I am Groot

It's not valued by the Liberal party, and likely by a great deal of like-minded people on the Left. Certainly it's not valued by the mainstream media or academia. Even a suggestion of expressing pride in Canada's traditions, culture and value draws suspicion from that lot. Suggesting that we might actually do well to protect our culture, values and institutions immediately has them suspecting some kind of 'white supremacy' shit. Which, by the way, I'm really tired of hearing about. There's even less evidence of 'white supremacy' in Canada than there is of 'systemic racism'.

There's a lot of that going around. For example, the big 'defund police' thing was done to allegedly protect minorities (really black) citizens in the US inner cities. Only... nobody asked them what they wanted. What they damn sure did NOT want was less police. The people behind that campaign were mostly liberal white university educated people living in nice neighborhoods along with a smattering of their black activist colleagues. Naturally, Canada's progressive adopted this wholesale despite the wildly different circumstances here. And no, none of them bothered to ask actual people about their preferences either. If Canada's massive wave of foreigners are to in any way integrate into the Canadian mainstream there has to BE some kind of mainstream. Eliminating our traditions in case they might offend newcomers is counter-productive and stupid. And I guarantee you this district school board consulted zero ethnic groups before deciding to eliminate Halloween for their students.

The Liberals started working at erasing English Canada's identity back in the late 1960s because they saw our culture/values as too closely entwined with the UK. They set out to eliminate UK influences, traditions and institutions as much as possible. They changed and renamed a lot of things, such as our national day of celebration, our flag, our constitution, our anthem, and other institutions like Canada's royal mail or the Royal Canadian air force and Royal Canadian navy. They eliminated the respect we once had for the military and emphasized other traditions rather than the ones handed down from the British. They also retargeted our immigration system away from the British Isles towards the third world to kind of erase the sharp distinction between the English and French. All this was done to make us more palatable to Quebecers. Ironically, this is what our present prime minister calls cultural genocide. But apparently that's only bad if it's against natives.

The problem is that people don't pay very much attention during municipal elections to begin with. And school board elections are kind of throw-ins which get even less attention. You have to really go out of your way to find out anything at all about the candidates. To compound the problem the NDP use school boards as kind of junior training grounds for inexperienced NDP politicians, and provide them help to get elected. So school boards tend to be disproportionately populated by left wing types. We need some kind of organization or media to give us information on the candidates in our wards so people know who to vote for. And who not to.

That would cause a lot of trouble. For example, I'd like everyone I meet to give me money. I'd also like all the pretty girls to want to sleep with me and be mine forever. Also, I'd like people to bow as I pass. And ended before anyone started talking about systemic racism.

Those minorities (exempting natives) are, by and large, immigrant groups. If they're visibly struggling why don't we consider whether our immigration system is being operated properly? Whether we have the right requirements for immigrants? Immigrants who come here ought to be performing better than Canadians, not worse. They ought to be the best selected out of tens of millions of hopefuls. We should not be saying that we need immigrants because "they'll do the shitty, low paid jobs Canadians won't". Sure. But how is it the fault of our society that black kids have kids and the 'father' then ignores them? And defaulting to the US because they actually do study such stuff there while we don't - that absent father thing isn't the result of slavery or racism because it only started after the advances in civil rights in the late 1960s.

And why should we make such awards dependent on race?

The problem is we are NOT treating everyone the same.

