14-Jan-2007: Pride and Prejudice
When I was a school-aged child during the 1950's, most of what I learned, I learned from those around me. Other
kids my age were always willing to let me in on some secret or other about the mystifying adult world.
I learned things like: women are lousy drivers. It was clear. When a woman was involved in an automobile
accident, it was because she was a woman-driver. When a man was involved in an accident, it was
because the road was slippery, the other guy cut him off, or some bastard blinded him with "High-beams"—whatever
those were. If a woman had trouble starting a car it was because she "flooded" it—whatever that was. If a man had a similar problem it was
because a valve was stuck or the "alternator" was acting up. These things were just words to me, with no meaning or
association with anything that I knew. The incompetence of woman drivers was simply a given that I did not question.
Another thing that was crystal clear was that the police arrested only "bad guys;" so, it was obvious that whomever they arrested was
guilty. If they were found to be innocent and released, that meant they had a fancy high priced lawyer who used some tricks to get them off. Just having
been arrested meant you were shunned for the rest of your life in the community; people would whisper and point, and we children
would watch with awe from a safe distance, or run away if we got too close. Our local detective was so good at his job that he once
punched out three bad guys with one swing.
Some other givens were that if you hung around with a Roman Catholic, the Pope would take away any future children you might
have. The Catholics went to that "other" school where they prayed to a statue all day and did mysterious things with beads. I stayed well
clear of them, as did my friends. There was a family of Catholics just up the road from our place, but I recall seeing some of the children only
once or twice and from a safe distance. My father enjoyed telling me about pitched battles he was in when young between the "Cat-lickers" and
the "Pot-lickers."
We lived in a very small town in south-western Ontario. The only immigrants were either Irish or Scottish—and we all got along like family. I
never saw a single person who was not white and from the British Isles until I was twelve and we moved to a small city. Even then, in that small
city, immigrants were from Western Europe; mostly Germany, with some Poles or Latvians. They were all white and fair haired. The only differences
between us were the accents, and that many of the fathers were quiet men with blue numbers tattooed on their fore-arms. But, man, could those children
sing! Our choirs were dominated with them. We had a true bass in our grade seven class.
The point is, I was raised in a isolation. There was no "racism" because there simply were no targets. My father told me something about his travels in the
United States where he saw Negros with no homes who lived in their Cadillacs. He might as well have been talking about a colony of Martians
for any impact it had on me. Oh, isn't that a curious fact? Just like the fact that in the South Pacific all the women wore grass skirts and were bare breasted. (My
father dreamed of retiring to such a place.) The outside world was a very large place where people lived in very strange ways. But, that's just how it was.
No hostile feelings directed towards the outside world—just a mild curiosity and indifference.
As for any social groups within Canada, there were those quaint folks in Quebec who spoke a foreign language. But, we knew them to be friendly and
jolly because, well, they were Canadians after all, and any folks songs were knew were bouncy and light. "Were you ever in Quebec? Donkey-riding, donkey-riding?"
Oh, there were Indians too, but they stayed on their reserves and we never saw them. They wore feathers in their hair and said "Ugh!" a lot. And the
"Eskimos!" They were happily eating blubber and living in igloos. The world was such an innocent place and I was proud to be Canadian because we were
very kind and tolerant with our minorities, in sharp contrast with the Americans who regularly lynched black folks and slaughtered Indians.
But, as you can probably tell, I moved on from that narrow world-view. I moved to Toronto at the age of 14. The first people I got to know were
the "rubbies" (men who drank rubbing alcohol) and prostitutes, along with a few homosexuals. There was nothing bad or evil about any of them. They were kind
to me, the middle-class kid who clearly did not belong there. Otherwise, they were just folks trying to get by in this world. Some of them had some serious
problems, but that did not mean they that they never got hungry and cold, or had nightmares. They were gratful for small things, like a cigarette or a bowl of
soup. They jealously guarded their few possessions. Perhaps a watch, or a lighter. I watched all this.
And, the longer I lived in Toronto the more diverse the people I got to know. Like the "hard-rock" gangs in Toronto East; children filled with anger because
of the abuse they had endured; homeless prophets preaching their peculiar salvations; university professors; coroners and psychiatrists; bank robbers; bar owners; writers; musicians;
friends who committed suicide; an outrageously funny quean; Black Panthers; I lived in the Italian ghetto and I lived with university students; priests; rabbis; preachers; social activists;
people who had lobotomies, or bolts of electricity shot through their brains; pregnant 16-year-olds; police bullies; damaged war veterans. Some of the people I met
went on to small fame; most disappeared from view. And, after seven years in Toronto, I moved to Montreal which was even more cosmopolitan than Toronto. I
graduated from university and all the while women drivers, omnipotent police, divisions between Catholics and Protestants, and the image of foreigners as quaint
curiosities fell by the wayside.
This is not to say that I am 100% free of any prejudice. Frankly, there are some people on this planet who frighten me and who I cannot understand, as much as I
try. Fundamentalists in any religion scare me. Committed Communists are in the same camp with American fundamentalist Christians and with the fanatical
Jihadists. Anyone who is 100% certain that he and only he knows the truth worries me the same as does anyone who thinks that religion is an alternative world-view
as opposed to the "scientific" one.
In the fall of 1962 the world was the closest to annihilation that it has ever been. All-out nuclear war between the USSR and the USA was very real and about to commence
at any hour of the day. I thought very hard on that day, trying to understand why the Russians seemed to be so anxious to destroy the entire
planet, restrained only by the retaliatory power of the USA. (Such was the propaganda of the time.) I tried to picture in my mind an ordinary Russian family
and what they would be going through, and I realized they were going through the very same thing that we in North America were. They, like us, were anxiously
watching the sky for a missile that was going to end everything we knew; or listening to the TV or radio waiting for the words we dreaded to hear. John F. Kennedy
was no different than Khrushchev—they were both the enemies of all life on this planet. At that moment, I became
the pantie-waisted, bleeding-heart liberal that the right wing likes to ridicule. And I still thank God that both men, in the final analysis, let their love of humanity
over-rule their political agendas; I can only hope that present and future leaders will follow the examples of Khrushchev and Kennedy.
Footnote: Another thing I learned: the word "Eskimo" is an insult; the people of Canada's north are the Inuit. The
word "Indian" is an insult when applied to the aboriginal North American settlers. The generic term is "First Nations;" preferably, one knows which Nation
is being referred to and uses that name, such as Montaignais, Ojibway, Iroquois, Blackfoot, or Kwakiutl. It's a matter of respect. And, of course we
all know that the word "Negro" is no longer appropriate.