10 votes for an article that has a big clickbait title and by just reading the article for the first half you can clearly see how the writer was in search of an easy topic to rack views. Not bad,...
10 votes for an article that has a big clickbait title and by just reading the article for the first half you can clearly see how the writer was in search of an easy topic to rack views.
Not bad, people.
Just a couple of points:
at the time this slavery took place there was no such thing as "Canada".
talking of a thing like "hidden cemetery" and "best kept secret" but then writing things like "close to a dozen slaves are said to be buried" is nearly the best example of non-journalism.
Paraphrasing: "Any topic about good reputation subjects being secretly bad guys. So hot right now!"
Yeah the intent of this article is questionable and the contents of it more than a bit misleading, IMO. From a comment on the CBC site: Sources:...
Yeah the intent of this article is questionable and the contents of it more than a bit misleading, IMO. From a comment on the CBC site:
Canadians should know that there were black slaves in the colonies that eventually became Canada.
They should also know that Upper Canada was the first British colonial jurisdiction to enact a law to abolish slavery, in 1793, barely 2 years after the province was created. This came about because of the appalling case of a slave woman, Chloe Cooley, who was sold off to a new owner in the United States.
Canadians should also know that there weren't black slaves in all of the colonies. B.C. became a colony after the abolition of slavery. And our first governor was descended from a slave on his mother's side. And he invited free blacks who were being discriminated against in California to come to Victoria to settle. Among the 600-800 came up here and were a significant important addition to the population.
Canadians should also know that as many as 40,000 Canadians fought for the Union side in the Civil War. An estimated 7,000 died, about as many lives as there were black slaves in all of the colonies that later became part of Canada over the 200 year period before slavery was finally abolished.
The deaths of 7,000 Canadians does not undo the wrong of slavery, but that sacrifice does go some way to demonstrating why Canada's histories and collective memories may have emphasized the efforts at ending American slavery rather than dwelling on its existence in the colonies that became Canada.
Canada far from perfect, especially when it comes to treatment of indigenous peoples (historically and even recently), but we generally don't shy away from discussing it, try to hide it or "whitewash" it. Justin Trudeau even dedicated a recent UN speech to the topic. So I really don't understand where this article is coming from.
May I ask what province's education you're referring to? I know in Alberta, at least 20+ years ago, these topics weren't covered beyond they exist, with the exception of residential schools and...
And not only that but our High School curriculum covers Slavery in the Canadian colonies under British and French rule, as well as our other National shames such as the Indian Residential School system, Japanese Internment during WW2, etc.
May I ask what province's education you're referring to? I know in Alberta, at least 20+ years ago, these topics weren't covered beyond they exist, with the exception of residential schools and Japanese internment which weren't covered at all.
Canada far from perfect, especially when it comes to treatment of indigenous peoples (historically and even recently), but we generally don't shy away from discussing it, try to hide it or "whitewash" it. Justin Trudeau even dedicated a recent UN speech to the topic. So I really don't understand where this article is coming from.
I don't think we necessarily shy away from discussion, but we definitely let it sort of fade away when we can. That's pretty much what happened with the Chinese Head Tax. I mean, there was a symbolic payment as an apology, but now we're talking about new taxes for immigrant (specifically foreign, but new immigrants are falling into the grey zone) property owners in BC (which I'm grossly paraphrasing and not equating), and though it's technically not specifically against Chinese, it definitely feels that way.
Ugh...I know this isn't conveying my thoughts as well as I want...but I really need to get to work. Please feel free to ask questions...
I can't speak to Alberta or any other Province, since I was educated in Ontario, but we definitely covered all those topics (slavery in Colonial Canada, native treatment/broken...
I can't speak to Alberta or any other Province, since I was educated in Ontario, but we definitely covered all those topics (slavery in Colonial Canada, native treatment/broken treaties/residential schools, and Japanese internment, amongst other shameful things) rather thoroughly in High School here. That was 20+ years ago as well for me too. I imagine there will be variance of the amount of focus given to each topic based on particular Teachers and time constraints but I know for a fact it was and still is featured extensively in the 'Canadian and World Studies' and 'Native Studies' class curriculum here:
I don't think we necessarily shy away from discussion, but we definitely let it sort of fade away when we can.
I don't disagree that some Canadians may behave that way, and perhaps it's just my Province and my particular social circle that seems acutely aware of the issues (past and present), but I still can't help but feel this article is attempting to push a narrative that largely isn't true about Canada's "whitewashing" and Canadians awareness of Slavery during the pre-Federation Colonial era.
new taxes for immigrant (specifically foreign, but new immigrants are falling into the grey zone) property owners in BC (which I'm grossly paraphrasing and not equating), and though it's technically not specifically against Chinese, it definitely feels that way.
