Canada: now racism free!

It’s always nice to see how multiculturalism and universal tolerance abounds in this great country of ours.

Or maybe not so much.

Two Ottawa youth were attacked by a group of allegedly Palestinian men while walking home from the bar. The group of men shouted anti-Semitic slurs at the two students (only one of whom is Jewish) and attacked them with a goddamn machete!

I’m not going to weigh in on who is wrong and who is right in the middle eastern conflict. I honestly don’t know enough to have an informed opinion (except to know that the religious reasons are bullshit). However, that being said, I think we can all get behind the principle of not attacking people with machetes on the streets of Ottawa.

Can’t we?

Free Speech means just that

One of my favourite quotes (which is actually a paraphrase, not a quote) is so commonly referenced that it has become almost cliché:

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”

This is, of course, famously attributed to Marie François Arouet, better known as the French philosopher Voltaire. It is probably the single greatest encapsulation of one of the most liberal of enlightened philosophies, that of Free Speech. Free speech is the hallmark of liberal, enlightened and modern societies; so much so that we often take it for granted. Of course, if you live in China, that’s quite another story.

Google China has had issues with the oppressive (use of this word is entirely opinion, since it’s an extremely relative term) censorship laws the government has forced on all internet use in the country. As a result, they recently moved out of China and is redirecting their google.cn traffic to google.hk, which for reasons I don’t quite understand is not subject to the same censorship. The Chinese government has reacted by accusing Google of pushing an ideological stance rather than respecting China’s repressive, backward and wholly counter-productive “Great Firewall” mentality. Understandably, the rest of the world has reacted by saying “Good on ya, Google.”

Free speech isn’t just a nice idea. Free speech allows the flow of information and the creation of new ideas. It accelerates discovery and ensures that tyranny cannot survive. This is the reason why the first thing a totalitarian regime does is crack down on critical press, and the reason why the writers of the US Constitution (a fantastic document despite one’s feelings about the USA) and the Canadian Charter made sure to enshrine free speech and free press as paramount. Free speech is more than simply a boon to the average citizen – it ensures the progression and long-term health of a society.

So here’s my issue: Ann Coulter. The absurd blonde dancing monkey (the media is calling her a ‘pundit’ – I will feign no such respect) was scheduled to appear at a conservative student’s association event at the University of Ottawa this past week. To digress for a moment – conservatives, why on EARTH would you associate yourself with Ann Coulter? That would be like liberals taking their cues from L. Ron Hubbard! Find someone less insane and eye-rollingly clueless to represent your cause. Anyway, back to the matter at hand. Ann was supposed to speak to the UofO, and the president of the university sent her a letter reminding her that free speech laws in Canada specifically make exception for hate speech, and she should be careful in light of her previous statements that she can be prosecuted if she says something that advocates hate against a specific group.

Being the logical, moderate and insightful person that she is, Ann of course had a reasonable response: she said that she was the victim of a hate crime. I am almost tempted to say I wish a hate crime one day actually PERFORMED on everyone who cries “hate crime” inappropriately. Scratch that, I’m taking out the equivocation. You can quote me on this. I fervently hope that anyone who calls a mild rebuke, a conscientious disagreement, or a helpful letter of warning a “hate crime” is beaten senseless by a mob of skinheads or religious extremists. There, that takes care of any political ambitions I might have. A hate crime is a real thing, and misusing the word ‘hate’ makes a mockery of anyone who has legitimately suffered for a cause or as an accident of birth.

Some protesters showed up to Ann’s speech, she panicked, and chickened out, canceling the event. In true Chicken Little fashion, she cites the violence by the 2000 protesters who were there. Police estimates put it around 1000, most of whom were people trying to attend the event. She called UofO a “bush league” school (which may be warranted, but still… ouch!), completely unaware of the triple entendre (since she was very much part of Bush’s league, and due to the high quality/relative proportion of the female student body). She then ran lovingly into the arms of Calgary, bastion of ignorance and bigotry for Canada.

This story is not really a propos of anything, except that it highlights a glaring hypocrisy in Canada’s free speech laws. What it boils down to for me is that speech is either free or it isn’t. In my mind, there is no special status for hate speech – it deserves no special attention or regulation. Well-intentioned but philosophically bankrupt lefties are betraying the very idea of Free Speech by saying “your speech is as free as we decide it is.” I say this will full awareness of the fact that there are people out there who speak free hate against me and my parents’ marriage (for those who don’t know, my father is black and my mother is white). I have read their hate speech, I have read speech against LGBT people, Natives, immigrants (of which my father is one), Jews, Roma, any group under the sun. Not once have I ever said “they shouldn’t be allowed to say that.” There is a very good reason for this.

