2008/04/25

The Precarious Balance of Ethnicity and Identity

If you don't speak your native language, you can't really claim to be ethnic.

Italian? You understand De Niro in Godfather II? A little bit of Cree blood? Could you make it on the rez? Black? Can you communicate in the projects or in the African country of origin?

This is the personal benchmark I apply in order to figure out the answer to a question that's gotten more and more perplexing as time goes along: "Where are you from?" Frankly, unless you're lucky enough to win the cosmic lottery to be born an Englishman (as Sir Cecil Rhodes said), there's never an easy answer. Are you a Canadian? A Quebecker? An Indian? Italian? Greek? Arab? Spanish? Native? Muslim? Jew? Christian? Wiccan? Citizen of the World?

Don't even start with the mixed heritage background stuff ("yeah, well my dad's Irish-Scottish, my mom's Jamaican-Filipino, I was born in France, uh, ya.....").

Really, when you get down to what makes up a person and what it means to identify one's self with a culture, it's fairly irrelevant. Legally speaking, that is. In the black and white of the law, your racial background has no effect on your legal status. On the ground, the reality is much, much different.

In terms of only the negatives, having an ethnic-sounding name, especially an Arab or Muslim one, can mean a more difficult time finding a job. It can mean alienation from certain social circles. One can garner different reactions from people sympathetic or non-sympathetic to your racial plight. Profiling at the airport or on the roads from law enforcement is viewed at in a totally different light when your face is not the whitest of white, the palest of pale. You can find yourself caught up in political arguments about places you've never even been to. And then of course, there's just good ol' fashioned hate and bigotry.

Somewhere along the way, society decided that if you don't use the word 'nigger' in public, you're not a racist. I mean, only racists use that word, and as long as a person doesn't use it, how could they possibly be thrown into the same rotting category as the KKK, Nation of Islam and Hitler?

Nay, racism has gone underground. It has retained its character but changed its language of communication. What once were biased laws, slurs and outright physical violence have become terror laws, insinuation and sneaky segregation. Gentrification after all is a big word that means 'move out coloured folk.' Private school means 'being German makes you a minority.' Listening to or making indie rock requires a test proving that your skin is capable of having a pink hue.

It's a tragic phenomenon, and to someone of the majority race, it's incredibly difficult to describe and articulate. But to deny the existence of implicit racism is to just be blind to reality...and perhaps to one's own racism. The problem has not been solved, and will not be solved any time soon. This is simply because we have yet to agree as a society where to draw the line between being racially colourblind and acommodating foreign cultures.

Anyway, this wasn't meant to be a downer of a post. I've written more than my share of those this year. All those negative factors suck, but man, sure as hell havinbeats being just plain ol' white. Think of the food! The bad movies! The weird immigrant stuff that you never really notice until you start making white friends!

Really, it's only a matter of examining yourself and the sort of factors that you consider when you figure out your ethnic/racial identity.

Here's a brief list of things to consider that I thought up:

1- where you were born.

2- where your parents were born.

3- what citizenship/passports you hold

4- where you've lived, where you were "brought up" and where you've lived the most

5- your physical features (yes, this includes skin colour)

6- your mother tongue (i.e. the first language ypu ), the language you think in, and any others you happen to know.

7- what you call yourself.

Now yeah, there's a lot of people who only care about the last one in terms of identifying themselves and what they relate to. That's cool.

But really, as we've been told repeatedly, race is not something you get to choose. I don't want to get into pseudo-intellectual semantics about the differences between ethnicity, race, nationality, background etc. To strangers, you are whatever you look like. If those strangers actually get to talk to you, they'll probably take you for your word if you're as brown as a cow with a miswaak in your teeth and you say you're from Kentucky. I hope you get my meaning.

There's a line you can draw for the character you craft for yourself. Western society permits and encourages in a certain sense that you do this. Squeeze yourself into nice neat little buzzword categories like 'punk' or 'hipster' or 'gangsta rapper.' The problem is, with so many of us struggling between two, three or more supposed cultural identities, these labels tend to lose their meaning. En plus, no matter how much of, to take an example at random, a goth, you want to be, if you're black, you'll never be as 'real' part of that scene as say, someone who has the skin colour and physical features of Marilyn Manson.

