Iqaluit mayor calls for awareness of Asian heritage
Council proclaims May 10 as Day of Action Against Anti-Asian Racism
Iqaluit city council proclaimed May 10 as a Day of Action Against Anti-Asian Racism, part of Asian Heritage Month, which is observed in May across Canada. (File photo)
Iqaluit Mayor Kenny Bell urged city residents to “learn, speak up and support” diversity in Nunavut’s capital as the city marks a day of action against anti-Asian racism.
“I encourage everyone to learn more about Asian heritage [and to] become more aware of the many rich histories that make our community,” Bell said in a news release city hall issued Monday morning.
Council proclaimed May 10 as Day of Action Against Anti-Asian Racism.
People who identified as Asian were the biggest portion of Nunavut’s visible minority population, according to the 2016 census profile for the territory. Out of its visible minority population of 905, there were 480 people who identified as South Asian, Chinese, Filipino, Southeast Asian, West Asian, Korean or Japanese.
May is recognized as Asian Heritage Month in Canada.
The theme for this year’s recognition is “Recognition, Resilience, and Resolve,” a federal Heritage Department website states.
The federal government calls anti-Asian racism “a daily lived reality” for too many Asian communities. The Heritage Department recommends learning about pan-Asian diversity, challenging stereotypes and showing solidarity as ways to tackle anti-Asian racism.
Bell said the city’s designation is also an opportunity to learn about the systemic racism that is embedded in workplaces, public spaces and the school system, not just in Nunavut but across Canada.
Virtue signalling that accomplishes little. I don’t think theres a lot of anti-Asian racism going on.
That’s nice that you think that. But I’ve heard it, and experienced it first hand here.
Not too long ago, an inuk lady said she was verbally assaulted by a white guy for thinking she was Asian. While people rallied for her, do you know what her response was on her facebook? “He must have thought I was Asian, ew”
Or one of the higher ups at IHT saying “F*** CHINA” on facebook any time COVID is mentioned.
.
Yes, let’s point the blame at folks in rural china for eating unorthodox meat. Who would ever have the gall to eat an animal that isn’t beef/pork/chicken…where else in the world would that happen?! (sarcasm)
Inuit are for equality of all races kb. don’t forget the very ppl whom land you live on. Try a little kindness to the homeless, the disadvantage of your city, they have been there for hundreds of years. And don’t just do a lip service to the new comers, assist them with land, buildings for cultural awareness programs. you know mr mayor, the whole of Canada is just a huge lip service. so do it right….I hope your concerns and kind words with Nunavut minority do not end at this newspaper article.
Mr. Bell asks us to consider that “systemic racism that is embedded in workplaces, public spaces and the school system, not just in Nunavut but across Canada.” Statements like this have become commonplace, spoken with certitude and authority, as if self evident, yet I still wonder where to find evidence for these racist ‘systems’. One common response is that they are evidenced in unequal outcomes, but the closer you zoom in on that factor, the less clear that the measurement of outcomes is a useful metric in determining that racism is present somewhere.
To quote the most recent substack piece by the venerable and prolific American author and linguist, John McWhorter
“It is considered the fulcrum of true wokeness to understand that racism is systemic, with the idea that to understand this is to have achieved a maximal comprehension of sorts, a kind of pure, Kantian wisdom from which we can proceed to … well, celebrating one another for having achieved it, roasting those who seem not to have, and calling that “antiracism.”
https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/can-we-please-ditch-the-term-systemic
Good point. Where’s Kenny at with the City’s Inuit employment plan?
Here’s the plan, go to school, work hard, get experience, take more schooling, take your work seriously, and the odds are very good you will move up in the world and when you do no one will doubt you deserve it.
where did we missed the point and turn, the whole of this thing to minimized the locals, the natives, calling them uneducated, lazy and so on, I remember this sort of thing from my federal school days eh? I would have though it be over now with old hands passing on…. when publicly spoken by any group as “support” watch out; there’s a real deep rooted problems design to minimized certain groups. its a way to discriminate without actually showing it.
