Canadians are not actually woke

I've recently communicated that I will not be participating directly in any further political & social issue discussions on this board. (I will only contribute to discussions concerning the educational sphere) based on my negative experience of attempts at normal political/social dialogue. I've decided that I will only post occasional (much less frequent) links for reflection purposes. You can ignore these links, or even delete them, if you find them offensive in any way. It won't cost me much to post them, as I won't have to write or respond to anyone on our political or off-topic discussion forums. Of course, you can discuss these topics among yourselves (or not!). Please don't ask me to respond to anything in public discussion mode, as I won't budge.

Today, I've decided to post these links:

https://thehub.ca/2024-02-15/eric-kaufmann-canadians-are-not-actually-woke/
https://macdonaldlaurier.ca/politics-of-culture-wars-canada/

 

There are three different definitions of woke in the Wiktionary. Number one below is the definition for many centuries. Number two is the definition for woke for the past 70 years or so, especially within African-American culture and more recently LGBTQ+ folks. Number 3 is the same old same old trick of folks trying to redefine something so that they can attack it. Warp something into absurd meanings and then attack the absurdity. The two articles linked above are basically that kind of nonsense.

woke (not generally comparable, comparative more woke or woker, superlative most woke or wokest)

1. (dialect, African-American Vernacular or slang) Awake: conscious and not asleep. Thesaurus:awake
2. (originally African-American Vernacular, slang) Alert, aware of what is going on, or well-informed, especially in racial and other social justice issues. Thesaurus:vigilant
   Antonym: unwoke
   Coordinate terms: (chiefly derogatory) politically correct, (British) right-on
3. (by extension, slang, often derogatory) Holding progressive views or attitudes, principally with regard to social justice. politically correct, right-on
   Antonyms: politically incorrect, unwoke
   
   https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/woke
   
   
   

 

Kaufmann was discussed a bit here: https://www.degreeinfo.com/index.php?threads/trump-apparently-idolizes-hitler.62644/page-5#post-594813

Reaction in that thread : "typical right-wing rant." Yeah - I can see that, for sure.

A quote from there:

"He (Kaufmann) has called "woke" ideas "a battle for the foundations of our civilisation" and has expressed support for Florida governor Ron DeSantis, arguing at the 2022 British Conservative Party conference that the party should follow DeSantis's lead.[14] For Kaufmann, although some of his educational policies "go too far", "DeSantis is the future of conservatism"

Obvious which of the three definitions of "woke" Kaufmann espouses. I'm one Canadian who is not listening to Kaufmann... and yeah, despite what Kaufmann says, Canada is racist as hell. A lot (not by any means all) of that racism comes from immigrants who got here 40-50 years ago -- and feel that their group is superior to others, including most of those who came after them, especially the most recent groups. Here are some statements I've heard in the last six months:

(Ukrainian Immigrant, here 40-50 years) "We don't get good immigration any more. All garbage people, Blacks, Syrians..."

(Polish Immigrant, here 50+ years) "Did you know we have hundreds - even thousands - of Paki (sic) Doctors in Canada who never finished their medical studies in Pakistan - they all bought their diplomas for $1500 from the University of Karachi and the Canadian Government whisked them right in..."

(Hungarian Immigrant here 40+ years) "We have too many Black people in Canada, right?"

(African (Sudan) immigrant, Black, here 7-10 years) "Why don't we just kill gays, like we do in Africa?"

 

I respectfully disagree. Not fantastic at all, at least in the sense @tadj meant. 2 articles, 2 thumbs down.

 

TV Pitchman: "New, Improved "WOKE 3.0!" Pre-Demonized for your convenience. Just open... and RANT!"

 

First immigrants I ever met, who felt their national group was superior to all others -- my parents, who brought me here as a youngster. They certainly weren't the last.

 

Poll silly questions, get silly answers.

 

The U.S.'s "original sin" is black slavery. I don't really know for sure what Canada's original sin is. (Other than both countries' policy of genocide). If by original sin we mean the foundational defect that a country must deal with essentially forever, Canada's might be in its early adoption of formal collective rights based on ethnicity. Quebec demands, and gets, "nation within a nation" status with results that are divisive and lead to intolerance. A small minority of the national population uses these collective rights to enforce its will on the vast majority and does so at the majority expense.

 

That "small minority" is well over 8 million people - just over 20% of the population of Canada.

Maybe Canada's "orginal sin" is the widely-practised enslavement of our First Nations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Canada#:~:text=

 

Or maybe it's other mistreatment of First Nations - the genocide that @nosborne48 referred to. (1) Killing them, and (2) The infamous Residential Schools.

 

I get sick of that. It's just hate-filled.

 

Heard that, from 2nd-3rd generation banyaks and more recent immigrants alike. It's scary how narrow people's perspective can be. To top that, a church lady at a Ukrainian church complaining about "recent immigrants from Ukraine bringing their corrupt ways with them". At a parish AGM, largely targeting me and my family. So yeah, Canada is in fact way less woke than Canadians like to think.

What I would push back on is putting all or most blame on immigrants, no matter how long in the country. Trademark Canadian "multicultural mosaic" literally means "we accept minorities but NIMBY". I suppose it was an improvement over older more racist views, but still - not the wokest.

 

Having said that: prof. Kaufmann is a manipulative dishonest piece of work, for all the reasons above.

 

Oh, now, Canada has always tolerated diversity…the English accepted Scots from both highlands AND the low lands…occasionally even Northern Ireland!

 

I have no problem with that statement, at all. It just seems in the last while, I heard a whole streak of stuff from first-gen. immigrants. There is PLENTY of racism amongst people whose families have been here several generations - back to Confederation, maybe (1865). I'd not be surprised if the racism incidence in the "lifers" exceeded that of first-gen immigrants by a good bit.

THEY, not first-gen immigrants are the people who have the car-stickers and buttons that say "Fit in or F* off" and 'Speak English or get the F* out." They're also the people who parade around in sweatshirts etc. from far-right organizations - "La Meute," "Sons of Odin" etc.

 

I get your point - and meanwhile, Irish Catholics received terrible discrimination, for a long, long time.

 

Now, to be fair, these stickers and sweatshirts are fairly rare. But it is not uncommon for people to vote Liberal and spew all the right multiculturalism dogma and still be quite prejudiced. Rather common, actually. They are, to the last person, super proud of how open-minded they - and Canada - are. "So much better than the US".
P.S. I should not be surprised anymore when I hear this stuff from first gen immigrants... but this does annoy me to no end. A little common sense, please.

 

To be fair, it depends where you live - and in what part of town. Where I live -- pretty tough town, not as rare as you might think. There are about 20 different organizations - whole lotta members.

Just because you don't like hearing about it, does NOT mean:
(1) It doesn't happen with surprising frequency to anyone else
(2) Others should not comment on it because you are tired of it.
(3) Anybody who quotes these immigrants directly, from recent experience lacks common sense.

 

I was referring to these immigrants. Being an immigrant with anti-immigrant views is a pet peeve of mine - and, sadly, the rhetoric you mention is way more common than it should be if these people didn't lack common sense. I mean, apparently there still are Ukrainian Trump supporters and even one Ukrainian-American MAGA Congresswoman - Victoria Spatz. Unbelievable.