Anyway, if I had any sort of higher-level math training, I'd be able to formulate an algorithm using the seven identifying features listed above to generate an ethnic identity for you. Since I don't, you're, as they say on this side of the pond, shit out of luck.

Cracker.

=//Turnquest

2008/04/15

Photo Post

Haven't done this in a while, so it's gonna be a biggie.

Photos from the past week approximately:


Iraq.

Berlusconi, you are a fat pig. Italy deserves nothing better than a fascist billionaire.



Morgan "had to copy-paste his last name" Tsvangirai, I hope you teach Robert Mugabe a big lesson in "What Happens to Corrupt Dictators."


Pakistan.

It's the woman in the middle who makes this pic. Something about airline prices.

Keep smilin' brother.

Phew! Beating the shit out of a car sure does work up an appetite. Good thing E. Honda taught me the hundred-hand slap.


Idols for the idolaters...



That's rice she's picking up. Look at the expression on the Iraqi soldier's face and tell me you don't ever wonder about going over there, if only to punch his face.

Oh you know, Mr. Clean works wonders. (Iraq, where else?)

"No such thing as evolution."


=//Turnquest

2008/04/14

Yes

"Yes"
Manic Street Preachers
off the album "The Holy Bible" (1993)



Intro:
(You can buy her, you can buy her
This one's here, this one's here, this one's here and this one's here
Ev'rything's for sale)

For sale? dumb cunt's same dumb questions
Oh virgins? listen, all virgins are liars honey
And I don't know what I'm scared of or what I even enjoy
Dulling, get money, but nothing turns out like you want it to

And in these plagued streets of pity you can buy anything
For $200 anyone can conceive a God on video
He's a boy, you want a girl so tear off his cock
Tie his hair in bunches, fuck him, call him Rita if you want

I eat and I dress and I wash and I still can say thank you
Puking - shaking - sinking I still stand for old ladies
Can't shout, can't scream, hurt myself to get pain out

I 'T' them, 24:7, all year long
Purgatory's circle, drowning here, someone will always say yes
Funny place for the social, for the insects to start caring
Just an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff

In these plagued streets of pity you can buy anything
For $200 anyone can conceive a God on video
He's a boy, you want a girl so tear off his cock
Tie his hair in bunches, fuck him, call him Rita if you want, if you want

I eat and I dress and I wash and I can still say thank you
Puking - shaking - sinking I still stand for old ladies
Can't shout, can't scream, I hurt myself to get pain out

Power produces desire, the weak have none
There's no lust in this coma even for a fifty
Solitude, solitude, the 11th commandment

The only certain thing that is left about me
There is no part of my body that has not been used
Pity or pain, to show displeasure's shame
Everyone I've loved or hated always seems to leave

And in these plagued streets of pity you can buy anything
For $200 anyone can conceive a God on video
He's a boy, you want a girl so tear off his cock
Tie his hair in bunches, fuck him, call him Rita if you want, if you want

Power produces desire, the weak have none
There's no lust in this coma even for a fifty
Solitude, solitude, the 11th commandment

Don't hurt, just obey, lie down, do as they say
May as well be heaven this hell, smells the same
These sunless afternoons I can't find myself

Two dollars you rub her tits
Three dollars you rub her ass
Five dollars you can play with her pussy
or you can lick her tits
Choice is yours

=//Turnquest

2008/04/11

Three Little Girls

To anyone who says that things are just great in the world today:

http://dawn.com/2008/04/08/top12.htm

=//Turnquest

2008/04/10

Love come save me soon

Summer is here.

The Habs are in the playoffs.

Girls in the street have finally caught up to the visions in my sweetest dreams.

School's just about done (permanently).

But I don't feel any different.

It's all a little beneath me, I've been here before and I don't have fond memories.

