A few months ago, our federal government created a banking program meant for “black entrepreneurs” only (http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/150.nsf/eng/home).
Now, they are creating a housing program for “black Canadians”… as if there are different types of Canadian citizens.
Why don’t our politicians see the danger of what they are doing to us? They are dividing us by the shades of our skin colour. Does that makes any sense? Perhaps to you, but surely not to Bambi ( https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/government-of-canada-announces-housing-support-for-black-canadian-families-826778853.html).
You would think that if you need help with housing, it is because you are in financially difficult circumstances, period.
Indeed, you can be black, blue, green, red, or white and yet you can be either rich or poor. You can be short or fat, ugly or a king/queen of beauty and yet, you can find yourself in the upper socio-economic status (SES) or in the lower SES.
Plus, how is our government going to test citizens for their eligibility to such programs? Will they start performing a skin test for the shades of its colour :)?
Bambi seems to be joking, but she does not find all these programs funny anymore. She rather finds them insulting to the Canadian citizen she is and to the immigrant who chose Canada as her final home, precisely because Canada does not resort to such stupidities like in other countries.
Now, if you think that the obsession of our society with “systemic racism” is slowing down, you are wrong. First, check how our government calls deer like Bambi. It calls them: “racialized“. Can you imagine the insult underlying this term? Bambi sees herself as a citizen rather. She may have a certain ethno-linguistic background, as an old immigrant (which we all are. Some of us across generations and generations). Yet she is Canadian. Period.
She sees Canada as ONE country, and not as a postnational hotel with tribes of “racialized groups”. She refuses to fall into this trap of “each tribe calling itself a nation“, to cite Mr. Gibran Khalil Gibran about Lebanon. She is too patriotic on one hand and too lucid on the other. She saw how her tiny birth country was divided and sub-divided… until it has weakened. This is why is is being easily taken over by regional entities (Iran et al.).
To come back to our Canada, it is going crazy with all these racial obsessions. Enough, please.
If you still not believe Bambi, look how our government now seems to be slowly but surely imposing those views even in its main health funding agency. Instead of keeping its focus on science and merit ONLY, it is now bringing those ideologies into the equation. Can you imagine? It seems to want to prove that these agencies are filled with the so-called systemic racism. Our Canadian Institutes of Health Research is composed of 13 virtual institutes that fund medical research (e.g, Cancer research; Infection and immunity; Neurosciences mental health, addictions; Institute of Child, youth, and human development; Indigenous people’s heath; Genetics; Women and gender, etc.). It is far from being perfect and it can do better for sure. However, it does what it is supposed to be doing: funding excellence in health research across the country and allowing Canadian researchers to compete and collaborate among each other and internationally. We excel in may areas around the world (e.g. Maternal and child health, such as research on premature birth or in health issues related to aging, to give a couple of examples).
https://cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/52258.html
Bambi recently accepted an invitation to participate in a research project (as a participant). One of the demographic questions was about her ethnic background. Well, the list was LONG and rather funny with its categories and sub-categories… Well, she skipped the list to its end and chose “Other”. Next to it she wrote: “A proud Canadian :)”.
To come back to our government, and to conclude this post, Bambi urges Mr. Trudeau et al. to pause to think about the direction they are taking us into, as a country. Despite their good intentions, the outcomes of such racial policies (in 5, 10, 25 or 50-100 years) can be VERY ugly for Canada. Indeed, at one point, too much of a good thing (wanting equity at all costs to the point of seeing problems where they aren’t, etc.) can become a bad thing. Please wake up… Thank you.