No one said any of those things here, Joe. Where are you getting that from?
Where am I getting it from? history, the last 100 years. nothing has really change from then to know. where am I getting it? if you don’t know where its coming from; you’re the problem, a part of the toxic air flowing around Nunavut and Canada, and if you still can’t pin point it, talk to nova scotian black ppl. they have same history as eskimos in this country.
I’m torn Joe, I really am. I can’t decide whether your opinions (not you, mind you) are more deserving of pity or contempt. I’m learning towards contempt as one really should know better in this day and age.
I miss the Navigator restaurant
That’s funny!!!
I’d like to hear somebody ask Kenny, on the spot, what he’s learned and what he knows about Asian heritage.
Baizuo（白左，White Leftists）pronounced “bye-tswaw” is a popular Mainland Chinese term coined for a specific subset of Westerners who are despised by most Chinese for their pretentiousness, hypocritical behavior and an overbearing sense of entitlement.
Baizuos are mostly characterized by their heavy use of political correctness and double standards to covertly advance their own material or emotional interests at the expense of others, while claiming otherwise from a self-assumed superior moral position. Some are truly non-malicious, but are too naive or lack the worldview to provide useful opinions or solutions to real societal problems.
Most members of this group is white （白）and left-(liberal) leaning（左）, and thus the name.
The Chinese see the baizuo as ignorant and arrogant westerners who pity the rest of the world and think they are saviours.
“Justin Trudeau’s worldview is a low-resolution caricature of an adult’s worldview.”
“Oh yeah. He’s a total BAIZUO.”
baizuo:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=baizuo
Don’t worry I went back where I came from .
Back to the article above… It’s important for an elected official to address systemic racism. That is hard we know. Our experience is anytime a group has tried to do that, it gets shot down for not doing an effective job in dealing with Canada’s relationship with the indigenous peoples which is so true. There is a lack of leadership not just amongst the Inuit leaders for dealing with this but ultimately the government of Nunavut that just keeps touting itself as a ‘public government’ anytime it is criticized for not addressing culturally inappropriate methods. It has effectively shut up the MLAs or the Inuit orgs in the past and still continues to do this by tokenistic policies and decisions, i.e., Department of Culture and Heritage and IQ division and coordinators. The lack of foresight, hindsight and awareness the GN has in dealing with where the systemic points are is amazing is blatantly in front of their faces – Department of HR, and human resource divisions and HR staff in all departments, agencies; hiring practices, dealing with staff problems, management and supervisors in all workplaces and how they practice pushing Inuit out all the time, southerners who keep hiring their friends and their friends hiring the relatives, lack of culturally appropriate practices in remediation, mediation. Lack of training for managers, senior managers in managing change. Hello? Programming, and policy development are the other key areas where you start to address systemic issues. Overall, it is public education and messaging on co-existing with respect. Colonial transplants keep shooting everything down by telling Inuit to grow up, get an education, we all have the same underlying values, get a job which does not help.
This just feels like a word soup of scattered clichés to me. I wish it was more coherent.
I don’t like racism. I find it ironic that typically Inuit are often racist to Asian and black minorities in the community. Search back to the BLM protest, and I am pretty sure you’ll see what I mean in the nunatsiaq comments and fb comments. I have seen racism while taking taxis or waiting in line for coffee by Inuit. I agree racism is a major problem here, it is overt and in your face. I disagree about the recent phenomenon of white guilt and declaring everything systematically racist. Equal opportunity but not equal outcome is all that should be required of any system. Personally tired of seeing people appointed to senior positions because of race and lip service to article 23 who are unfit and unqualified. I work with senior bureaucrats, and oh my it can be bad. These people hurt Nunavut more than help it, but their have the right skin color so I guess that is all the matters?