Perception

I am troubled when I see lofty opinions offered particularly about other races, strata of society, sexual orientation et all.

Someone who reports to me, a former teacher, thinks it hilarious to imitate Chinese people. What he perceives to be Chinese. He's never met one apart from in a Chinese restaurant. But, in spite of my objections, I will catch him amusing residents with this appalling accent accompanied by the gesture of slanting his eyes. To say I am shocked at his insensitivity is to understate my reaction. I sat him down and talked to him about this racism. He was offended I called him a racist as he is "Open-minded". And truly, he says, a "Chinaman" would not be offended, they would laugh too. And he wouldn't mind if they imitated him, ah lighten up. To make things worse, he took his show on stage much to the hilarity of the audience as someone was kind enough to show me a video of his show-stopping routine. But, you know, he is extraordinarily kind in other ways. He goes beyond. So, yes, I like him but I keep hoping my repeated careful evaluation of his disturbing mockery will enlighten him one day.

Blanket statements about segments of society are bordering on prejudice also as in: "I love Lesbians". I know many lesbians, some I disliked, some I loved. Just like anyone else, I accord them humanity and differentiation. I can't like everyone. The same with gay men. Some are my friends, others are anti-feminist and exclusive of heterosexual women. I don't care for them or their opinions if they are misogynistic.

And speaking of feminism, I remember on one of my posts about this particular F word, a comment by a fellow blogger about once meeting a strident feminist thirty years before so she had no time now for feminism. I couldn't count the wrongs in that tiny statement.

No class of society is a monolith. I don't make pronouncements on the wealthy as a class. Or the impoverished for that matter. I've known nasty selfish wealthy people who gather their ill-gotten gains to themselves and never share, and others who are unlimited in their generosity. I've known poor people who are horrible, abusive and greedy and others who are gentle and kind.

A blog friend posted recently on a class or label of society he took offence to and found it wanting. I assumed he was talking about people he knew. But no. He was just blanket-judging. It puzzled me and I had to think about it and my own judgements on others.

Black and white thinking leads to racism and misogyny and anti-gay stances and yeah, fascism.

For if we don't take the time to get to know people, all people in our path, all races, classes, how can we possibly judge? I offer you Muslims.

We all bear the stamp of uniqueness.

And are one river.

Bursting the Bonds of Old Age

The inside of my storm door.

I'm glad I live in an era where "elderly" is being redefined by so many of us.

I was talking on the phone with a couple of old friends (at length, I'd been away) who are also blossoming and making plans and painting new works and even buying new works by young artists. Our conversations veer away from that old and tiresome "howz yer health, list every detail" exchanges to more immediate 2012 plans. One still works full time way beyond the normal expectations of her pensionable age.

Exchange of grandchildren news is minimal and restricted to transitions only, if at all. It is mainly about our lives and what we are doing and the reinvention of ourselves.

I had dinner during the week with a long time friend (we worked together) his wife and their best friends - my friend's best friend since grade school.

I had one of those moments where you realize you haven't really known a friend at all.

I mentioned Rob Ford the much reviled and derided mayor of Toronto that no one I know will admit to voting into office. He is mainly on the extreme right and in that oligarchal way of most conservatives creates his own bubble of entitlement such as severely limiting access of the press to his office, texting while driving and flouting other traffic laws (he doesn't believe in stopping behind an offloading tram).

Not only did they all admit to voting for him, they were supportive of his ongoing faux pas and his lack of support for urban transit.

They put down all his incredible contempt for the public as a liberal media spin and as one said he was one of the best mayors ever as he was ending the prolific subsidies which were enabling the "emigrants" and the poor to continue sucking off the public teat.

Whenever I hear the word "emigrants" being used in a derogatory sense my head explodes.

I sat a little gob-smacked, staring at my friend. Do we ever really know anyone?

I decided to end the dangerous curve the conversation had slid into.

"Oh, did I tell you?" I said pleasantly, "I was asked to run for the Green Party here. I had to turn it down of course. If they had asked me in my forties I would have run, but now I'm just too busy."

Gobsmack echo.

Conversation shifted to "Great meals we have eaten" and "inns we have stayed at".

Those Bloody Foreigners, Illegals and Aliens

Conversation with Ex-Torontonian yesterday.

Me: Where do you live now?

She: St. John's.

Me: Why did you move here?

She: The foreigners took over Toronto.

Me: Seriously?

She: Completely, you wouldn't recognise Cabbagetown (a very ritzy area in TO).

Me: You lived in Cabbagetown?

She: Well, no. But I heard the foreigners took it over with their guns.

Me: What do you mean by foreigners?

She: Illegals

Me: What's an illegal?

She: People who have no right to be in our country.

