Something my daughter told me the other day had me stopping in my tracks. A customer coming into the restaurant where she works said the following to a fellow server: “Women and colored people are meant to serve white men. It’s just the way of the world—but I’m not racist.”
I had to ask her to repeat what the guy had said, because it took me a second, once my jaw had dropped, to get past my shock and understand that it had really happened. Truly horrifying! What’s worse is that it was said by an older white man who wasn’t embarrassed in the least. The server he said it to happened to be not white, yet she swallowed her indignation and continued to serve him. Can you imagine having someone of a certain class say that to you and then just having to swallow it? As well, hearing that must have been absolutely embarrassing for any white man in the restaurant who didn’t hold those beliefs.
Apparently, the customer even continued, saying, “The island is meant for the wealthy, those who own it, and everyone who can’t afford it should leave.” Now, my first thought was anger that something like this had happened on a Gulf Island, in a country where you’d expect people would behave better—and honestly, most do, but there are always one or two who try to dig in their heels and push back against the kind of change we need to have.
This was an unfortunate reminder that talks about racism and bias and inequality must happen in every household. More often than not, in white households, parents are adamant that they’re raising non-racist children, yet they never talk to their kids about race, bias, inequality, or the horrific acts of the past and present against different minorities. They even refuse to talk about what is still happening today because they don’t want to upset their kids.
It was Malcolm X who said, “If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress.” We’re at six inches now, and the only way to make the kinds of changes that have to happen is to shine a spotlight on the issues and talk about them, to have all those uncomfortable talks that everyone needs to have.
We’ve come a long way from the eighties, where it was only a sea of white men holding positions of power. But unfortunately, even when minorities come into power and you think change will happen and inequality will be wiped out, events don’t unfold in the way we expect. What happens more often than not is that minorities who attain power and leadership positions in companies and institutions simply maintain the status quo rather than diving deep and shaking up the deeply embedded poisons that keep bias, inequality, and racism alive. Many discover that to hold on to their positions, their jobs, they have to conform, because that’s how it’s always been done.
Institutions were built and still thrive on inequality.
How long ago was it that a woman couldn’t get a loan to buy a house and her father would have to co-sign and approve the loan with the bank?
Then there was the truly appalling nightmare that an indigenous grandfather experienced not long ago when he took his young twelve year old granddaughter into the bank to open an account. According to the bank, the grandfather had a large chunk of cash deposited in his account as a result of a government settlement, a settlement that was long past due. The teller at the bank went to her manager about the ID the young girl produced, and about the grandfather’s account, and the police were called.
Now, this is where it gets murky. Citing questionable documents, and why the grandfather would have that large deposit in his account. This was despite the fact that the payment was not much by today’s standards. Then what did they do but the police handcuffed both the indigenous grandfather and his twelve-year-old granddaughter? Humiliated, the two were forced to stand outside the bank while it was sorted out. In the end, it was all because of a misunderstanding by the bank. Apparently, the teller or bank didn’t know about the Aboriginal rights settlement package.
I can’t imagine what that experience did to that grandfather or his granddaughter, the humiliation. Let’s be clear: That situation would never have happened if they were white.
We have to talk about what happened here.
Behind the scenes, in the institutions of power, in the deep state, men in suits control the political power that exists in everything, that operates in the background. They create our policies, our laws. They are leaders in the police, in politics, in big corporations… I could go on.
This became clear to me when I was having to fight for funding for my autistic son, going up against the kind of power I didn’t understand. I joined up with a group of mothers who navigated the courts and fought the government for six long years, a battle that emotionally kicked the shit out of each of them. The government then in power refused to fund medically necessary autism treatment, instead throwing a bottomless pit of money into an endless legal battle.
Even the opposition stood up and said, “Pay the money! You have to fund help for these kids.” But then an election came, and the old party was voted out, and the new one was voted in, and what happened? Instead of providing the promised medically necessary funding for our autistic kids, the new political party took up where the old party had left off in the court battle and refused to pay.
Something one of those mothers said made it all sink in: She told me the problem is that even when seemingly progressive politicians get voted in, behind the scenes are the same career politicians, and they are never voted out. They just keep running things.
When you learn that, it makes you see things differently.
The only way to make a change is to understand the perception that for a white man, the door is open. It always has been. They walk through that door, and how many of them turn around to see what is happening to everyone else? Minorities, people of color, and the marginalized have to fight every day at the same door, which is closed to them. Some are able to open it, while others find it locked and realize they will never have the key.
Many understand that they have to find another way in, through a window after climbing a twelve-foot ladder—and they do get in. They don’t let obstacles stop them. Instead, they overcome. The problem is that if you see an open door and take the easy way, if you don’t see or understand how the same door could be locked for someone who doesn’t look like you or have your resources, how can you change anything?
This is a step-on-your-toes blog. The conversation has to happen. Parents have to talk to their kids, and schools have to teach kids not the glossed-over and edited version of history but the uncomfortable truth of what really happened and still is.
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The Cold Case
What happens when you stumble across a case that should never have been closed?
Detective Mark Friessen uncovers a disturbing mystery: A little girl was taken, but when evidence disappeared, the case was closed.
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