Whitewashing has definitely become a buzzword over the last little while, but in this case, I believe it refers to the general lack of minority histories. Of course, I am bias on this, as I am a...
Whitewashing has definitely become a buzzword over the last little while, but in this case, I believe it refers to the general lack of minority histories. Of course, I am bias on this, as I am a visible minority. Chinese have been in Canada since the 1880s and we're still portrayed and thought of as immigrants.
IMO that is a remarkably unfair assessment of the situation in Vancouver.
This was the part I knew I wrote poorly. I don't deny that there is a housing issue in Vancouver, because there definitely is. However, the policies that are coming in place, both for BC as a whole, and per city in BC, do affect (and are meant to) more than foreign investors, specifically non-residents, which are defined mostly by taxes. You can work and live in Vancouver, and still pay this tax. I don't think the empty house tax is effective (but that's for another time).
My point actually isn't that the government is discriminating against Chinese people, but that there is a public perception issue that that's what's happening. I don't think I've ever hear or read about Vancouver's housing issues without comments about Chinese people. Of course this is skewed just due to the number of Chinese in Vancouver. I'm not saying this isn't complicated or that it's inherently racist, I'm just saying that there is a division.
I grew up in BC, and learned about this stuff in school ~20 years ago. We covered slavery in depth. We covered slavery in the Canadian colonies as well as the US. We read a book about the...
I grew up in BC, and learned about this stuff in school ~20 years ago.
We covered slavery in depth. We covered slavery in the Canadian colonies as well as the US. We read a book about the underground railroad, and probably spent a good week or two on the subject. I was keenly aware that we had slaves here, and that we banned it a very long time ago, like hundreds of years before the US did.
We covered Japanese internment camps in depth. We read letters and journals from the people interned in them. This was during a bigger part on WW2, but I think we did spend several days on internment camps particularly. I recall my Social Studies teacher really drilled into our heads how evil this was.
Residential schools, we covered only in passing. This is a real shame, but they never taught us much about this, other than the government tried to force native kids to learn english. I didn't learn the full horrors of the abuses in the system etc until years later.
I for one think this article is sensationalist bullshit. Yes, we know we had slaves for a while. Yes, it was bad. Yes, we corrected our actions hundreds of years ago, and have tried really hard not to enslave anyone since. They never expand on what they mean by "200 years of slavery", when the only example they give is one guy's farm where they found a dozen bodies. How is that "200 years of slavery"? That makes it sound institutionalized, a part of society, an ongoing problem. They keep saying "Whited Out" as if they're blaming white people.
So, yeah, I guess it's worth pointing out some british colonialists owned a few slaves a few hundred years ago, but most Canadians already knew that. Those guys were assholes. Let's be glad we're not like that anymore. This isn't the US, where a significant portion of the population wants to return to those days, let's try not to divide people with racist hyperbole. Gosh!
...I'm starting to think, no one is aware that this is a radio broadcast? It's an hour long that discusses these issues in depth. Edit to add: link for broadcast is available near the top of the...
They never expand on...
...I'm starting to think, no one is aware that this is a radio broadcast? It's an hour long that discusses these issues in depth.
Edit to add: link for broadcast is available near the top of the article "Listen to full episode".
I was in the Alberta high school system about 25 years ago and we were definitely taught about residential schools and japanese internment. I would say the books were pretty clinical about it but...
I know in Alberta, at least 20+ years ago, these topics weren't covered beyond they exist, with the exception of residential schools and Japanese internment which weren't covered at all.
I was in the Alberta high school system about 25 years ago and we were definitely taught about residential schools and japanese internment. I would say the books were pretty clinical about it but my teacher was not. My mother was that high school teacher and we were talking about it this weekend. She went on after I graduated to teach aboriginal studies which covered residential schools as a major part of the course.
I can definitely see a teacher making a huge difference. I don't believe they were heavily covered on the provincial exams, which probably gives more room for individual teachers to select their...
I can definitely see a teacher making a huge difference. I don't believe they were heavily covered on the provincial exams, which probably gives more room for individual teachers to select their scope.
I know residential schools were not taught at all in my school, though we did learn about native children being forced to learn English. I learned about Japanese internment from a student presenting it as her topic (it was not mandatory). The eugenics program was better covered and that was definitely because my teacher focused on it.
Thanks for the post. I was actually a bit surprised that this post really received no comments, and came back here this morning to comment. First off, I do agree, this is definitely...
Thanks for the post. I was actually a bit surprised that this post really received no comments, and came back here this morning to comment.
