I’m all in favour of promoting ethnic diversity, and in celebrating cultural traditions, and in keeping alive heritage — I love the Lieuenant-Governor’s Winter Festival for example — but things that are “Aboriginal only” really rub me the wrong way.
It’s bad enough that there are Aboriginal-only casino rules, but now there’s an Aboriginal personal care home set to open in Winnipeg? The Winnipeg Free Press reports that it will be right next door to a First Nations school. Sigh.
Setting up racially-based institutions like that are just part of a long continuum that also includes odious things like “whites only water fountains.” And who gets to decide which Aboriginals get to enter the personal care home — or the school? Is there a reverse paper bag test? Is there preference to Sioux ancestry or Anishinaabe? What about Métis? What about one’s Status status?
Presumably, there is a market for this — just like there’s a market for women’s only gyms, and men’s only golf courses. And there used to be a market for Jew-free business clubs.
But I would like to hope that we’re moving away from that kind of world.
Grant Hamilton
6 Responses to “Segregation does not promote racial harmony”
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Great news!
You also get to pay for aforementioned segregated institutions!
I always feel people are way ahead of institutions or (especially) governments on issues like this. Individual people don’t seem to have much problem being exposed to different ideas or peoples – it’s only these anonymous bureaucratic faceless entities that sees a threat, somehow.
If it makes you feel any better, there was a community pow-wow – open to all – held in Brandon over the weekend specifially to tackle racial discrimination. I’m not sure I’d worry about moving towards a segregated world — as much as ‘official’ policy sometimes seems to want otherwise.
I read about that pow-wow — good news indeed. And you’re right, I think there are lots of individuals who just want to live their lives and enjoy all that they are exposed to. At least, I hope there are.
And I’m all in favour of people sending their kids to school, or their old ones off to die, surrounded by their own culture and heritage. I just hate the exclusivity of it all.
The first time I went to eat at an Ethiopian restaurant (oh, how nice THAT would be in Brandoon…almost as nice as a damn Thai restaurant, already!) I learned why they eat without utensils.
Basically, all the yummy food is served atop this spongy pancake type thing, you tear off a piece and scoop up your meal. It’s all in a big circle, and everyone eats off the same ‘pancake’.
The theory goes that it’s impossible to view someone as an enemy when you’re sitting across a table from him, face to face, eating.
Pretty nice idea, I think.
I wonder if that’s the same idea behind a “peace pipe” and other related things?
Now, just compare it to modern-day gated communities, xenophobic “immigration” policies (paging Jason Kenney?) and fascist-style fears of The Other.
It can’t be a coincidence that gated communities sprung up alongside the SUV – that’s the vehicle for people who are terrified of the outside world and want to barricade themselves off from other human beings.
I doubt that an aging aboriginal has vastly different health concerns in comparison to an aging non-aboriginal person. Couldn’t hiring a counselor trained in aging issues + aboriginal issues, maybe bringing some elders in to satisfy religion needs be sufficient? Or is this a polite solution to a greater problem of aboriginal people not receiving the same quality of care in personal care homes as people of different ethnicities?
Yeah, the spongey stuff is awesome.