Lieberman's appalling views and his visit to Canada should not be acceptable to anyone with a modicum of respect for human rights.

- Sid Shniad, Independent Jewish Voices.

What: Protest against Israel's foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman

When: 7:30pm, Monday, September 19, 2011

Where: Outside the venue where Lieberman is speaking, the Jewish Community Centre (Note: the centre is not the event sponsor), 950 W. 41st Ave, near Oak St., Vancouver.

Why: "We are extremely distressed by the Harper government's welcoming of this visit by Israel's extremist, racist foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, a man who has openly advocated ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians," said Sid Shniad, spokesperson for Independent Jewish Voices.

I have high regard for President Barack Hussein Obama. His ascent to the presidency was a magnificent moment in history. As an African-American citizen with a Canadian family, it was a particularly poignant moment for me to actually have been in the U.S. to vote for him.

The Obama campaign for the presidency offered much to admire and learn from. But a very significant aspect of President Obama's victory was his vision for the United States, which was primarily one of inclusiveness. His plea was, and after his second State of the Union address essentially remains, that the fulfillment of a nation's destiny can only be achieved by harnessing the potential of all its people, not just a select few or elite. Whatever else his problems may be, we can learn a lot from this.

A recent discussion over a cup of coffee with friends in Edmonton brought up four very different examples that had me considering how indigenous culture is flagrantly (mis)appropriated and twisted.

They are: a self-proposed, self-described "chosen shaman" of multiple indigenous nations named "Little Grandmother," the deaths and injuries that took place in an appropriated sweat lodge at a "New Age" retreat in Arizona in 2009, a noted pretender who once taught at my Alma Mater in Minnesota, and a "Quantum Healing" business in Saskatoon.

In 1979, Canadian students produced a TV program called Campus Giveaway against what they called a "foreign" (i.e. Chinese-Canadian) takeover of university campuses. Chinese-Canadian students protested the equating of "Chinese" with "foreign" and challenged the exaggerated statistics used to justify the arguments of the program.

I must admit that I learned about the criticism of the "Too Asian?" article in Maclean's before I actually read it. I received emails asking me to write letters of protest to universities that were warning of an "Asian invasion," help with community outreach, and was later invited to two "Youth Coalition Against Maclean's ‘Too Asian'" meeting in Toronto and Waterloo. The Chinese Canadian National Council also condemned the article for fostering an "us versus them" mentality.