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I can't believe what I just read in Canada's MSM
October 11, 2009 - 10:16am
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Wasn't sure whether to put this here, or in the aboriginal issues and culture area, but unfortunately this place seems to be the better fit.
I'm outraged that someone would write this garbage, let alone that a mainstream newspaper in Canada would publish it. This is sickening blatant racism, no doubt about it.
New Team Canada hockey jersey too NativeIt's time we stopped portraying Canada with such a heavy emphasis on our Native roots.
Our home and Native land has been shaped by the aboriginals who were here on this land first, but they no longer define the country.
It's hard to argue the influence of the Native people on the West Coast, especially in Vancouver. A trip to Stanley Park drives it home.
But when we think of Vancouver and, by extension, look forward to the Winter Olympics, do you really think Inukshuk?
Vancouver is a thriving, diverse, cosmopolitan playground where you can ski and swim on the same day, explore the mountains, and eat like you're in China.
Yet the Olympic organizers chose an Inukshuk as the logo for the 2010 Games -- a northern symbol more than a west coast one. That's our face to the world.
Then Team Canada, forced to give up the Hockey Canada logo on the front of the sweater due to International Olympic Committee rules banning sports federation crests, showed up with its redesigned Canadian shirt yesterday.
The new crest, created by Native artist Debra Sparrow, from the Musqueam First Nation, with help from the good people at Nike, includes smaller Maple Leafs depicting the number of gold medals won by Canadian men's, women's and sledge hockey teams; the thunderbird and eagle, two First Nations symbols; a hockey player and stick; a fleur-de-lis, beaver, fish, moose, and a whole lot more.
Sparrow said the intention of her design was to show viewers of the Games that Canadian athletes are connected to a strong heritage.
There are some interesting elements, and it's far from being offensive, but is this really the right choice to put on the chests of our multimillion-dollar athletes playing Canada's game?
We've missed the mark, but we lit the lamp on political correctness. Hooray for us.
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/editorial/2009/08/18/10493106-sun.html
http://cameronholmstrom.blogspot.com/2009/08/sun-media-cross-checks-abor...
Somebody should remind Mr. Granatstein that were it not for the people of the First Nations helping the European thieves to plunder millions of greasy little watery rodents and other resources, and for pitching in with their miserable little wars agains other European thieves, that there would not be a KKKanada as he knows it.
Did you notice this line: ...is this really the right choice to put on the chests of our multimillion-dollar athletes?
Yeah, why have our boys identify with Natives when they're so much richer than them? (gag reflex)What else would one expect from Sun Media?
"as one of Canada's three founding peoples, Aboriginal Canadians have just as much of a right to be represented on that jersey as anyone."
Worthy of a repeat.
I saw the jersey's public release on the news, and thought they were fabulous, even though I am in disagreement with the olympics in general.
Also , I believe an apology must be demanded of Mr. Granatstein, by everyone across Canada.
He manages to disparage ALL Aboringals and diminish their history and Rights, insult the hockey players themselves by representing them as bigots, as well as colonizer Canadians, be they hockey fans, or not, by making it appear is if everyone, like him, believe First Peoples must be further mistreated, marginalized and deprived of their Rights, and equal (at least) participation.
FM: What else would one expect from Sun Media?
Where do you get that any of us is surprised?
More and better! Which need to be demanded and not just let go as "typical".
That it is posted here, Martin. Why repost that sort of trash? Sun Media thrives off of it. The whole point of printing it in the first place is to poke an eye.
"More and better! Which need to be demanded and not just let go as "typical"."
But it is typical, Remind. The value of demanding an improvement from Sun Media is equal to demanding an improvement from Fox News. They know who their market is and they pander to it even if it is the knuckle-dragging, porn consuming, dog kicking, appliance tossing, pleasure killing dregs of society. That is their market and they like the Sun just as it is and they nod their heads in complete agreement with the trash therein assuming they got past the semi naked female.
Better just not to read it, don't repost it, just accept it for what it is and treat those who do read it like smokers in a day care.
...just accept it for what it is...
Don't count on me.
I think I will because you seem like a smart enough person to know which battles can be won and which can't. But if you do have the time to convince the reactionaries of the right wing media their world view is all wrong, why not start with one that really matters like the Washington Post?
It is not so much about convincing reactionaries that their world view is all wrong as it is about raising righteous anger against them, even among a readership you dismiss a bit too easily.
The righteous anger part I get. I will confess to being somewhat cynical with regard to the committed readership of Sun Media.
Well the mainstream media reach a lot of people (including "NorthReport"), and if you are ready to write all of them off as incapable of discerning stupidity when they see it or it is pointed out to them, isn't that a little classist?...
Most Canadians do not read the Washington Post
I'm not talking about the MSM, Martin. I am talking about Sun Media. And Sun Media is indeed classist. It supports the interests of the investor classes over all others but does so by tailoring their news and opinion to the working classes. Sun Media, you might not have noticed, is an activist news organization. It has an agenda that it pushes forward relentlessly and, one might say, successfully.