Iraq. Economy. Broken streets. Unspoken racism. Deception, cynicism and superficiality define personal relationships. Romantic ones are doomed to failure, sooner or later. Money. Insecurity. Anxiety. Uncertainty. Tibet. Broken escalators. Unanswered prayers.

Summer is here. Tomorrow it's gone.

=//Turnquest

p.s. all you people posting anonymous comments, er, I rather wish you'd not. Or at least e-mail me. Takes the frustration out of guessing who you are .

2008/04/08

HABS FOR THE CUP


Only thing that matters right now:


2008 EASTERN CONFERENCE QUARTERFINALS - ROUND #1

SERIES A

Thurs, April 10, 2008
7:00 PM
Boston at Montreal
CBC, RDS

Sat., April 12, 2008
7:00 PM
Boston at Montreal
CBC, RDS, VERSUS

Sun., April 13, 2008
7:00 PM
Montreal at Boston
CBC, RDS

Tues., April 15, 2008
7:00 PM
Montreal at Boston
CBC, RDS

Thurs, April 17, 2008
7:00 PM
Boston at Montreal
CBC, RDS

Sat., April 19, 2008
TBD
Montreal at Boston
CBC, RDS

Mon., April 21, 2008
TBD
Boston at Montreal
CBC, RDS

This'll be over in like five games, tops.

=//Turnquest


2008/04/02

Discrimination and Jobs

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/editorial/story.html?id=8f3ff4b8-31d9-4526-96b4-fb510150458d



Muslim immigrants are getting a raw deal
The Gazette Editorial

Quebec wants French-speaking immigrants with up-to-date skills that can be put to use immediately in the knowledge economy. Enter Abdelmajid, 35, a Moroccan-born computer-systems technician - fluently French-speaking, young, energetic, motivated to succeed in his new country.

A match made in heaven? Not for Abdelmajid. Like countless others in his situation, he is still looking for work four months after he arrived here, our Jan Ravensbergen reported this week.

Many others have been here four years, and longer, still trying to get their credentials acknowledged or even to find any kind of work. In the post-9/11 world, immigrants with Arab backgrounds are struggling with an unspoken, unacknowledged reluctance to accept them.

Abdelmajid, who asked that his family name not be published, said he has sent out more than 300 detailed resumés but has been called to only four interviews. Quebec's unemployment rate for Arabic-speaking immigrants is over 30 per cent.

This waste of manpower is more than an economic inefficiency. It represents a human tragedy that is being played out wherever democracies accept Muslim immigrants. It is no fault of his that terrorists continue to kill in the name of Islam and that as a result it has become common, almost acceptable, to question the loyalty and legitimacy of Arab immigrants to the West.

Last year, an opinion poll for Sun Media found that Canadians held Arab Canadians in the lowest esteem of all minority communities. And as Khaled Mouammar, president of the Canadian Arab Federation, told the Toronto Sun in an interview, when "people have low esteem of an ethnic group, they're not going to hire them, or socialize with them."

Jobs are of inestimable importance in the process of integration. People left to flounder and fail at the margins of society are not going to integrate. Everyone loses.

In Quebec, the trends are all pointing the wrong way. The unemployment rate among all immigrants has jumped to 17.3 per cent, triple the overall provincial rate.

Immigration Minister Yolande James plans to inject $68 million over three years to help immigrants find work. Well, something has to be done and the money is a start.

But what should it be spent on? Public reminders to private employers not to let irrational fears stand in the way of all the talent and energy that immigrants offer? It's an idea. The government should also look to itself; its track record in hiring anybody other than old-stock francophones is a disgrace.

If we want to attract skilled, educated people from around the world, Canada owes them fair treatment.

What is required is a sustained, intelligent effort to help such immigrants integrate into the workforce. Once someone has a job, good things tend to follow: social integration, skills upgrading, freedom, self-esteem and participation in the wider community.

These things are worth every cent of that

$68 million the government has just devoted to the problem - and more.

Despicable, disgusting, common.

=//Turnquest