Do Americans and Canadians Have Different Ideas on Racism?

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i think it can be said that a big difference between the USA & Canada is that we Canadians aren't religious aboot our identity -- we don't think of it as this sacred, break-it-and-you-die thing, where in the USA, the USA is a religion (a civil religion), where people will die to protect it, for both good and bad...also, the USA is really two fundamentally different countries, the South and the not South -- people in the South live in an honour society and there are actual empirical indications that this has real effects on people, like their fight-or-flight response activated by insults, as opposed to Northerners who can shrug it off better?

so Canadians can more readily laugh aboot Canadians, but for Americans, its more difficult?

and saying that a Canadian is racist has a different connotation than saying an American is racist?

and 'Canadians' obsess aboot different things than Americans -- for Americans, things like the rights of the individual, the Founding Fathers, lifting one's self up by one's bootstraps are sacred...for 'Canadians'...umm...err...copyright law & universal health care?

or something like that?
 
RitaTG said:
Thank you for the answer Jae ...... I will take that as Canada being less backslidden ..... for whatever that is worth...
I too am concerned about the attitudes that are seeping over the border.
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My evangelical friends would tell me that Canada is more backslidden. Less biblical. More turned away from God.
 
Pr. Jae said:
My evangelical friends would tell me that Canada is more backslidden. Less biblical. More turned away from God.
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I am not surprised ..... not at all ...... now I wonder what metrics your friends are using to determine that.....
 
Me too. Because if I was looking at it from the outside, I'd say that just the fact that we've got universal healthcare makes us automatically more 'godly' - looking after those most in need - than our neighbour.
 
I note that ableism is the most prevalent on both sides of the border, all over the world, and across sexes, races, religions...across every single demographic. Unlike other groups that share a common or central identity, the only thing people with disabilities share in common is that they are disadvantaged and discriminated against in society because of physical or mental impairments.
 
We Canadians pride ourselves in practicing social responsibility. In the United States, it is every man for himself, and socialism is unconstitutional and a dirty word. :rolleyes:
 
the border with the US along the prairies, especially Alberta, has always been a thin one. The opening of our prairies came just as American farmers were running out of land. So they came across in great numbers. It is not accident that Alberta has a strong 'conservative' tradition', and one with fundamentalist connections.

The border is also disappearing as free trade has enabled capitalists to desert their own countries to invest in countries whose poverty provides cheap labour, and under conditions unfettered by environmental laws to all those silly social programmes - like public schools. Since the capitalists also own both the Canadian and American governments, they have the best of all world - and the existence of a border is irrelevant.

The problem of the US is that it is less stable than Canada, largely due not so much to its racism (We have just as much), but due to the number of Americans vulnerable to racism.)

As well, almost a quarter of all children in the US live in poverty. And it's rapidly getting worse as even public schools are privatizing, closing the poor out even more effectively. And it's made worse by the US lack of social services. The major religion in the US is greed. We're close, but not there yet. If Harper is re-elected, that will be the end of Canada.
 
"We Canadians pride ourselves in practicing social responsibility."

Do you think this is still the case?
 
We are living through a serious recession creating by greedy and often illegal acts by big business such a banks and other lending agencies. The people who caused the recession were able to get us to bail them out - and to cut their taxes. As a result, we are getting less, and we are the ones being taxed for the sins of those who created this crisis - and they are making their highest profits in history as everybody else gets poorer. The reaction of Harper and most other political leaders has been to cut social programmes, raised taxes on all but the very rich --and I don't see any social responsibiilty in that.
 
GeoFee said:
"We Canadians pride ourselves in practicing social responsibility."

Do you think this is still the case?
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Yes, I think most Canadians do. Wasn't Tommy Douglas voted the most eminent Canadian just a few years ago? We like to define ourselves as "unamerican," and this how our "unamercanism" shows itself. I think the Conservatives, who are trying to "americanize" us, will be thrown out of office at the next federal election.
 
Graeme ... I was responding within the context of the everyday citizen.
I do agree that big business and government have unfortunately been more American like in their response to social needs.
 
Here is a benchmark:
In an article on homelessness MacClean's magazine said:
Ultimately, the nation's response to the homeless will measure the value Canadians place on the lives of fellow citizens - no matter what their circumstances may be.
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The article was published in February of 1987. I wonder how the nation's response has affected the lived experience of homelessness in particular and poverty in general? Would it not be consistent with the practice of social responsibility to observe a lessening of such limiting circumstances? Does it not seem that the problems of poverty have increased and not diminished since the article? Is there any indication of a possible reversal reflecting a genuine concern for social responsibility?

George
 
Inannawhimsey said:
i think it can be said that a big difference between the USA & Canada is that we Canadians aren't religious aboot our identity -- we don't think of it as this sacred, break-it-and-you-die thing, where in the USA, the USA is a religion (a civil religion), where people will die to protect it, for both good and bad...also, the USA is really two fundamentally different countries, the South and the not South -- people in the South live in an honour society and there are actual empirical indications that this has real effects on people, like their fight-or-flight response activated by insults, as opposed to Northerners who can shrug it off better?

so Canadians can more readily laugh aboot Canadians, but for Americans, its more difficult?

and saying that a Canadian is racist has a different connotation than saying an American is racist?

and 'Canadians' obsess aboot different things than Americans -- for Americans, things like the rights of the individual, the Founding Fathers, lifting one's self up by one's bootstraps are sacred...for 'Canadians'...umm...err...copyright law & universal health care?

or something like that?
Click to expand...

I think Canadians do have a "break and we die" identity - we can feel it when it's broken -but we don't have a "break it and we declare war" kind of identity like the US does. We don't know quite what to do and we shout and bluster and complain on Rex Murphy's show, but then we are afraid to offend what's hurting us - so we apologize for the inconvenience to our offending party. You stepped on my foot - sorry! And where Americans may have an honour society, around the quality of honouring themselves - we're used to living in an honour system, where we give others the benefit of the doubt that they will honour certain values like democracy. And so our institutions of democracy were built with the honour system in mind. We don't quite know what to do when our system of democracy is being transformed into one that looks less like an honour system and more like....?

And we do have a lift onesself up by the bootstraps is sacred but we're more willing to supply the bootstraps.
 
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And possibly...we still have a larger ratio of middle class main stream to poor, than the US? I can't remember the numbers i read about people living on foodstamps down south but it is huge. It's when the issues touch the middle class, is when you begin to see people start to discuss it and policy changes start to happen.
 
One quarter of all children in the US live below the poverty line.

I wish i didn't have to blame the ordinary citizens for what our government does. But it's us ordinary citizens that elect the governments that do those things.
 
Children don't earn wages; child poverty is parent poverty. A living wage for low wage earners would put a quick end to child poverty.

In Switzerland, the low wage levels are the highest in the world. This benefits the entire nation. "We are not socialists; we are pragmatists," say the ever practical Swiss.
 
I commonly hear of the importance of lifting oneself by one's own bootstraps. Just like our Irving family who are born with billions, but somehow lift themselves up by their own bootstraps to make more billions. It's very common down here to blame the poor for being poor. It shows no understanding whatever of what it means to be poor.
 
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