I think this sort of argument again points to why the left fails so often, The right, for example, wastes not a breath nor an ounce of energy in attempting to persuade, say, ZMag, to accept neo-liberal philosophy or conventional plunder and loot economics. The left, on the otherhand, wastes tremondous time and energy pretending an organization like Sun Media should not be written off and reposting the racist trash they find within its pages.
Standing outside Sun Media offices and singing Kumbya will not win the left anything but more ridicule. They are not on our side, Martin, and they never will be. And if Sun Media readers can discern stupidity when they see it or read it, one would think they would stop wasting their money. It may be I'm not quite as classist as you are Martin, because I believe the majority of Sun Media readers know what it says, accepts what it says, and read Sun Media for the same reason US viewers watch Fox, because it reinforces their biases and preconceptions rather than challenging them.
Yes, but if your mission is impossible you might as well go for the big one.
I hate to break it to ya FM, but the Toronto Sun, whether you like it or not, is an integral part of the mainstream press.
Here's the thing.
This forum is not only about anti-racism news and initiatives. It's also the "dumping ground" for "OMG this is so racist" news items. I don't like it, but there ya go.
NorthReport, you titled this thread "I can't believe what I just read in Canada's MSM". But the article is from a very specific outlet of the corporate media, Sun Media. Yes they are part of the MSM/corporate media, but they are also, well, Sun Media. Their reputation precedes them. I also think we may not know who Sun readers are as well as we think, and being all "boutique lefties" about it doesn't help. POC read the Sun too.
And if you "can't believe it" then that means you have some other expectation for Sun Media as a media outlet, yes? Many of us don't share those expectations.
And as far as I know, there are no progressive, anti-racist groups in Canada who are lobbying for Sun Media to change it's editorial policy. We like to establish achievable goals, most of the time. I might see about getting a campaign to protest this idiot article, but who knows where it will go.
Well, in Quebec City, a campaign was mounted - by a few women, including an awesome women of colour, my friend Mirlande Demers who created from her wheelchair the Coalition Against Discrimination - to challenge a shock jock Jeff Filion and his radio station CHOI-FM that were the equivalent of Sun Media in terms of popularity, gross sexism, racism, ableism and what not.
They organized forums, wrote letters, lobbied, - one went so far as to sue - they demonstrated, stood up to jeers and discouraging words, published, shamed the CRTC into listening to hundreds of protesters, and THEY WON. They turned back a right-wing drift movement that had traditional politicos wringing their hands. They appealed to people's common sense and sense of values, against pseudo-prog cynics who were ready to write off the working class as a bunchoffuckingidiots.
The kind of crap we are discussing isn't limited to Sun Media. The National Post and other similar dailies spout it day after day. Our own Journal de Montréal hosts columnists who wipe their feet on political minorities day after day.
There is no alternative to resistance.
Yes, a part of the whole but not the whole. I'm sorry to break that to you.
Radio and the air waves are licensed and regulated. Newspapers are not. There have been many, many campaigns against the Sun and the Sun thrives on them. It is like trying to separate the Republican base by shaming Sarah Palin. It has the opposite effect. Again, the Sun is an activist newspaper with an agenda. It is not just disgusting because iits writers, efitors, and publishers lack awareness. It is an activist newspaper in the same way some of us are activist citizens. It drives an agenda, supports political interests, and views the left and allies as the enemy.
"POC read the Sun too."
Yes, Maysie, and a lesbian writes reactionary columns for the Sun and is seeking St. Pauls riding for the Ontario Conservatives. Some people put class before identity, not to suggest that all readers do, but many people also buy into the nonsense, sold by the Sun, that we live in a classless society even while the Sun openly promotes the interests of one class over all others.
P.S. Is it possible this would be better under media?
Maysie, often we give the other mainstream press too much credit. Some of them are a bit more subtle with their approach. And I disagree with the suggestion to not challenge them, because regardless of whether or not babblers read the Sun Media, a sizeable portion of our society that still do purchase print media read this crap. Unfortunately it sinks in over time. I usually don't spend a lot of time reading Sun Media, would never ever buy it, and what brought my attention to the article was Cameron Holstrom's blog, which I linked to in post #3 above.
One of the issues I have with a lot of the so-called professions is their amazing ability to frequently protect themselves and not challenge their own. I thought there was something like a Canadian Press Council that supposedly upholds some kind of press standards? Obviously there is not, or it's all smoke and mirrors.
It is like trying to separate the Republican base by shaming Sarah Palin.