I said I don't much care. I probably should have said I don't care "much". Yes, it irritates me because in part I perceive that they're trying to deliver "the message" at me, and resent it. The companies the advertising agencies represent are subject to pressure groups. Which his why they're all falling all over each other to proclaim their devotion to inclusion, equity and diversity. Same goes for the corporations that own the TV networks and stations. Well, except the CBC. But it isn't like they need any pressure to be woke. On special networks, perhaps. But you'll not find the hiring of indigenous people given much priority in television compared to black people. Which once again just shows how heavily influenced by American identity politics we are. It's likely I just forgot. Easy posts which take little time to answer can be done on my phone. If I see something which requires a longer answer, and more time to think it through, I'll put it off until I'm at my computer. But of course, I can forget. One of the issues here is that insofar as English Canadians still have a culture, despite everything the Liberals have done to destroy it, that culture contains a rock-solid belief in fundamental fairness. I'll admit that has been imperfectly meted out, especially in private. Maybe it's just a wish, or wistful hope. But hiring and promoting people based solely on checkboxes, as Trudeau appears to do with every damned public appointment offends our sense of fairness. And so far that seems to be about the only tool in the woke left's toolbox when it comes to combating 'systemic racism'. Well, except for forcing everyone into the modern equivalent of Mao's struggle sessions - now called anti-racism, or diversity and inclusion training. So when does all this combating of systemic racism end? Down south, where this originated, you have police departments with black police chiefs and more than half the police officers being non-white, under decades of Democratic rule, often with Black mayors in states run by the Democrats for decades and yet still we are to believe these police forces are systemically racist. So it appears there is no cure in our lifetimes. All I will say to that is that few of us trust politicians with our money, and yet somehow native chiefs aren't to be considered as politicians and their expenditures aren't to be publicly available or examined. Why? These native bands are often tiny, just a few hundred people. The largest of them are smaller than most Canadian small towns. Why do so many of their chiefs make more money than provincial premiers? Were Black people stopped all over the city or mostly in specific high-crime areas? Areas known for gang violence? Really, the only minorities who have a claim on us over that are indigenous people. There are very, very few other races who had more than a tiny number of people in this almost purebred white country up until immigration was liberalized in the 1970s. I don't think there's really much racism here. I don't think there are many racists. Prejudice, yes, and bigotry. Let's call things by their proper names. Racism is an actual belief in the inferiority of races. I doubt some farmer shouting ethnic slurs at an Asian or some truck driver sneering at blacks has an ideological belief in the superiority of the white race. What they have is prejudice, mostly learned through news media stories, the internet, or what their experiences have been in life. We don't keep racial stats but the Americans are very precise in theirs. Cities can tell you what the racial breakdown is in shoplifters, in burglars, in murderers, etc. If you're a white or Asian shopkeeper and you know that black people, who make up 5% of your customers are responsible for 60% of shoplifting from your store, are you not going to watch black people extra carefully? Yes, you're pre-judging them. That's what prejudice is. And if you are exposed to a daily summary of violent crime in the news media, mostly perpetrated by Black offenders, are you not going to be wary of Black men? Prejudice again. How do we combat prejudice given the source is people's sense of tribal loyalty and anger against 'outsiders' seen as constantly attacking the tribe? It's like, the Chicago media never mentions race when hundreds of 'youths' show up downtown to trash stores, beat people up and rob them, but everyone in Chicago knows, if only from the videos on the internet, who makes up those gangs. And the same takes place here. Maybe the news media never mentions the race of murderers but they do tend to show their faces and few people are under any illusion about the disproportionate number of black and brown faces. You want to address the prejudice you need to address the cause. Which is what is seen as the greatly disproportionate criminality of certain groups. But that too is something we're not allowed to publicly discuss.

