The Scrawl at the End of the Hall

Moving

This blog has moved to this location, so please update your RSS feeds to reflect the move. Thanks!

Special word for racism against Jews

Why is there a separate word for racism against Jews? Is this a racism separate from other racism? Is it different? Special? Why isn't racism against Asians some other word? Actually, maybe there IS another word and I and most other people don't know what it is, or that it even exists.

Next-gen Racism

What do you think of when you think of racism?

Is it the image of a Klansman burning a cross on the lawn of some innocent black family? Is it the bar owners in Longueuil that refuse service to black people? Is it perhaps your father promising to disown you if you bring home a (fill in the blank)?

Some of the above things still happen to this day, and the perpetrators are the people you know. It is still a reality for most PoC (people of colour) in North America and abroad. But there are many that absolutely insist that racism no longer happens, and if it does, that it's not such a big deal. And with any good virus or aggressive cancer, it changes the more it spreads. With the largely forgotten struggles of the civil rights movement came the awareness that burning crosses and lynching people aren't very nice things to do. And believe me, that is pretty much where the empathy ended for many people. Name calling and discrimination are
not nice. It still isn't really understood that it was far, FAR greater than that, but it is a huge accomplishment, especially when you look at history that goes back a few hundred or thousand years.

Here's an example. My sister is 15 years older than I am. Her experiences in Brockville were FAR different from mine. Where I was occasionally made fun of in Grade 1 for being different than others, and the usual jokes were made about my penis and so forth, she was openly shunned and literally spit on. People would laugh at the very idea of her being of equal status to them. She suffered physical and mental trauma that I did not. It's for this reason that she avoids going back there as much as possible. 15 years later, the younger brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces of her peers largely knew better than that. I was openly treated as an equal, or even as a superior at times because of my good grades. But there was often something more subtle that grated on me. Something that I could only start to express very recently. Something wrong.

With the American election race hoopla happening right now, many bloggers and writers and colour have weighed in on the various aspects of the concept of race and its implications on the lives of PoC. They have put into words and published the very feelings that I thought that I was crazy for even thinking. They are talking about New Racism, or what I like to call Next-Gen Racism.

When being criticized is the same as having your leg blown off

And here I thought that studying rhetoric was a waste of time. I now admit my willful ignorance. Read this article about the link being the relative voicelessness of certain people compared to the sound of their voices. Quite eye-opening.

Not enough discipline these days, anyway