Live. Breathe. Relax… do Yoga.

The following article appeared in the paper this passed week and I must say that it’s riled me a wee bit. Not because I’m at odds with the writer, but, rather, because of the incessant need humans seem to have to divide ourselves. I’ve provided the web link in case you don’t trust my presentation of this article. If you care to put a bit of trust my way, then the article itself is below, followed by my commentary:

http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/opinion/story.html?id=3820ba7d-9565-4ecd-9dd1-4526219ba487

White race is a fiction, despite supremacist and academic claims
Labelling generic racial groups always problematic

Leonard Stern
Ottawa Citizen
Sunday, June 10, 2007

White supremacists have long argued they are victims of a double standard. They complain that in today's world of globalization and multiculturalism, everyone except them is allowed to celebrate ethnic or racial identity.
There are black history months, Asian of the Year awards, Caribana festivals and gay pride parades. There are organizations such as the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Canadian Arab Federation. But if you try to express "white pride," you are instantly branded a racist. As one writer complains on a neo-Nazi website, non-whites are allowed "to think of themselves as groups with interests distinct from those of the whole, and to work openly for group advantage (whereas) only whites are ever told that a love for their own people is somehow 'hatred' of others."
An intriguing argument, but one I've always rejected on the grounds that the "white" race is a fiction. There are, of course, people of European stock, and they are free to celebrate their heritage. The Irish have St. Patrick's Day, the Scottish have the Glengarry Highland Games. Germans do Oktoberfest. Ethnic nationalism is perfectly legitimate, based as it is on an ancestral homeland and shared historical memory.
The so-called white pride movement, however, is of questionable legitimacy because it proposes an identity based on white as a skin colour, when "white" people represent different languages, cultures, geographies, religions and histories. It's akin to proposing a nationalism for Honda Civic drivers. The Civic is such a generic car that those who drive them have little in common except the coincidence of their car ownership.
"Whiteness" as an identity could theoretically work in places where whites are a minority, and where the non-white majority defines and perhaps persecutes this white minority according to skin colour. But in societies such as Canada, where the white population is hugely diverse and itself the majority? Hard to make a case for a white identity movement.
Or so I thought. It now appears that white nationalists have indirect backing for their argument, and from an unlikely source -- left-wing intellectuals. At last month's annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, a number of professors argued it's high time that white Canadians recognized how whiteness is central to their identity. One of the conference papers was titled But White is a Colour.
The supremacists want to legitimize white identity so that white people can celebrate that identity, whereas the liberal academics want to legitimize white identity so that white people can atone for it.
As long as a white person is oblivious to his whiteness, suggest the academics, he will be oblivious to the unfair privileges he enjoys in a society that oppresses non-whites.
The premise here is that Canada is fundamentally a racist society, and every white person is complicit. The Globe and Mail interviewed one professor who explained that "there is lots of discomfort and shame" when he tells white students that "they play a role in the problem" of systemic racism.
This is a retro moment, recalling the 1990s, when identity politics was out of control. I remember university seminars where students couldn't offer an opinion on this or that poem without first confessing all our identities (gay or straight, middle- or working-class, and so on) so that everyone would know that the opinion offered was merely the sum of our prejudices.
The moral authority you carried was proportional to the number of oppressed groups to which you could claim membership. In literature classes, this was especially frustrating, because fictional heroes are often lonely, marginalized figures, and if you as the literary critic didn't personally belong to a marginalized group, well, you brought little credibility.
Most offensive about identity politics was its determinism, and it is here where the most obnoxious elements of the right and left merge.
Rightists who promote white identity believe that skin colour, or race, determines what you are -- skim through some white-pride literature and you'll see the crude generalizations about blacks, Asians and others.
Liberal academics seeking to raise race consciousness among white people also have a deterministic view: If you are white, you are racist, or an instrument of racism, even if you don't know it. The corollary is that non-whites are by definition victims.
The world is more complex than this. One of the nastiest recent acts of racism in Canada was the torching of a Jewish school library in Montreal.
The perpetrator was -- surprise! -- a member of a minority, Muslim-Canadians. In the U.S., some of the most intense homophobia anywhere is found within the black community, whose members are supposed to be sensitive to issues of prejudice.
Spot-the-oppressor is a tricky game to play these days. Identity politics can get ugly. Anyone who wants to throw "whiteness" into an already volatile mix needs to proceed with caution.
Leonard Stern is the Ottawa Citizen's editorial pages editor.
lstern@thecitizen.canwest.com

As a “fictitious white person of European stock”, let me begin by stating that I really resent that the “fictitious white” perspective shared by White Supremacists was even given space in this debate of perceived double standards and reverse discrimination. White Supremacists are driven by hate and ignorance and the only attention their views should be given should be done by their psychiatrists. A sense of one’s culture is very different from one’s hate driven agenda.
Stern states: “I've always rejected on the grounds that the "white" race is a fiction. There are, of course, people of European stock, and they are free to celebrate their heritage. The Irish have St. Patrick's Day, the Scottish have the Glengarry Highland Games. Germans do Oktoberfest. Ethnic nationalism is perfectly legitimate, based as it is on an ancestral homeland and shared historical memory.” Okay, he has a point. Does that then mean that all Blacks are the same – whether they are African, Americans or South Americans? How about Brown people from India or Pakistan or Sri Lanka? My point is colour can not define anyone. As I tell my students and my child, skin is simply a bag to hold in all the gunk that make us tick. I use the example of a nice pair of shoes to demonstrate my point: a $100 pair of Nike’s, whether in a brown paper bag or a gold box are still the same pair of shoes. The same applies to people – the wrapping tells you very little of what’s inside. Stern’s Honda Civic metaphor also makes this point.
What makes me so angry is the perceived need that we need to make culture – which are the only real differences – a political issue. Culture is not a “political vehicle”. Culture is, quite simply, how you live. It’s the language you speak, the clothes that you wear, the food you eat, the god you do or don’t worship, the music you listen too. This too becomes a dangerous thing to categorize as it lends to stereotypes. Each and every one of us are individuals who should be treated as equals, but, in doing so via the spirit of political correctness, we have lived up to the quote from Orwell’s Animal Farm: “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”. Human Nature has warranted this to a degree, but it has become more of a fashion as opposed to a practice of common sense. Take the special treatment of Aboriginals in this country. I hold nothing against Aboriginals (or anyone else), but the apologetic politics in this nation is a joke. There is no culture in this world that’s not been subjected to tyranny and hardship. We must do our best to ensure such travesties do not occur again, but we must also question the extent of the compensation we are willing to give. The Aboriginal people were treated terribly and exploited by the Europeans and we should be taught about these terrible acts. Likewise, we should be taught of the 20 million Ukrainians killed by Stalin, the millions of Irish who died in famines, in coffin ships and under English occupation, 6 million Jews, the genocide victims in Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia…. No one has escaped hate, and, if anything, we should be looking at our common needs as opposed to finding ways to separate and divide us. I agree wholeheartedly with the statement: “Most offensive about identity politics was its determinism, and it is here where the most obnoxious elements of the right and left merge.”
My favorite festival is the Heritage Festival in Edmonton. It is a time full of food, music and celebrating how we live. That is the proper venue for culture. It is a celebration of life and a bit like traveling the world in your own backyard.
Forget the bag your bones and blood are in, to hell with our notions of “tribes” or “clans”. Celebrate life. Love and respect one another and, if you are unable to love, then at least try not to hate. Fight for justice, save our environment and fight the corporate and powers that seek to label, market and divide us. Live. Breathe. Relax… do Yoga.