It would be if it existed. Thus far no one has managed to show it exists. There is no conscious racism in how the federal government, at least, manages services to indigenous people. My best friend was a manager then executive at Indigenous Services, and not only did they try their best, not only had they basically no budget limitations on serving their indigenous clients but hiring and promotion was very much skewed towards indigenous people wherever it was possible. The Indian Act is a hot mess but the government can't get rid of it because the chiefs want it to stay in place. Most likely because of the economic value they see for themselves in it. As for police practices - they are aimed at criminals. The high criminality, esp the high violence rate among Blacks (and natives) draws police attention disproportionate to their population numbers. In particular, the higher rate of violence among these communities draws police violence in return. Trudeau can claim every institution is rife with systemic racism but in my view that's just virtue signalling, flaunting his purity. I don't know if he even believes it, but then I regard him as a pretty shallow person so what he believes doesn't really influence the truth or reality of a situation in my view. Canada never had slavery. There were a small number of slaves here prior to our nationhood but in fact the majority were indigenous people. There were a few black slaves (including ones held by indigenous people ironically). But they were all freed decades before Canada was formed. Virtually all the Black people in Canada today are immigrants who arrived after the 1970s and their kids. This is one of those topics which has been more or less forbidden in the public sphere. Or at least, it's forbidden to take a negative or even questioning line towards the topic. I have a vague memory of one routine political commentator on one of those CBC panels disappearing off the face of the earth after they dared to deny its existence. It's simply easier to go along. There are many internet sites where you can't discuss it either. Nothing is permitted by full acceptance. But without discussion how do we know anything is true? And the truth is that for all the claims about systemic racism I've never seen anyone anywhere in Canada put a firm case for its existence. That is why I brought it up. I am not all on one side of the tribal fence. I am equally loathed by people on the far left and the far right. Or talking about whether there is, in fact, A problem. Because we never had that discussion before we embraced systemic racism as existing everywhere. Where was the discussion? When was the evidence presented? This is like the problem of talking about immigration. Because racists hate immigration (of non whites anyway) there is a knee-jerk assumption from the commentariat that anyone opposing immigration might/must/is likely to be a racist. And so immigration, like systemic racism, is another topic which cannot be opposed in public. Are there others? Probably. But there shouldn't be any in a free society. If we are going to impose a belief on the nation we ought to have damned well explored it and discussed it with no holds barred first.

Why do I care? I've already said I don't much care. But I notice. And I mentioned it because it shows the degree of groveling, simpering desperation to show purity of thought to the progressive activists, to, as I said, hold up black people as a kind of shield against any accusations of racism. I just see it as cowardice in the face of demands which should be simply laughed at. Do I get APTN? Or watch CBCs indigenous programming? No, why would I? Why would anyone who wasn't indigenous? What's next, CBCs special programming for Black people? For Chinese people? For Indo-Canadians? You find it weird I'm bringing what term up? Systemic racism? You sound offended I didn't respond to one of your posts. I don't even see everything here much less respond to all of it.

I didn't complain. I took note of something apparently good little progressives aren't supposed to notice. Canada's Black population stands at just over 3%. Why are there so many black newscasters and reporters? Why does almost every commercial have someone black in it? Because the media are progressives and progressive get all their queues from the United States. Thus progressives are obsessed with racism against black people and so every institution is frantically hiring Black people to push out into the cameras to avoid accusations of anti-Black racism. Black people are being displayed like tokens or trophies by the media, held aloft triumphantly by virtue-signaling corporate hacks to show everyone how pure their spirit is. A kind of get out of racism-jail free badge. "Look, we hired a Black guy! See how black he is! We can't possibly be racist!" Note, indigenous people make up 5% of our population. I know of not a single indigenous newscaster, weatherman or reporter in my city or on either of the national networks. I see zero indigenous people in commercials. Nor do news shows work to find indigenous people to interview on every possible subject the way they do with with Blacks. Asians make up almost 18% of our population now. They are occasionally visible in commercials, but nothing remotely like Blacks. Nor are Asians sought out for interviews by news reporters. Why? Because our media are racist towards Asians? Or because progressives don't care about Asians because Asians do very well economically in spite of Canada's alleged 'systemic racism' and this makes progressives squirm uncomfortably as they try to blithely dismiss it as unimportant? By the way, before we an ask Black people to ignore systemic racism perhaps we should establish if it even exists. So far no one has had much success in doing so.

Unconscious racism exists. But there exists no evidence anything can be done about it. The unconscious bias courses do not work, and can actually make things worse. Further, unconscious bias/racism exists in all people. Why is every government effort at combating it aimed solely at White people, who are probably less guilty of it than non-whites? And there seems to be little evidence to show this unconscious bias is responsible for different economic and social outcomes among different groups as opposed to cultural factors related to education and marriage.