First off, I do agree, this is definitely sensationalized and click-baity (I didn't change the title, because, honestly, I'm not sure what Tildes' feeling about that is yet).
Next, I was hoping to generate discussion on these types of articles that we have been seeing lately, and that though some may even be outright misleading, they evoke a reaction that I see pretty much any time anything about Canada is criticized - we compare ourselves to the US and then pat ourselves on the back.
Yes, this specific article is light (which I believe is actually because it's really advertising for the CBC series), but I was hoping it would have triggered some discussion about racism in Canada, in our past and our present. I fully admit, I know very little about black history in Canada, but I know that pretty much only Canada's part with the underground railroad was taught. And I know, that was not Canada's only dealings with slavery.
at the time this slavery took place there was no such thing as "Canada".
Canada became Canada in 1867, and I believe you're referring to the 1793 Act to Limit Slavery which does predate "Canada", but bondage existed in North America up until the 1850s. Canadians at the time did sell slaves back to the US during that time. And honestly, we didn't magically become a different people before and after 1867.
There's no real way to pin a comment, so I added a "radio" tag... This isn't just an article. The article is a summary of an hour long radio broadcast that is available on CBC. I just checked on...
There's no real way to pin a comment, so I added a "radio" tag...
This isn't just an article. The article is a summary of an hour long radio broadcast that is available on CBC. I just checked on my mobile that it appears near the top of the article "Listen to the full episode".
10 votes for an article that has a big clickbait title and by just reading the article for the first half you can clearly see how the writer was in search of an easy topic to rack views.
Not bad, people.
Just a couple of points:
Paraphrasing: "Any topic about good reputation subjects being secretly bad guys. So hot right now!"
Yeah the intent of this article is questionable and the contents of it more than a bit misleading, IMO. From a comment on the CBC site:
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Canada#Under_British_rule
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_Against_Slavery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Douglas_(governor)#Early_life
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_in_the_American_Civil_War#Canadian_fighters
And not only that but our High School curriculum covers Slavery in the Canadian colonies under British and French rule, as well as our other National shames such as the Indian Residential School system, Japanese Internment during WW2, etc.
Canada far from perfect, especially when it comes to treatment of indigenous peoples (historically and even recently), but we generally don't shy away from discussing it, try to hide it or "whitewash" it. Justin Trudeau even dedicated a recent UN speech to the topic. So I really don't understand where this article is coming from.
May I ask what province's education you're referring to? I know in Alberta, at least 20+ years ago, these topics weren't covered beyond they exist, with the exception of residential schools and Japanese internment which weren't covered at all.
I don't think we necessarily shy away from discussion, but we definitely let it sort of fade away when we can. That's pretty much what happened with the Chinese Head Tax. I mean, there was a symbolic payment as an apology, but now we're talking about new taxes for immigrant (specifically foreign, but new immigrants are falling into the grey zone) property owners in BC (which I'm grossly paraphrasing and not equating), and though it's technically not specifically against Chinese, it definitely feels that way.
Ugh...I know this isn't conveying my thoughts as well as I want...but I really need to get to work. Please feel free to ask questions...
I can't speak to Alberta or any other Province, since I was educated in Ontario, but we definitely covered all those topics (slavery in Colonial Canada, native treatment/broken treaties/residential schools, and Japanese internment, amongst other shameful things) rather thoroughly in High School here. That was 20+ years ago as well for me too. I imagine there will be variance of the amount of focus given to each topic based on particular Teachers and time constraints but I know for a fact it was and still is featured extensively in the 'Canadian and World Studies' and 'Native Studies' class curriculum here:
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/secondary/canworld.html
http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/secondary/nativestudies.html
I don't disagree that some Canadians may behave that way, and perhaps it's just my Province and my particular social circle that seems acutely aware of the issues (past and present), but I still can't help but feel this article is attempting to push a narrative that largely isn't true about Canada's "whitewashing" and Canadians awareness of Slavery during the pre-Federation Colonial era.
IMO that is a remarkably unfair assessment of the situation in Vancouver. Vancouver has become by far the most expensive city in Canada for real estate and the prices continue to climb significantly faster than in any other City (+14.3%/12mo). This is in large part due to foreign investors (not immigrants) buying huge swaths of property. These investors do not reside in those properties nor do most even rent or lease them out. The recent census found over 8k owned but underutilized or empty residential properties (mostly condos) in the city. The empty housing tax attempting to address that issue has absolutely nothing to do with targeting immigrants or racism against the Chinese, as you're implying, and everything to do with reducing foreign real estate speculators from making Vancouver increasingly unaffordable, which has many downstream problems for the economy there.