Speech is the way we express ideas. Ideas, once spoken, are subject to debate. Good ideas (women’s suffrage, civil rights, gay rights) prosper, while bad ideas (slavery, bigotry, anti-Semitism) fall by the wayside. It’s no accident that societies with free speech have better human rights and overall healthier societies – it’s directly causally linked. The bad ideas I listed before were all legally enshrined in the same countries that have free speech; however, over time the free flow of new ideas pushed the bad ones to the fringes. This is only possible when people are allowed to say what they think and be taken to task for their ideas. Prohibiting certain types of speech is not the answer to a progressive society; it actively retards progression. This is not to say that someone inciting violence shouldn’t be prosecuted for it, but prosecution should come on the grounds that it is violent, not because it’s “hateful”.

The side benefit to allowing bigots to speak their mind (aside from the fact that their writing is usually of such a poor quality that it is easy to identify and dismiss them readily) is that the bigots often represent a real dilemma bubbling below the surface. We’ve seen recently what happens when such resentment is allowed to go unchecked.

There are a few moments in history where conservatives are right and liberals are wrong. This, sadly, is one of them.

Nova Scotia Cross Burning – Why Indeed?

Two Nova Scotia men have been remanded to police custody for erecting and burning a cross on the lawn of an interracial couple.

From the article:

The brothers are accused of erecting a two-metre-high cross, with a hanging noose, in front of the home of Michelle Lyon, their father’s cousin, and Shayne Howe and yelling racial slurs at the terrified couple and their children, who were inside at the time.

While this is understandably a horrible thing to happen to anyone, especially in Canada where we like to think of ourselves as being non-racist, the part that I found interesting was this:

Granville Rehberg, Nathan and Justin’s father, said he’s “real sick” about what happened early Sunday and equally baffled. “I don’t understand,” Rehberg told CBC News in a voice that cracked with emotion. “I got nieces that have black children. I got cousins that are black. My family is not racist. I just don’t know what to say.”

Commenters on the CBC website and the news anchor expressed similar dismay and bafflement. How could such a thing happen “in this day and age?” Aren’t we past such things? Especially in Canada where we don’t have the same history of lynch mobs and cross-burnings?

The answer is easy: Because Canada is racist, we just don’t talk about it.

If you haven’t thrown up your hands in outrage and disgust and closed the window yet, I’ll clarify what I mean. Racism is much more deep-seated than can be overcome in a few generations. What makes progress along the lines of eradication even more difficult is the fact that we’ve stopped talking about racism. We prefer, it seems, to stick our collective heads in the sand and act as though it isn’t a problem. I think of racism the same way I think of herpes: just because you ignore it doesn’t mean it goes away, and even when the symptoms subside, they can come back at any point.

What we see here in Nova Scotia is a racism outbreak. Nova Scotia is home to a surprisingly large number of black people – that is, surprising unless you know some of the history. Africville is an area in Halifax that was home to hundreds of recently-freed slaves and imports from Africa. Some black families in Nova Scotia can trace their lineage back hundreds of years. However, due to overt racism in the 1800s and early 20th century, and more subtle systemic (“polite”) racism in the latter half of the 1900s, black people in Canada have rarely been able to move into the upper middle class. Since race and class are closely related, and given the economic fortunes of the maritime provinces (largely agricultural, less industrial, economic decline in recent years due to fisheries changes), black people have commonly got the short end of the stick.

Herpes symptoms return whenever the body is immunosuppressed – the system is taxed and cannot fight off the virus. Racism similarly returns when the social system is under stress, such as economic hardship. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that this happened, because all the pieces were there – economic downturn, long history of cohabitation, large and easily-identifiable scapegoat group… it’s almost formulaic.

This event is tragic. Not only were the couple’s small children inside the house, and the couple themselves terrified, but the community at large (and indeed all of Canada) has been severely damaged by this act of hate. However, as the RCMP notes in the article, this isn’t a random act, nor is it the last we’ll see. Until large, wholesale sea changes are made in the way we deal with racial issues in Canada, we’ll never be able to completely divest ourselves of the racism virus. But we can’t act shocked and bewildered when it happens – we’re just lying to ourselves if we do.