Sounds about white.
My perspective that it is unfair to say that what is being done to the indigenous peoples and all the injustice is a white thing. In a similar way, we can’t just call a peoples the reds. My comment does not come from a racial perspective, it comes from the perspective that there is huge diversity all across the world.
The reason this stands out to me and it feels important to say, is because I’m 2nd gen Canadian but of Ukrainian heritage, and knowing what my grandparents were put through at the hands of the British… Well, let’s just say there’s a lot of unacknowledged history there.
One of the most ironic things is Canada (the Brits) perpetrated a genocide against Ukraine with Russia’s cooperation (they were trying to stitch together lucrative grain deals). They had refined the approach used during their genocide on Ireland - confiscate food, drive people to starvation.
Once the lands were raped and stolen and the people murdered, many were dispersed to a war ravaged Europe and spent a lot of time in slave/refugee camps. Then, like cattle, they were herded off to different countries, and my grandparents were brought here to basically be human oxen to break the land.
The land that was freshly swindled from the indigenous peoples, that were actively being genocided.
Inline Edit: I forgot to mention that even though ukrainians were “given” land… Even in Canada they were not allowed to sell the fruits of their own labor. It would be confiscated by the Canadian government and a very small portion of the profits given back to the farmers to keep them effectively as grain-producing slaves. Ever heard of the Canadian Wheat Confiscation Board established with a very curious timing in 1935.
To me the British are to blame for most of the strife in the world. Once they enslaved all of their children and ravaged their own country, they had to find other places to pillage and enslave, and wow did they ever.
I think in large part my perspective comes from a very anti-capitalist mindset, and it’s very dangerous to go down the racial game because it’s really about the capitalists. The ones who see human suffering as a commodity that can be exploited for profit. Colonialism knows no race it only knows profit, insatiable greed, and complete disregard for humanity and Earth.
That’s a heck of a comment right there. I learned some new stuff about Canada today.
Thank you my friend.
Side note: my aunt and my grandmother were heavily, heavily involved in getting the “hey sorry bout that stuff back then and all the nasty shit that everybody else except us did” “apology”.
My grandmother’s father was carried away in the middle of the night and murdered by the KGB for the crime of keeping a handful of grain to feed his children. (I remember sometime in the late 90s or early 2000s our family received formal admission from Russia and documentation stating the arrest and murder… It’s what was already known to our family).
My grandmother and my aunt spent 18 months fleeing through the forests and eating barks and mushrooms and carcases and literally animal feces.
She would still forage when she came to canada, but she would not allow the grandchildren to come, because she could not bear the idea that her descendants would have to do what she had to.
Well that’s fucking disheartening
