definitions | Ensign

Dead cat on the table

Often issues that are hard to explain or justify are dominating the arena and preventing the intended agenda from being pressed forward. The solution is to distract the public and the press with something completely unrelated but sensational enough to draw all attention away from an embarassing problem. Throw a dead cat on the table, everyone will gasp in astonishment, “that’s a dead cat!” From there on discussion and speculation will shift from the topic for which no plausible explanation is available.

Dog whistle

Throughout history gentile language has avoided potentially abrasive or offensive terms by using code words, The term today is to refer to appropriate public discussion to use so-called politically correct nouns. A descendent of a slave in the United States is now referred to as an “Afro-American”, the politically correct term for a “black”. “coloured”, or “negro.” The English language is exceptionally adept at creating these kind of terms and when skilfully applied a person can utter some pretty nasty things by using code words that their listeners will recognise. A week ago the use of the term “old stock” was picked out as being one of these code phrases and hence referred to by the media as a “dog whistle” term. A term that my pass for polite speech but is loaded for the listener who shares common points of view.

Scape goat

There are always problems and one simple way of getting the attention away from decision makers is to identify some group, race, religion or political entity that can be assigned the blame. The category is usually pretty flexible and besides those groups mention you can target life styles, gender and even age groups for taking the heat for some negative condition. In Europe the Roma (gypses) people have been the universal scape goats and even when Jews or heretics were the focus it was always easy to lay on some persecution for the Roma as well.

Old stock

A dog whistle term used by the prime minister in a debate when referring to the governments refusal to provide medical care to refugees awaiting processing in Canada. His term was a signal to his base the conservatives of Canada who are white anglo saxon and part of the establishment. Even though Canada’s first nations people have been here between 15,000 and 12,000 years they are not considered “old stock”. Canada’s Cantonese population most of whom were settled and working here in Canada long before my grandfather showed up in 1912 are not considered “old stock” There was an interesting article in the Toronto Star that asked, who are ‘old stock Canadians.

Hate

One of the most uncontrollable emotions known to human kind. It is rarely a part of life because everyone knows that a person simply can not go on living if they let themselves give into the pit of hate. Since it is so deep seated hate is formed without logic or even evidence to act as a root cause, hate seems to stem from difference, no matter how minor and there is a pile on effect that allows it to grow in the hating mind.

Racism

Semantic discussions will see people chose their phrases carefully so that under most circumstances race refers to very clearly defined genetic markers. However ethnicity very often becomes blurred with race and for most people the ethnic back ground of a person and his or her race are merged. Europeans are referred to by the typical man on the street as “white people”. Though this sort of describes the race it really has a negative connotation because it is related to colour and the actual race of the Indian subcontinent is “Caucasian” the same as Europeans even though a significant portion of the people of India are brown. However, environmental factors play a big part in colour as Italians and Spaniards who work outdoors will have a similar complexion as people of India who in the same environment. For this reason colour just doesn’t work all that well, nor does hair colour as Australian aboriginal people can have red hair a colour we associate with the clear skinned Celts.

It gets far more complicated when you talk about people in Asia where the lines of race are blurred beyond recognition. Ultimately, all humans alive today are the same biological genus, they are homo sapiens and for that simple reason the superficial physical or ethnic differences are insignificant as all have the same remarkable capabilities. For this reason racism is just bogus.

Ethical differences in this the one race of humans plays a much more profound role in who and what each of us are. For the most part ethnicity is based not on race but on language. Language is what makes us as a species so unique and it is language that most separates us.

The realm of culture is often linked to language but can be far more encompassing so we find the first nations people of the West Coast speak a wide rang of unique languages they share a very deep underlying connection with each other through their link to the sea and their origin which was common to all but remains a mystery today. To make things even more complex culture can be nested one on top of the other. Corporations and the so-called business work is in itself a culture and ethnic and cultural groups semi-submerge within its domain. Many people will argue that culture is linked directly to language but this appears less and less likely.

The last element in this struggle for identity is religion and of all of the factors listed here religion is the least understood. In its most simple form religion is a belief system, it is the manifestation of action based on what the individual thinks and knows. Capitalism is a religion and so is communism as both are beyond rational thought and both quasi-political/economic positions are so flawed that neither in their pure form function. Canada’s first nations people were thought by the European invaders to be wholly devoid of religion, they were “heathens” when if fact no matter how remote or isolated they had a powerful belief system that was so close to that of the invader that it was a no brainer to adapt, sort of.

Condemning someone for racism must involve the mixing of race, ethnicity, culture and religion so that a group of people can be labelled and that label has some meaningful definition. So what it comes down to is a subjective decision that places a label on a group of people so that they can be dealt with, they can be persecuted, controlled and at times we have seen that take to its ultimate limit with genocide. The government of the United State set out to rid itself of the original inhabitants of their land. In Canada it was decided to do the same thing only to the hearts and minds of the people using education to assimilate the children in the church run residential schools, that was indeed a form of genocide.