Whitewashing has definitely become a buzzword over the last little while, but in this case, I believe it refers to the general lack of minority histories. Of course, I am bias on this, as I am a visible minority. Chinese have been in Canada since the 1880s and we're still portrayed and thought of as immigrants.
This was the part I knew I wrote poorly. I don't deny that there is a housing issue in Vancouver, because there definitely is. However, the policies that are coming in place, both for BC as a whole, and per city in BC, do affect (and are meant to) more than foreign investors, specifically non-residents, which are defined mostly by taxes. You can work and live in Vancouver, and still pay this tax. I don't think the empty house tax is effective (but that's for another time).
My point actually isn't that the government is discriminating against Chinese people, but that there is a public perception issue that that's what's happening. I don't think I've ever hear or read about Vancouver's housing issues without comments about Chinese people. Of course this is skewed just due to the number of Chinese in Vancouver. I'm not saying this isn't complicated or that it's inherently racist, I'm just saying that there is a division.
I grew up in BC, and learned about this stuff in school ~20 years ago.
We covered slavery in depth. We covered slavery in the Canadian colonies as well as the US. We read a book about the underground railroad, and probably spent a good week or two on the subject. I was keenly aware that we had slaves here, and that we banned it a very long time ago, like hundreds of years before the US did.
We covered Japanese internment camps in depth. We read letters and journals from the people interned in them. This was during a bigger part on WW2, but I think we did spend several days on internment camps particularly. I recall my Social Studies teacher really drilled into our heads how evil this was.
Residential schools, we covered only in passing. This is a real shame, but they never taught us much about this, other than the government tried to force native kids to learn english. I didn't learn the full horrors of the abuses in the system etc until years later.
I for one think this article is sensationalist bullshit. Yes, we know we had slaves for a while. Yes, it was bad. Yes, we corrected our actions hundreds of years ago, and have tried really hard not to enslave anyone since. They never expand on what they mean by "200 years of slavery", when the only example they give is one guy's farm where they found a dozen bodies. How is that "200 years of slavery"? That makes it sound institutionalized, a part of society, an ongoing problem. They keep saying "Whited Out" as if they're blaming white people.
So, yeah, I guess it's worth pointing out some british colonialists owned a few slaves a few hundred years ago, but most Canadians already knew that. Those guys were assholes. Let's be glad we're not like that anymore. This isn't the US, where a significant portion of the population wants to return to those days, let's try not to divide people with racist hyperbole. Gosh!
...I'm starting to think, no one is aware that this is a radio broadcast? It's an hour long that discusses these issues in depth.
Edit to add: link for broadcast is available near the top of the article "Listen to full episode".
Ah, yep. That would explain that. Thanks for pointing that out!
I was in the Alberta high school system about 25 years ago and we were definitely taught about residential schools and japanese internment. I would say the books were pretty clinical about it but my teacher was not. My mother was that high school teacher and we were talking about it this weekend. She went on after I graduated to teach aboriginal studies which covered residential schools as a major part of the course.
I can definitely see a teacher making a huge difference. I don't believe they were heavily covered on the provincial exams, which probably gives more room for individual teachers to select their scope.
I know residential schools were not taught at all in my school, though we did learn about native children being forced to learn English. I learned about Japanese internment from a student presenting it as her topic (it was not mandatory). The eugenics program was better covered and that was definitely because my teacher focused on it.
Thanks for the post. I was actually a bit surprised that this post really received no comments, and came back here this morning to comment.
First off, I do agree, this is definitely sensationalized and click-baity (I didn't change the title, because, honestly, I'm not sure what Tildes' feeling about that is yet).
Next, I was hoping to generate discussion on these types of articles that we have been seeing lately, and that though some may even be outright misleading, they evoke a reaction that I see pretty much any time anything about Canada is criticized - we compare ourselves to the US and then pat ourselves on the back.
Yes, this specific article is light (which I believe is actually because it's really advertising for the CBC series), but I was hoping it would have triggered some discussion about racism in Canada, in our past and our present. I fully admit, I know very little about black history in Canada, but I know that pretty much only Canada's part with the underground railroad was taught. And I know, that was not Canada's only dealings with slavery.
Canada became Canada in 1867, and I believe you're referring to the 1793 Act to Limit Slavery which does predate "Canada", but bondage existed in North America up until the 1850s. Canadians at the time did sell slaves back to the US during that time. And honestly, we didn't magically become a different people before and after 1867.
There's no real way to pin a comment, so I added a "radio" tag...
This isn't just an article. The article is a summary of an hour long radio broadcast that is available on CBC. I just checked on my mobile that it appears near the top of the article "Listen to the full episode".