I don't understand how you see a popular movement as addressing only the Sun and its readers (or the Repugs and their base) as if these were closed groups with an agenda that can only be strenghtened by opposition. Breaking news: Palin and the Repugs were DEFEATED, not because the Repugs "saw the light" but because enough people - women, basically - steered away from endorsing them, in part because of Palin's antics and the people that pointed them out. Regardless of government legislating of the airwaves (give me a break, please!), it was popular disapproval of CHOI-FM's worst antics - put out for all to see by the activist work of Mirlande Demers, Diane Vincent ("La radio de confrontation au Québec"), TV host Sophie Chiasson and the more than 10,000 people who wrote in protest, that finally forced CHOI-FM to dump Fillion and shock radio vermin to be somewhat beaten back into the woodwork*. Media impact on a general audience and they answer to advertisers and to bad publicity. Unless you want to rewrite history, you will find that boycott and protest campaigns have often prevailed against ingrained, obdurate RW organizations and governments, and not because these organizations' and people's convictions were changed, but because the general population came to see them as hostile to the common interest, forcing decisions by worried owners.
*Former RW radio host Jean-François Plante, a masculinist, is trying to make a comeback as Mario Dumont's replacement at the helm of the Association Démocratique du Québec, Quebec's most openly populist, RW party. It will be interesting to see his most egregious quotes used against him in the leadership race.
Ah Hah!!!! "nless you want to rewrite history, you will find that boycott and protest campaigns have often prevailed against ingrained, obdurate RW organizations and governments."
How many boycotts have been organized against the Sun? Anyone? Let's start with CUPW waaaaay back in the '70s. The reason I cited Sarah Palin, and she may win yet -- George W. won twice, is not to draw a line between points of view and success, but to draw a parallel between organizations, people, and ideological movements that thrive on opposition. I'll bow out of this conversation now, because head banging does me no good, but what you can't or won't understand is that Sun media in Canada IS the voice of radical, permanently aggrieved right wing identity politics. The angry white male with a perception of persecution by socialists, liberals, gays, women, environmentalists, and people of color is exactly their audience. Do they have in their stable of writers people of color. Yes! I give you Salim Mansur. Enjoy.
Well "it can't be done" is often a self-fulfilling prophecy... but some of us are hard of hearing!
Junyer (bush) did not win 2 times.... maybe in '04 the numbers rang up, but 2000 was outright fraud. Shades of 1876, when a reformer named 'Tilden' won easily, but still finally lost to Rutherford Hayes (as recounted in Gore Vidal's splendid ''1876''- Vidal tells about the bizarre twist where the democrats, in defiance of the then southers, stole the election from goodguy Tilden; the corrupt President US Grant's man Hayes tricked the Dems by secretly promising to remove Federal troops from souther cities etc leading to jim crow era, which swung a couple key states re óhio/'floriduh...) the blatancy of it is astonishing, like 2k was!
As far as main topic, no one heard the ryan doyle goof on cfrb other night complaining about the hiring 1st nations people by the Olympic's security company. Doyle was angered that out of 5000 guard jobs, 1500 were set aside for 1st nations people, which doyle felt was unjust. I wasn't able to call in, though, to try explain to doyle that, first off, shouldn't doyle be whining to the white men who make these decisions, not the native people who are incidental to them? And isn't it likely that anti olympic protestors, who see the entire 2010 olypicss thing as a rip off, might enlist angry 1st nations people for protests- which would make having 1st nations security guards a wise idea, no? The fact is, the msm is reactionary and dishonest, Sun Media is just typical, though moreso. Even CBC waxes eloquent about how wonderful we're doing in Afghanistan (and how DND is aggressively recruiting among 1st nations unemployed- as featureed in a recent program)
Face it, racism is NOW ok, as long as you can glibly dismiss any accusations of it, or as long as you can pretend the accusation was found baseless, or as long as your racist pals in media will say the accuser is the nazi racist, and the racist is just innocent reporter trying to do a job...
Uncle Joe and Chairmam Mao had the right idea regards reactionaries, it turns out...
And then you have the rare reasonable column in the Sun Media, unrelated of course to the initial post.
http://www.ottawasun.com/comment/columnists/michael_harris/2009/08/20/10...
Reallly? Which part of it did you find reasonable? The NDP should fold and join the Liberals part? The linked article is very effective propaganda all reasonable sounding and minus the usual histrionics. A left party can't win so best to abandon the whole thing and join a centre-right party so that the further right can foucs all their ammunition on a single target. Sure.
Yes really, but I'll take my response to a more appropriate thread.
RE: Our home and Native land has been shaped by the aboriginals who were here on this land first, but they no longer define the country.
I think this has more to do with the values that Adrianne Clarkson's husband associates with the First Nations peoples, Metis and Inuit in his book - community, equality, cooperation etc. These values contrast greatly with the values associated with the Conservative party of Canada.
I don't see it so much as a dissing of First Nations peoples as it is a dissing of the traditional values of First Nations peoples, Metis and Inuit.
I see nothing wrong with the design. I see everything wrong with Conservative values.