it to their attention.
• Walmart receives subsidies from cities to build new stores. If they don’t receive subsidies, they have been known to buy land just outside the city limits and build there, thus bringing the city all their negatives without any of the positives.
• Walmart also has a history of moving stores once their tax breaks have ended. There are plenty of empty Walmart stores around, too big for other stores to move into (I’m reminded of here in Saskatoon, where Walmart recently moved from Circle Mall to Preston Crossing. I have no idea, but I wonder what politics were involved in that move).

The following is a blog about various things concerning Walmart. A lot of it has to do with the documentary and is very supportive of its message. Some other things on this website worth checking out involve the blogging world: apparently Walmart has people who blog on their behalf, plus Walmart CEO Lee Scott has his own blog.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/WalmartMovie

And finally a brief story about Walmart healthcare, which I’m posting because of the gigantic amount of comments that follow it. Here you’ll find a large range of opinions about Walmart, some angry, some sour, some supportive, a lot of the ‘if you don’t like it, work somewhere else’ argument.

http://walmartwatch.com/blog/archives/the_wal_mart_mythology_is_shattered1/

To me, this shows that you can’t just say ‘Walmart is the devil’ and expect everyone to go with you. But having said that, Walmart is the devil.

Some Canadian Music is Good, By the Way

The links below are from ChartAttack magazine, although some have been floating on MSN. All three deal with the Canadian music industry, post-Junos. The first is the Philosopher Kings discussing the lack of forums for music videos. The second is Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene going off about Canadian Idol (I like Feist’s comments in this story). And the third is Kardinal Offishall speaking about the state of hip-hop in Canada. I felt all three of these stories are relevant to how some artists look at today’s music industry (and I think it’s obvious that I agree with most of what they have to say). My complaint about this year’s Junos was the oh-so obvious nominees for Fan Choice Award. I’m sure a lesser-known band (Arcade Fire, Stars) could have been put up there instead of Celine Dion. Branch out a little, folks!

http://www.chartattack.com/DAMN/2006/03/2401.cfm
http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2006/04/0437.cfm
http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2006/04/0307.cfm