"Systemic racism is an issue right across the country, in all our institutions, including in all our police forces, including in the RCMP. That's what systemic racism is," said Trudeau when asked about Lucki's comments by reporters during a news conference in Ottawa this morning. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/rcmp-systemic-racism-lucki-trudeau-1.5607622

Because questioning it offends you but you aren't able to discuss it rationally, intelligently nor contribute anything but insults. If you aren't able to defend your opinions you should reconsider holding those opinions.

Maybe if we had a higher standard for immigrants, particularly with respect to language abilities, people wouldn't prefer to hire those with clearly English sounding names. We provide everyone with free education. Including adults. We're in an economy where it's not that difficult to find jobs. Many immigrants take advantage of these things. Many immigrants from diverse countries do very well here. And some, from other countries do not. Blaming it all on racism is a cheap out against the effort of discovering why.

You seem to me to be a male Karen ranting incoherently in the dark with no one listening...

I don't work for government. I work for me. And my industry is strictly merit based. And so highly competitive and highly profitable.

But it isn't that common for ALL Black children. Africans get married to have kids and both parents are involved in their upbringing. Caribbean Blacks often don't. In the US two thirds of black kids grow up in single parent families. Canada has done little to study the issue or to differentiate between Black-Canadians who immigrated, or whose parents or grandparents immigrated from different countries/continents. Canadians don't talk about stuff like that. They don't bring it up. So it never gets addressed. The only people in the US talking about it are Black conservatives or Black moderates. And there aren't very many of them.

Or, gee, maybe it's because they're better at math. Maybe it's because Asian parents are strict and very closely supervise their children's education, insisting on hard work and high marks. Maybe the absence of such supervision in the single parent families common to most of Canada's Caribbean black population is also a cause. What if the 1st generation is primarily made up of people from African coming in through the skilled worker program while the 3rd generation is mainly made up of the grandchildren of Caribbean blacks who arrived mostly as domestics, or their kids who arrived through family sponsorship. You mean the fact certain minority groups tend to have children out of wedlock without fathers supporting them while others tend to have high marriage rates with parents insistent on education? Or that certain minority groups tend to be disproportionately involved in crime vs other minority groups? Can't imagine why a white guy born and raised in Canada who gets rejected for a position in favour of an immigrant from Somalia who has less qualifications because hand-wringing progressives are feeling guilty about American slavery might be a tad upset.

You are responding to one post referencing your response to another that I have already dealt with. Your belief that any disparities between one group and another must be due to racism is almost laughably unscientific. As is your lumping all blacks into a single category as if they were one people. Nigerians are doing far better in Canada than Jamaicans. Explain that through racism.

"Thankfully it is being dismantled..." suggests that parts of this system continue to be 'systemically racist'. Which parts? Where are they?

Of course there's racism. There always has been and always will be. But it's not singular. And it's not white. It's multicultural and multiracial with individuals in every ethnic and racial group having racist feelings towards a variety of others. White people have no monopoly on stupid. Or on mean. Most of our visible minorities are immigrants from countries whose culture is imbued with racism so deeply it's rarely even questioned, much less frowned upon in public. To expect them to drop all their prejudices because they got a blue passport is a hope doomed to fail. But that does not mean there is a 'systemic' racism problem where no one can really point to the law, the process, the organization, the regulation or the policy which is behind this systemic racism. Merely presuming it exists due to statistical differences between groups is unreasonable. There are always statistical differences between groups for they are dissimilar in their behaviour , culture and values. Perhaps not enormously so, but enough to cause statistical differences. Black Canadians are statistically more likely to be immigrants, more likely to be younger, more likely to have lower educations, more likely to have single-parent families. All of that alone is cause for statistical differences. Add in the attraction of 'gangsta' culture popularized by hiphop stars and you have a group (taken as a whole) highly prone to fall behind others on the economic ladder.