Me: Who says?

She: Me and other real Canadians.

Me: What's a real Canadian?

She: People who are born here like me and you.

Me: I wasn't born here.

She: No?

Me: I was born in Ireland, so I'm not a real Canadian by your standards.

She: Oh I didn't mean people like you.

Me: People like me?

She: Well you know, people who speak properly and look like the rest of us.

Me: So when you say foreigners you mean people who are visible minorities?

She: That's a fancy way of saying illegals and aliens, isn't it?

Me: Well no, actually. I was thinking of landed emigrants, refugees, Canada's First Nations People and non-whites who were born here.

She: Oh, you mean all those Indian types and natives?

Me: Well technically 'Indian' is a misnomer. They were in this country first and the white Europeans stole it from them.

She: Good job too. They were savages. Like the illegals.

Me: Excuse me. I must leave you now.

Pornography Part 2

I do not write as an academic on pornography. I only write from my own experience and readings on the topic.

Field research has revealed that most acts of despicable vileness and inhumanity produce in its aftermath a record of the depravities committed. A pornography, if you will. I need only look at the Holocaust. There is a ritualism and rigidity to the meticulous record keeping so that the degradation can be relived again and again by the perpetrators. The victims are reduced to numbers; their very humanity has been eliminated. And in more recent times (and I believe it is only the tip of the iceberg so to speak)we only have to look at the horrors of Abu Ghraib with their violent sexual components.

The same with modern pornographers. For example, the slightest research on Hugh Hefner, pornographer extraordinaire, reveals that from a very early age, he became infatuated with photographs of naked women. He parlayed this into a billion dollar industry, filling his mansion with beautiful young women who were featured in his Playboy magazine and sundry spin–off media. Of course, what is revealed here is that Hugh is incapable of intimacy with a partner. As of this writing he is living with three women, all in their twenties. All assisting him, even in his eighties and with the self-admitted usage of Viagra, to continue his life fantasy of ever-willing and able women constantly at the ready to satisfy his every sexual whim.

I find racism, homophobia and misogyny close counterparts to pornography, maybe even going so far as to saying they are flipsides to the same coin - the Negro, the gay man or woman, the female, are thus defined by their perpetrators. Their humanity, intellectual capacity, their very souls are completely denied and made invisible to justify the position of the discriminator.

From a sign on the doors of factories looking for help in New York in the middle of the nineteenth century “ No Jews or Irish need apply”.

Even poverty is condemned in some parts of the world, as if is self-causated. Then oppression becomes possible as being poor and dirty are so interconnected in people’s mind. Which brings me to the word 'dirty' itself.

In my time, in Canada, those from Pakistan are labeled ‘dirty Pakis' by many. This has been considered a generally acceptable condemnation. I have been invited for meals into Pakistani homes here and am astonished at the level of cleanliness practiced at mealtimes, down to washing the hands in between courses. Thus the perjorative 'dirty' has no place in reality.

I am reminded that this is how Nazi Germany started, the condemnation of the Jews as somehow despoiled, ‘dirty’. The same with the Irish under eight hundred years of oppression. The lands stolen and the inhabitants condemned to poverty through landlord avarice. Then subsequently classified as ‘dirty’ and thus ‘undeserving’ of education or justice.

When I was growing up in Ireland, a girl who had gotten pregnant, no matter if it were rape, incest or the local priest, was labeled ‘dirty’. She was despoiled, unfit, and until very recently, her innocent child was called a ‘dirty bastard’ and by the arcane laws of the land was deemed unfit to inherit.

Thus a girl/woman acting in a pornographic film or featuring in photos is condemned as ‘dirty’. Her intellect and spirit erased under the label. What is she after all but a ‘dirty’ whore, unworthy of respect? She can be subjugated in any way we see fit. Being dirty, she enjoys it, as being dirty she is closer to living an animal’s existence anyway.

The reality of womanhood is sanitized for male porn consumption. In pornography menstruation is eliminated, as are childbirth and contraceptives, stretch marks and caesarian scars. The ideal woman emanating from the ranks of the soft-focus pictures is free of all such earthly markings. The porn-addicted man is protected from the reality of her bodily functions. She lives and breathes to service him. He will never be contaminated by her reality. Unlike his wife/partner, she is capable of multiple orgasms with minimal effort on his part and will fall to her knees at his slightest whim.

“He then sat naked on his couch and called me over and said to me ‘just worship it, baby, just worship it.’”

An actual quote from a young woman I know who ran laughing from the hotel room of a Toronto Blue Jays player (and the only explanation I can come up with for his behaviour is too much porn – whether live or virtual).


And in Part 3 I will write of the experience of women I know who have lived as ‘puppets of porn’.