March 12, 2014
I like to try to get outside myself, my own way of thinking, my own culture, to try better understand others. There is so much I do not know or understand. I guess that is why I sometimes write on this page. It might sound like incoherent ramblings or preachy but it is my learning process. You are welcome to my learning curve. I always say that you can learn something from any situation even if you do not agree or you are not heard. Recently I had a conversation about First Nations logos and mascots with someone who is not First Nations. This brought up a lot of questions as to why someone would respond the way they do and why I respond the way I do. Why does each person feel they are correct? The only view that this person wanted to see this issue from was by placing it inside a box. A box that did not have race, color, religion, creed, etc.. Anything else was derailing from the issue, which was the mascot/logo had nothing to do with perceived racism but rather a school’s history, pride, & spirit. At first I wanted to say that they were whitewashing the issue, but then I thought First Nations were whitewashing themselves here, lol. Canadians have the right not to have culture and religion pushed on them. However I felt like the issue was deeper and how dare anyone say I didn’t have a right to state otherwise. So a lot of issues came up for me, such as whitewashing, cultural sensitivity, re-appropriation. While for them these issues did not exist and could not exist in the context of some First Nations getting rid of the image/logo. That made me feel like I was put inside a box in a closet, because what I was saying was inconvenient. I see this lot in society, where people want to put the cultures inside these boxes and put neatly into closets. Hidden from plain view